Blue Heaven (14 page)

We stood there chatting pleasantly about the sorry state of musical theater, Leo trying mightily to impress me with his discriminating taste. He wanted so to be taken seriously and assumed I was ready to dismiss him entirely if I detected the slightest lapse in his scholarship or standards. This combination of brazen egotism and naked self-doubt reminded me of the way I'd behaved at his age so I found it extremely endearing.

For the first time that evening I forgot that I was surrounded by thugs and cutthroats. My thoughts were suddenly full of Leo. Or, rather, Leo and me ... the shows we might see; the discussions we might have over quiet dinners; the experiences of mine he could benefit from; the lessons, many and varied, I could teach him as he was taking those first brave steps toward maturity, self-acceptance and-

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

What on earth was I
thinking
of! How could I allow myself to dream of an illicit romance with this Mafia Child? Why, it was madness just to be standing here discussing
Pacific Overtures
with him!

"Oh, and don't you love the way in "Please, Hello" he takes the same metric scheme as the Major General's song in
Pirates of Penzance
then complicates it with the interior rhymes? It's my favorite lyric in the show."

"Mine is 'A Bowler Hat.' "

"Oh, isn't that
great?"

In his enthusiasm he clapped a hand on each of my shoulders and stared directly into my eyes. The stare lengthened.

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

How to escape? Imperative though it was to avoid this youth and all the ruinous possibilities he represented, my regard for him was already too warm to want to risk hurting his feelings. Remembering Gilbert's earlier ruse I feigned a sudden desperate need to use the nearest john.

"You doing coke?" he asked, contradicting somewhat my naive Norman Rockwell image of him.

"No, I just have to pee."

"Oh. I'll show you where it is."

"That's okay, I know. Hey, finish your dinner before it gets cold, nice meeting you maybewe'lltalkagainlaterbye."

In my haste to quit the scene I forgot one of the primary rules of successful party evasion: if you say you have to go to the bathroom,
go
to the bathroom. But so ravaged were my nerves that I'd only gotten as far as the next room when the sight of dependable Roger, ready, as ever, to provide succor to the afflicted, caused me to stop in my tracks. Ordering a double scotch, I took up a position by one of the tall windows. There I could gaze out at Maddie's Wonderful World of Christmas and begin trying to sort through the nightmare of complications which had arisen in the last hour.

"Hi," said Leo.

"Hello! Quite a line for the bathroom," I said.

"There are lots of bathrooms. I can show you where."

"That's okay, I can wait. Builds character."

"Oh . . . okay."

There was a baffled tentative look on his face that was heartbreaking
to behold. He knew I'd tried to avoid him and, unable to see why, could only assume that I found him boring and immature and that I'd only been nice to him at all because my host had requested I do so.

Gripped suddenly by an intense need to rectify this misapprehension I began asking him all about his music and soon enough the conversation was bubbling along merrily once more. Too merrily, in fact, for Leo managed twice in the space of ten minutes to snag glasses of champagne from passing trays. What was worse, he imbibed them both in great greedy gulps.

As a result, his laugh, disconcertingly high in pitch, was coming more frequently now and whenever silence fell between us he was fixing me with increasingly provocative smiles so that I was forced to say something,
anything,
to avoid noticing the come-hither looks.

The worst of it was that my feelings toward him were so dreadfully obvious. He knew I was responding nervously to his advances not because I wasn't interested but because I was. He'd smile wickedly and I'd return the smile, involuntarily, for a fraction of a second before looking away or down. And then, attempting to pretend it hadn't happened, I'd look him in the face and ask somewhat stiffly what he thought of
Flower Drum Song,
which would only cause him to laugh again, only louder, which would cause me to shut up, giving him the opportunity to leer some more.

"Leo!" I said, blushing prettily.

"What?" he grinned.

"Cut it out!"

"Cut
what
out?"

"You know!"

"No, what?" he said, leering.

"Those looks you're giving me."

"What kind of looks?"

"You know what kind of looks!"

"I'm just looking at
you
the way you're looking at
me
."

"I am
not
looking at you that way!"

"What
way?"

And so on.

Suddenly we were joined by a short ferret-faced man in his sixties who was smoking an immense foul-smelling cigar.

