The Ferrari in the Bedroom (16 page)

Susskind nodded gravely. Malcolm Boyd said, “I’ll buy that.”

“Well, it has to do with Pollution, all right, I can tell you that. We’re really getting Militant to boot. You bet!”

“I presume your organization…” Susskind crinkled his brow thoughtfully “… deals with problems of an Environmental nature.”

“You bet!” I interrupted. “And how!”

“One that concerns all the peoples?” Susskind had used one of his favorite words. He’s at his best when dealing with Peoples.

“Everybody I know!”

“Folks…” Allen beamed at the studio audience out in the darkness. “Shepherd here can come right out and say it, can’t he? We’re all grownups here.”

The audience applauded, with a few whistles and foot stamps thrown in.

“You see, like I said, they’re grown up. Well, how about it? What does SPLAT stand for?”

“Don’t blame me if you get outraged letters.” I fenced for time.

“Our unseen television audience is mature.” Allen smiled benignly at me.

“Well, okay. It stands for Society for the Prevention and Limitation of Animal Turds.”

A great roar of applause. More whistles and catcalls from the audience. I thought I detected a few screams.

“Eh? What was that?” Susskind, who was not in the habit of listening, appeared confused.

“Society for the Prevention and Limitation of Animal Turds,” I repeated.

Susskind disappeared briefly under the desk.

“The other day I had a talk with the Lord on that very subject. The humble creatures of the field are blessed unto…”

“Hold it, Boyd.” Allen silenced him.

“Let’s get this straight, Shepherd. Are you anti-animal? If so…”

“No! Heavens no!” I broke in. “It’s just that here in New York every summer you’re knee-deep in….”

“Easy Shepherd! This is television!” Allen glowered sternly at me.

“What my Aunt Emily called Doggie Dirties, and I can tell you…”

Susskind, who seemed to have recovered, waded in: “Our poor dumb brethren, an oppressed minority which under this sick system should at least be given the vote, and…”

“Militant? You say your group is getting militant, eh?” Allen had alertly picked up a key word that is necessary in any intellectual discussion of our day.

“Yes,
militant.
That is correct.” I ran my hand through the Afro wig I had recently purchased at a shop in the Village, using my American Express credit card.

“We sure are getting militant. No telling where it will lead.”

“How do you mean Militant?” Boyd chimed in, his face wreathed in a beatific smile. “Ah, it is blessed to forgive and those who wield the mighty sword…”

“Cut it out, Boyd. Save that for your show at the Bitter End tonight. We only got a half an hour.”

Allen, a firm handed emcee, guided the show steadfastly.

“I say when a system of popular democracy, based on mutual trust, fails the little peoples, militancy is the
inevitable…” Susskind, like Old Man River, rolled on, his words rich, sonorous, with the sing-song beat of phrases used over and over.

“Save it for your own show, Dave.” Allen nodded in my direction, indicating that I should go on.

“We tried reason; even the courts. All that’s left now is Confrontation!” I peered at the panel through my jet black shades. They quailed before me, recognizing as all good Liberals do, that militant confrontation is the hallmark of the Righteous.

“Just what form does your militancy take?” Allen asked, leaning forward over his microphone.

“Well, we picket the ASPCA, for one.”

“Why?” Susskind gasped in humane horror.

“Well, we’re
for
cruelty to animals. They’re plenty cruel to us. It’s time the worm turned!”

“I am deeply shocked. As a reasonable citizen of good will, I must say, and I wish to make this clear, that I can scarcely believe that in this enlightened age anyone could be as depraved…” Susskind wrung his hands as he spoke, great tears rolling down his cheeks. He sobbed in conclusion.

“Yes,” I went on, “we’re tired of having puppy poo-poo, as our lady members call it, all over our sandals, not to mention our bare feet. We got a slogan: Kick A Squatting Dog In The Ass Today. You probably saw our buttons.”

“Say, I like that.” Allen led the audience in a brief cheer. “It would make a nice song title.” He turned to his piano and sang in a quavery voice:

Allen hunched over the piano, caught up in the surge of creativity. Susskind dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief that bore the embroidered insignia of the ACLU. Boyd crossed himself briefly and held up his LP to let the audience know where
he
stood on Good and Evil.

