The Purple Decades (47 page)
Read The Purple Decades Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
*
T
he well-known American writer ⦠but perhaps it's best not to say exactly which well-known American writer ⦠they're a sensitive breed! The most ordinary comments they take personally! And why would the gentleman we're about to surprise be any exception? He's in his apartment, a seven-room apartment on Riverside Drive, on the West Side of Manhattan, in his study, seated at his desk. As we approach from the rear, we notice a bald spot on the crown of his head. It's about the size of a Sunshine Chip-a-Roo cookie, this bald spot, freckled and toasty brown. Gloriously suntanned, in fact. Around this bald spot swirls a corona of dark-brown hair that becomes quite thick by the time it completes its mad Byronic rush down the back over his turtleneck and out to the side in great bushes over his ears. He knows the days of covered ears are numbered, because this particular look has become somewhat
Low Rent.
When he was coming back from his father's funeral, half the salesmen lined up at O'Hare for the commuter flights, in their pajama-striped shirts and diamond-print double-knit suits, had groovy hair much like his. And to think that just six years ago such a hairdo seemed ⦠so defiant!
he well-known American writer ⦠but perhaps it's best not to say exactly which well-known American writer ⦠they're a sensitive breed! The most ordinary comments they take personally! And why would the gentleman we're about to surprise be any exception? He's in his apartment, a seven-room apartment on Riverside Drive, on the West Side of Manhattan, in his study, seated at his desk. As we approach from the rear, we notice a bald spot on the crown of his head. It's about the size of a Sunshine Chip-a-Roo cookie, this bald spot, freckled and toasty brown. Gloriously suntanned, in fact. Around this bald spot swirls a corona of dark-brown hair that becomes quite thick by the time it completes its mad Byronic rush down the back over his turtleneck and out to the side in great bushes over his ears. He knows the days of covered ears are numbered, because this particular look has become somewhat
Low Rent.
When he was coming back from his father's funeral, half the salesmen lined up at O'Hare for the commuter flights, in their pajama-striped shirts and diamond-print double-knit suits, had groovy hair much like his. And to think that just six years ago such a hairdo seemed ⦠so defiant!
Meeting his sideburns at mid-jowl is the neck of his turtleneck sweater, an authentic Navy turtleneck, and the sweater tucks into his Levi's, which are the authentic Original XX Levi's, the original straight stovepipes made for wearing over boots. He got them in a bona fide cowhand's store in La Porte, Texas, during his trip to Houston to be the keynote speaker in a lecture series on “The American Dream: Myth and Reality.” No small part of the latter was a fee of two thousand dollars plus expenses. This outfit, the Navy turtleneck and the double-X Levi's, means work & discipline.
Discipline!
as he says to himself every day. When he puts on these clothes, it means that he intends to write, and do nothing else, for at least four hours.
Discipline,
Mr. Wonderful!
Discipline!
as he says to himself every day. When he puts on these clothes, it means that he intends to write, and do nothing else, for at least four hours.
Discipline,
Mr. Wonderful!
From
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine.
First published in
Esquire
, December 1975.
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine.
First published in
Esquire
, December 1975.
But on the desk in front of himâthat's not a manuscript or even the beginnings of one ⦠that's
last month's bank statement
, which just arrived in the mail. And those are his canceled checks in a pile on top of it. In that big ledger-style checkbook there (the old-fashioned kind, serious-looking, with no crazy Peter Max designs on the checks) are his check stubs. And those slips of paper in the promiscuous heap are all unpaid bills, and he's taking the nylon cover off his Texas Instruments desk calculator, and he is about to measure the flow, the tide, the mad sluice, the crazy current of the money that pours through his fingers every month and which is now running against him in the most catastrophic manner, like an undertow, a riptide, pulling him underâ
last month's bank statement
, which just arrived in the mail. And those are his canceled checks in a pile on top of it. In that big ledger-style checkbook there (the old-fashioned kind, serious-looking, with no crazy Peter Max designs on the checks) are his check stubs. And those slips of paper in the promiscuous heap are all unpaid bills, and he's taking the nylon cover off his Texas Instruments desk calculator, and he is about to measure the flow, the tide, the mad sluice, the crazy current of the money that pours through his fingers every month and which is now running against him in the most catastrophic manner, like an undertow, a riptide, pulling him underâ
âhim and this apartment, which cost him $75,000 in 1972; $20,000 cash, which came out of the $25,000 he got as a paperback advance for his fourth book,
Under Uncle's Thumb
, and $536.36 a month in bank-loan payments (on the $55,000 he borrowed) ever since, plus another $390 a month in so-called maintenance, which has steadily increased until it is now $460 a month ⦠and although he already knows the answer, the round number, he begins punching the figures into the calculator ⦠536.36 plus ⦠460 ⦠times 12 ⦠and the calculator keys go
chuck chuck chuck chuck
and the curious little orange numbers, broken up like stencil figures, go trucking across the black path of the display panel at the top of the machine, giving a little orange shudder every time he hits the
plus
button, until there it is, stretching out seven digits longâ11956.32â$12,000 a year! One thousand dollars a monthâthis is what he spends on his apartment alone!âand by May he will have to come up with another $6,000 so he can rent the house on Martha's Vineyard again
chuck chuck chuck chuck
and by September another $6,750â$3,750 to send his daughter, Amy, to Dalton and $3,000 to send his son, Jonathan, to Collegiate (on those marvelous frog-and-cricket evenings up on the Vineyard he and Bill and Julie and Scott and Henry and Herman and Leon and Shelly and the rest, all Media & Lit. people from New York, have discussed why they send their children to private schools, and they have pretty well decided that it is the educational turmoil in the New York public schools that is the problemâthe kids just wouldn't be educated!âplus some considerations of their children's personal safetyâbutâneedless to say!âit has nothing to do with the matter of ⦠well,
race
) and he punches that in ⦠6750 â¦
chuck chuck chuck chuck â¦
and hits the
plus
button ⦠an orange shimmer ⦠and beautiful! there's the
figureâthe three items, the apartment in town, the summer place, and the children's schoolingâ$24,706.32!âalmost $25,000 a year in fixed costs, just for a starter! for lodging and schooling! nothing else included! A grim nut!