"Hey, Leo, how they hangin'! Gilbert's buddy cracking you up, huh?"

"Yes!" throbbed Leo, grabbing champagne from a passing tray.

"Hi there, I'm Charlie Pastore. Married to Tony's sister, Theresa."

"Nice to meet you."

"Nice meeting you, too. Heard you at the piano. Great stuff!"

"Wonderful," agreed Leo, draining the glass.

Escape was more imperative than ever. I looked around for someone who'd offer a pretext to excuse myself and saw Claire at the piano struggling vainly to improve the good sister's technique.

"Gosh, I'm afraid I'm really neglecting my fiancee."

"Your fiancee?" asked Leo, stricken.

"Hey, leave her alone," said Charlie. "She's giving Sister Deena lessons and if anyone ever needed 'em, she's the one!"

"You're engaged?"

"Yes."

"To
her?"
asked Leo, unkindly.

"Hey, congratulations. You got yourself a talented girl. So, Leo, how's school? You finish this year, don't you?"

"Yuh."

"Been applying to lotta colleges?"

There was my cue.

'"Scuse me," I said, pretending to recognize someone across the room. "Nice meeting you both."

"Same goes! So your mom said somethin' 'bout Princeton or . . ."

I sped off, waving frantically at a nonexistent figure in the hall. On reaching the front door I paused but not for long as a quick glance over my shoulder revealed that Leo had taken leave of Charlie and was rapidly downing yet another champagne. Our eyes locked across the distance and he mouthed the word "Wait" as he placed the dead soldier on an end table.

Having witnessed how subtle he could be on two glasses, I had no desire to see what miracles of overtness he could achieve under the influence of four. I considered the stairs but decided that to do this was to risk the disastrous possibility that he would corner me in a bedroom. This left only two options: the ballroom or the corridor that ran parallel to the staircase on the ground floor. I sped down the hall. There were several doors and I reasoned that if I popped through the wrong one and witnessed a murder in progress I could always say I was just looking for the bathroom.

I ducked into a door at the end of the hall on the ballroom side
and as coincidence would have it, it
was
a bathroom. I glanced behind me just as I shut the door to make sure that Leo hadn't seen me enter it. He hadn't.

I sat a moment and felt wonderfully relieved. Then it dawned on me-I was trapped. He would investigate all possible routes of escape including this one. He would knock on the door and ask if it was occupied. I could try to disguise my voice, which probably wouldn't work. I could lock the door and keep quiet in which case he'd be sure I was inside and wait me out, or I could not lock the door in which case he'd merely burst in on me.

For a moment this last option seemed most desirable for it would at least afford us a little privacy while I explained that I was a rapturously happy heterosexual deeply in love with a short one-hundred-and-sixty-pound female composer.

But then I thought, what if he just jumps my bones? What if I find myself unable to resist? This was hardly out of the realm of possibility, for the mere thought of such an assault had rendered me excited in a way that Leo, were he to burst in, would not fail to detect. And what if we're overheard by someone in the hall? How do I explain what I'm doing in the john with a seventeen-year-old?

"Knock knock!" sang Leo, rapping'at the door.

So soon! I looked about foolishly as if there were any possibility of an escape route.

And there was! The bath was connected to another room! I lunged for the doorknob and, turning it as silently as my haste would permit, slipped into the room beyond, closing the door behind me.

Judging from the sound coming from the wall to my left the room was at the back of the house, behind the ballroom. The wall to my right had two tall windows and there was enough pale red light from Maddie's Winter Wonderland for me to see the room was a study. I turned and stood with my ear to the bathroom door. I heard another knock, louder it seemed, and Leo's voice asking if anyone was there. Then I heard him enter the bath.

It occurred to me that he would certainly note the door to the study just as I had, and I began looking frantically for a place to hide. There was a desk to my left. In front of it were two huge easy chairs facing perpendicular to the desk and across from these was a big leather sofa. There seemed to be room between the sofa and the windows so I dashed across and crouched behind it. And not a moment
too soon, for immediately the door to the bathroom opened. Leo flicked a switch and the room filled with light. There was a pause as he surveyed the scene.

"Oh, caca!" he moaned at length and, flicking the light off, vanished once more into the bath.