“We also,” I plunged ahead doggedly amid the hubbub, “organized nose-rubbing Action Squads.”

Allen stopped dead in mid-note. Boyd flushed slightly and appeared to be fingering a crucifix. Susskind nodded his patriarchal grey head in disbelief, indicating sorrow at the depravity to which Man can fall.

“Yesireebob, that’s one of our most effective counter measures!”

“You mean…” Susskind was in full cry again, “you mean those poor, innocent oppressed little doggies are attacked by your Fascist thugs—and I feel justified in calling them that—are so outraged and set upon by the sick Establishment which you represent as to have their sensitive little noses come into contact with…?”

He blew his sensitive nose emotionally into his ACLU handkerchief.

“Now wait a minute, Dave. You don’t mind if I call you Dave? After all, this is television. You got it all wrong.” I hitched up my dashiki, which was itching me between the shoulderblades.

“Well, I should hope so!” Malcolm Boyd, his brow furrowed with concern, took the stand. “To turn the other cheek, and to coin a phrase, to suffer doggie doo-doo is the Christian way to forgive, and…”

Allen cut in sharply at this point, his eye on the studio clock. “Explain yourself, Shepherd.” He was not smiling.

“You see, we rub
owners’
noses in the doggie doo-doo, every time we catch an Airedale or a Beagle letting it go in the middle of a sidewalk. We grab the owner by the neck and…”

“Watch it, Shepherd!” Allen’s tone had become menacing.

“You oughta hear ’em holler. The other day the Squad gave the treatment to a couple of fags that had these nine Afghans on a leash, and you never heard such shrieking and whooping in your life! They learned a lesson they won’t forget soon. Then there was this old lady with a bulldog…”

“That certainly answers our questions about militancy. Now let’s move on into other areas.” Allen was back to smiling again.

“It’s getting to the point where a new breed of connoisseurs has developed that…”

“Connoisseurs?” Allen seemed relieved to be on a safe subject. “Connoisseurs? You mean, art connoisseurs?”

I answered: “A true Manhattanite, by the merest whiff, can tell you whether the little bundle of joy was left by a Pekinese, a Dalmatian, a Great Dane or an Airedale.”

“Oh come on.” Susskind wore his skeptical face. “Surely you’re not telling us of Liberal persuasion that….”

“Not to mention Yorkies, Dachshunds, Labrador Retrievers, Bull Terriers and Springer Spaniels.”

“You mean…?” Allen sounded interested. “Just by the aroma you can…?”

“Yes, right! St. Bernards, Chows, Rat Terriers, Blue Tick Hounds; the whole smelly lot. It’s a new hobby. You might as well make a game of it if you have to live with it. We of S.P.L.A.T. have published a booklet on how to identify two hundred and thirty-four varieties of puppy poop, and we’d be glad to send it to anyone who…”

“I’m sorry, but that old clock on the wall tells us that we’ve run out of time.”

Allen smiled at the audience. “Our guests today have been Malcolm Boyd, whose new record
Malcolm Boyd Wrestles with the Devil Accompanied by the Harmonicats, Recorded Live at the Hollywood Brown Derby
has just been released on Pious Pelf Records; David Susskind whose program ‘Open End’ is seen on over nine thousand television stations and digs deeply into Today’s vital problems, and Jean Shepherd, the dynamic militant president of S.P.L.A.T., the Society for the Prevention and Limitation of Animal Turds. It’s been a good show, hasn’t it, folks?”

The crowd roared.

“Next week we take up the problem of drug addiction among prenatal infants, and…”

I awoke in a cold sweat; lay for a moment on my Castro. It had grown dark. The apartment was deep in gloom. A fetid breath of hot air drifted in from the street. I sniffed appreciatively.

“Ah, there’s a rare one for New York. A Rhodesian Ridgeback!” I arose to pour myself another drink.

Somewhere in J. D. Salinger’s
The Catcher in the Rye
Holden Caulfield, the arch teenage anti-hero, remarks that he once read a book and had an overwhelming desire to
meet the author. Well, that’s all right, I suppose, as far as it goes, but let’s face it, fellow victims, authors write books and create fiction peopled by figures of the imagination, men who never were. There ain’t no Yossarian. Ahab sailed on the poop deck of a ghostly, non-existent Pequod, and even James Bond was made of the sheerest pulp. But there
was
a Leopold Brown who walked this earth, thought his mysterious thoughts and dreamed dreams far beyond the reach of any character ever invented by Philip Roth.