I exhaled with relief and decided to wait just a moment or two till I could be sure Leo's search had moved upstairs, at which point I would find Claire, manacle myself to her wrist, and kiss her neck all night long. After crouching some moments my legs began to ache and I decided the wait had been sufficient. I rose with a little leap, feeling quite satisfied with myself.

Then I heard the doorknob turn; not the door to the bathroom but the tall paneled door which opened out into the room next to the study. I dove back behind the couch, landing flat on my knees and sending up and down both legs spasms of pain so intense I feared they'd be visible, like the stars that whirl around Wile E. Coyote's head after his rocket skates have malfunctioned, I stuffed my knuckles into my mouth and quivered in agony.

The door opened and the lights were turned on once more. I heard the voice of Freddy Bombelli.

"No, Serge," it wheezed, "we'd prefer the privacy. Wait outside."

"Oh . . . sure," said Serge mistrustfully.

"But Sergio-tell me when you hear the tarantella start. I don't want to miss that, okay?"

"Si."

"You will remember?" asked Freddy dubiously.

"I'll remember!" said the injured primate.

The door closed. Two pairs of footsteps crossed to the sofa and stopped.

"Forgive me," hissed Freddy. "I hate to drag you away from such a delightful party but you know how families are-such big ears! Such gossip! You have a quiet chat in the corner and a half hour later everyone knows what you said. And I want this to be private. Is nobody's business, just yours and mine. Right?"

"Sure," said Gilbert, just a bit nervously. "What's up?"

Thirteen

I
lowered myself inch by torturous inch till I was flat on my stomach and the pressure was off my poor battered knees. It wasn't long, though, before the pain in them was the furthest thing from my mind.

"I'm old," said Freddy, "but I'm not always so old-fashioned. You live a long time, you see the world change. If you're wise you change a little, too. I have many opinions that would shock my sisters if they knew I held them. So I don't tell them!" he added with an asphyxiated chuckle.

"Good approach!" said Gilbert.

"Gilbert, you must forgive me please, if I offend you---"

"Don't worry!"

"But one thing I have changed my thinking about very much is gayboys."

"Oh?" coughed Gilbert.

"When I was young, like you-way back, Prohibition-if I met someone I thought was a gayboy, automatically I hate his guts. I call him nasty names and maybe punch him a few times. If there was water nearby I'd throw him into it. I do not say this with
pride,
you understand. But at that time, in my world, which was very small, this was the correct thing to do. Such needless hatred! Such unprofitable cruelty! Today, I look back and I don't understand. Why should we behave so?"

"Well," said Gilbert, suicidally, "you were probably scared to death that if you didn't someone would think you were queer, too."

I cringed as best I could in that position and awaited Freddy's geriatric wrath. But he wasn't angry. He laughed.

"You know, I think you're right. We
were
afraid. But we had reason. At that time, someone thought you were a gayboy, it meant you were not a man, you were weak. Someone to cheat, take advantage of. Of course, if some unscrupulous person were to think of you in this way, you could show him he was wrong-but maybe you get in trouble showing him, right? Better he should never think such things to begin with. So-if you met a gayboy, you punched him. Foolishness."

Freddy paused and I prayed that Gilbert, having scored with the Fear of Association Postulate, would not now press his luck by voicing the still more popular gay theory that ninety-eight percent of fag-bashers are repressed homosexuals.

"I am happy to see that in my lifetime, this has changed. The gayboys got tired of being punched so they stop hiding. They say to the world, 'Yes, we're gayboys and we're going to stay that way an' you don't like it, you can eat shit. You punch us, we punch you right back. And they're right! Whose business is it what they want to do? Is a free country, isn't it?"

"Absolutely."

"As long as you're good to your parents and honorable in business, you should be able to fuck anyone you want. Long as they're over eighteen. I do business with a couple of gay gentlemen, Alan and Derrick. Good people. Always meet obligations, pay their bills on time. We exchange Christmas cards. So, you see, I have nothing against gayboys."

"Well, I can see that! You're obviously a
compassionate, fair
man-"

"I think perhaps you know what I'm getting at."

"Well, I would guess that, uh, maybe someone or other has perhaps told you that I'm, uh, that is, that I
was,
at one time, briefly, gay."

"Yes. Moira did."

"No kidding?" choked Gilbert.

"Please, do not feel angry toward her or imagine she was disloyal! She loves you very much! You know this, don't you?"

"Never doubted it."

"She did not
volunteer
this information, you understand. It was I who brought the subject up. Why would I bring up such a subject? Well, it's embarrassing but I'll tell you ... As I said, my family is full of gossips. One of these gossips
(who
is not important) was having lunch with me just after Moira began reading to me. I told this person
of Moira's kindness and mentioned, in passing, that she was engaged to my nephew Tony's stepson. This gentleman was very surprised to hear this. You see, he used to work for me in a discotheque I own called Rampage. He said he had seen you there many times in the company of young men and that you were behaving-how should one say?-affectionately.

"I confess, this upset me very much. And I tell you why. Years ago a relative of mine
(who
is not important) but a nice young woman, she married a gayboy. He did not tell her about himself. He lied to her and made promises that he would be faithful. He was not. He broke her heart and brought disgrace upon the family. A terrible and dishonorable man. At the end even he could no longer bear his shame and he killed himself in some unusual fashion, I don't remember how.

"So when I hear these stories about you I assume-you must forgive me-that Moira knows nothing about it. So I tell her what I have been told. And then . . . she smiles! She smiles and she tells me everything."

"Everything?" asked Gilbert.

"Yes. And right away I like you much better than my niece's gayboy. You were not dishonest like him. You told your woman things she had a right to know."'

"Well, sure I did!" said Gilbert. "I mean . . ." he began, and, not having the first idea
what
he meant, trailed off.

"Please. You mustn't be embarrassed. I am an old man. There's little I haven't seen in my life. You may not know it but many men have experienced the same problem as you, though not usually so young, of course. That is very sad."

"Terribly sad!" agreed Gilbert, baffled. What on earth had Moira told him?

"I have had this problem myself. Not often! A few times."

"Oh?"

"Though to be impotent so young as you were! A young man barely twenty. Most upsetting! I can certainly see why a boy who was in your position would prefer not to risk the humiliation of ... failing, with women. It's not easy at any age but the young are so sensitive. And, of course, times being the way they are, why not . . . experiment? Try things another way?"

He rasped in a low obscene chuckle.

"You see? I'm really not old-fashioned! I know a man needs to do
something.
If one thing doesn't work, try something else, yes?"

"That's
my
motto!"

"But what a joy it must have been to meet a woman with whom it was-different! I must tell you, Gilbert, how touched I was when she spoke of how grateful you were to her that she could make your problem suddenly vanish. How happy it made you to know at last you had found what you truly wanted, and you would never need anyone else for the rest of your life. I am a romantic, you see, so such stories give me great delight. You, too, I see. Just to remember it your eyes fill with tears of joy.
L'amore!
Such a beautiful thing, is it not?"

Gilbert was too choked up by the loveliness of it all to manage a reply and Freddy wheezed mercilessly on.

"So this is why I asked to speak to you. I heard things about you which alarmed me. Then I spoke to Moira and she said other things which made me happy. It would make me happier still to hear them from you.

"I suppose you must think I'm a nosy old man, eh? Butting in where I don't belong. But, please, indulge me. I have no children of my own left and Moira is such a dear child. I have come to think of her as my own granddaughter. Her unhappiness would be my un-happiness."

"That's just how I feel!"

"You're sure you love her? Enough to marry her?"

There was a pause then of not more than two seconds' duration. I lay there behind the sofa, desperately channeling every ounce of mental and spiritual energy I could muster in an effort to make extrasensory contact with that dark uncharted territory that is the mind of Gilbert.

Pull out! Say you've had doubts! And you realize now that you must for her sake
-

"Of
course
I'm sure! She's everything to me!"

Nooooo!!

"I knew that, Gilbert. Just as I know you would never do anything to hurt her."

"Never!"

"Then we will say no more. You're a good boy! There is no reason to doubt your word. You would not lie to me like my niece's husband.
Who, as I now recall, set himself on fire and jumped off an apartment building."

"And just what he deserved, too! Breaking a woman's heart!"

"Thank you for your time. You've helped an old man sleep easier. The question for me is, how to return this favor?" He paused for effect, then said, "I think, perhaps I know a way."