Car collectors everywhere, reading that tiny item detailing Leopold Brown’s spectacular backyard, can’t help but feel a tightening around the throat and a shortness of breath caused by intense visceral excitement. Holy mother of God, a 1905 Winton Tourer
and
a 1951 Chevy (Power Glide) with 43 tiny miles on the gauge. For twenty years that Chevrolet (Power Glide) has rested amid the weeds cowl-to-cowl with a 1927 Whippet Coupe. Within winking distance, a jaunty 1919 Hudson Six roadster. It’s one thing to collect old cars because they are old cars, and some guys just have a compulsion to glom onto anything that has even a hint of the antique about it; pop bottles, coffee grinders, horse collars, trombones, stuffed goats. But it is a totally different thing to deliberately go out and plunk down a couple of thousand good ones for a new Chevy, drive it back home to the farm and park it next to the Whippet to add to the good old collection. From all the evidence, the 1951 Chevy was never driven again after the day it left the dealer’s!

Personally, you guys who would like to meet in the flesh Yossarian or Holden Caulfield are welcome to them. Both are staid, straight-laced unimaginative ciphers compared to the late Leopold Brown. A man capable of stashing away what he did in his back yard, without apparently making much noise about it, was a guy obviously capable of a hell
of a lot more in his life that is not recorded in that brief newsnote.

I was squatting patiently on one of the plush settees at Mister Toni’s, an elegant
salon de coiffure
in the heart of the high-rent district on Lexington Avenue when I came across the enigmatic newsnote that dealt with the late Leopold. Mister Toni’s used to be called Tony Mozzarella’s Barber Shop just a few semesters back and featured heavily-jowled white-coated balding men who breathed garlic down your neck and told you dirty stories while they skinned your onion. Things are different now, and old Tony has not only changed the spelling of his name, but the entire atmosphere of the joint has become redolent of rare perfumes. The swish of hairnets competes with the hum of permanent wave machines. The stylists; wasp-waisted, gentle boys flutter about each chair, making fluting noises and speaking in sibilant lisps. So naturally I caused a little stir when involuntarily I barked, “Holy Christ Almighty, a
Hudson Six!!”

Realizing immediately that Toni’s was no place to discuss things of the real world that dealt with the affairs of genuine men, I quickly returned to
Gentleman’s Quarterly
and its continuing discussion of the place of Belgian lace in the well-dressed man’s attire. But I couldn’t shake Leopold Brown out of my mind.

A few hours later, struggling up Broadway in a driving rain, on foot naturally since no self-respecting New York hackie ever ventures out into weather more sinister than a slight mist, I passed the new car showrooms that infest the area around 57th Street. There in the window of the Ford agency were a pair of new Pintos. Across the street I could see dimly through the driving rain a sparkling new Plymouth Duster. Not far away, enshrined in glass, there was a steel-grey Electra. Maybe it was the rain, or the wind, or
the aftermath of the heady, expensive two hours at Mister Toni’s, but Leopold Brown popped back into the quagmire I call a mind. Is there one among us who could dare to do what Leopold did? I doubt it. Men of his style just don’t exist today. Which of these cars would Leopold have chosen for immortality? The Pinto? I doubt it. The Electra? Hardly. The Plymouth Duster? Don’t be silly. The reason none of these fit exactly is because it is obvious that the late Leopold Brown was a genius. The mind of the genius always walks alone in solitary, unapplauded splendor. The world totters at the feet of such as Johnny Carson or Dick Cavett, while resolutely ignoring the likes of Leopold Brown. It was always thus; it will always be thus. True genius is a frightening and enigmatic thing. What makes the late Leopold Brown unique is his totally inspired choice of a 1951 Chevrolet (Power Glide) for preservation and immortality. The very mundane-ity, the staggering ordinariness of the 1951 Chevrolet (Power Glide) is the hallmark of Mr. Brown’s blinding talent.