"Oh?" asked Gilbert, pathetically. Clearly, he hoped that some small munificence of Freddy's might, like a frail ray of sunlight, pierce through the avalanche of woe Moira's vicious lies had sent cascading down upon him. A case of good scotch, perhaps, or a pair of diamond cuff links. A car, maybe?

"Moira tells me you're looking for a job."

Silence fell for a moment as Gilbert reeled from this, Moira's lowest, most perfidious blow yet.

"Does
she?"

"I sympathize with your difficulty. Such hardship a young writer must endure while awaiting success! So I have tried to think of some pleasant occupation for you. And tonight, thanks to your delightful friend and your cousin Aggie, I think that perhaps I have found one."

At this reference to me my head shot up involuntarily. Whether he considered me delightful or not I trembled to think I could have any part in whatever he was devising for Gilbert. I held my breath, the better to hear the next fateful words he should utter.

At that precise moment, however, the door to the anteroom opened.

"Scusati,
Signore Bombelli," said Serge, "but the tarantel-"

He stopped suddenly and yelled:

"Jesus fuckin' Christ!
Down! Both of you!
Down!"

Suddenly the room thundered with explosions and the window directly behind me collapsed into jagged shards. Terrible thoughts raced through my mind. How could he have
seen
me? What did it matter how-he had! Death was at hand! I should have fucked Leo! My heart leapt into my esophagus and fearful that I'd go to my grave disfigured by flying glass I crammed my face as far as it would go into the narrow space between the floor and the bottom of the sofa. I'd instinctively closed my eyes and, opening them now, I saw Gilbert's face, also pressed to the floor, staring at me in astonished terror from the other side of the sofa. He couldn't, of course, ask me what I was doing there aloud, but he bugged his eyes interrogatively. I attempted a
response, but to convey, through facial expressions alone, that you've hidden in a dark room to escape a sexually precocious gay teenager and were then forced to remain hidden to avoid being noticed by an elderly crime czar is difficult in the best of circumstances, and impossible under gunfire.

I heard footsteps. It sounded as if two or three large men had raced into the room. There was a confused jumble of speech, the general trend of which was an inquiry into what the fuck had happened. Footsteps came closer to the couch.

"My God, Freddy! Are you okay?" said a voice I recognized as Tony's.

"I'm always okay!" cackled Freddy. "Sonsabitches never got me yet!"

An alarmed babble of voices drifted in from the anteroom.

"Three guys!" said Serge emotionally. "In the window! They came running up outa nowhere and pulled guns on Freddy and-"

He was cut off by the loudest laugh I'd ever heard. It was Tony.

"Gunmen,
were they?"

Suddenly the laugh caught on. It grew louder and louder.

"What an asshole!" cried someone.

"They pulled
guns,
huh?" guffawed someone else.

"S'okay, folks!" said Tony, withdrawing. "No one's hurt. Gilbert! You look pretty bad, son. What can I say? High-strung family!"

"Freddy, that's some nurse you got. Doesn't miss a trick!"

"Don't tease poor Sergio," exhorted Freddy. "Just doing his job."

"C'mon, Gilbert. Close the door behind you so we don't freeze the place out. Maddie, baby! Don't worry, no one's hurt. We'll have Giuseppe board it up after the party. Hey, back up, Lunch! Show's
over!"

The lights were turned off. I heard the door close and, after waiting a moment, poked my head around the corner of the sofa. The room was empty. Dizzy with relief I stood, turned around and saw the two slaughtered Magi lying in the snow, their arms still pathetically clutching their gifts for the birthday party they would never reach. The third was still erect and on its track but had been neatly decapitated. As I stood a moment frozen at the sight I heard the familiar carol start up again and the headless king, ghoulishly clasping its frankincense, glided off to give Baby Jesus a nasty surprise.

I ran into the bathroom and locked both doors. Five minutes later the tremors had almost entirely subsided and I rejoined the party.

Credit the Bombellis with a sense of humor. News of Serge's triple regicide spread quickly through the house and everyone thought it was the funniest thing since thumbscrews. Fresh explosions of mirth could be heard coming from every corner as new people were apprised of the details and fresh witticisms were coined. No sooner would the laughter begin to fade than someone or other would loudly announce he was going out to the creche to frisk the shepherds and the whole thing would begin anew.