Under Uncle's Thumb
, and $536.36 a month in bank-loan payments (on the $55,000 he borrowed) ever since, plus another $390 a month in so-called maintenance, which has steadily increased until it is now $460 a month ⦠and although he already knows the answer, the round number, he begins punching the figures into the calculator ⦠536.36 plus ⦠460 ⦠times 12 ⦠and the calculator keys go
chuck chuck chuck chuck
and the curious little orange numbers, broken up like stencil figures, go trucking across the black path of the display panel at the top of the machine, giving a little orange shudder every time he hits the
plus
button, until there it is, stretching out seven digits longâ11956.32â$12,000 a year! One thousand dollars a monthâthis is what he spends on his apartment alone!âand by May he will have to come up with another $6,000 so he can rent the house on Martha's Vineyard again
chuck chuck chuck chuck
and by September another $6,750â$3,750 to send his daughter, Amy, to Dalton and $3,000 to send his son, Jonathan, to Collegiate (on those marvelous frog-and-cricket evenings up on the Vineyard he and Bill and Julie and Scott and Henry and Herman and Leon and Shelly and the rest, all Media & Lit. people from New York, have discussed why they send their children to private schools, and they have pretty well decided that it is the educational turmoil in the New York public schools that is the problemâthe kids just wouldn't be educated!âplus some considerations of their children's personal safetyâbutâneedless to say!âit has nothing to do with the matter of ⦠well,
race
) and he punches that in ⦠6750 â¦
chuck chuck chuck chuck â¦
and hits the
plus
button ⦠an orange shimmer ⦠and beautiful! there's the
figureâthe three items, the apartment in town, the summer place, and the children's schoolingâ$24,706.32!âalmost $25,000 a year in fixed costs, just for a starter! for lodging and schooling! nothing else included! A grim nut!
It's appalling, and he's drowning, and this is only the beginning of it, just the basic grim nutâand yet in his secret heart he loves these little sessions with the calculator and the checks and the stubs and the bills and the marching orange numbers that stretch on and on ⦠into such magnificently huge figures. It's like an electric diagram of his infinitely expanding life, a scoreboard showing the big league he's now in. Far from throwing him into a panic, as they well might, these tote sessions are one of the most satisfying habits he has. A regular vice! Like barbiturates! Calming the heart and slowing the respiration! Because it seems
practical
, going over expenses, his conscience sanctions it as a permissible way to avoid the only thing that can possibly keep him afloat: namely, more writing ⦠He's deep into his calculator trance now ⦠The orange has him enthralled. Think of it! He has now reached a stage in his life when not only a $1,000-a-month apartment but also a summer house on an island in the Atlantic is an absolute necessityâprecisely that, absolute necessity ⦠It's appalling! âand yet it's the most inexplicable bliss!ânothing less.
practical
, going over expenses, his conscience sanctions it as a permissible way to avoid the only thing that can possibly keep him afloat: namely, more writing ⦠He's deep into his calculator trance now ⦠The orange has him enthralled. Think of it! He has now reached a stage in his life when not only a $1,000-a-month apartment but also a summer house on an island in the Atlantic is an absolute necessityâprecisely that, absolute necessity ⦠It's appalling! âand yet it's the most inexplicable bliss!ânothing less.
As for the apartment, even at $1,000 a month it is not elegant. Elegance would cost at least twice that. No, his is an apartment of a sort known as West Side Married Intellectual. The rooms are big, the layout is good, but the moldings, cornices, covings, and chair rails seem to be corroding. Actually, they are merely lumpy from too many coats of paint over the decades, and the parquet sections in the floor have dried out and are sprung loose from one another. It has been a long time since this apartment has had an owner who could both meet the down-payment nut
and
have the woodwork stripped and the flooring replaced. The building has a doorman but no elevator man, and on Sundays the door is manned by a janitor in gray khaki work clothes. But what's he supposed to do? He needs seven rooms. His son and daughter now require separate bedrooms. He and his wife require a third one (a third and fourth if the truth be known, but he has had to settle for three). He now needs, not just likes, this study he's in, a workroom that is his exclusively. He now
needs
the dining room, which is a real dining room, not a dogleg off the living room. Even if he is giving only a cocktail party, it is â¦
necessary
that they (one & all) noteâhowever unconsciouslyâthat he
does
have a dining room!
and
have the woodwork stripped and the flooring replaced. The building has a doorman but no elevator man, and on Sundays the door is manned by a janitor in gray khaki work clothes. But what's he supposed to do? He needs seven rooms. His son and daughter now require separate bedrooms. He and his wife require a third one (a third and fourth if the truth be known, but he has had to settle for three). He now needs, not just likes, this study he's in, a workroom that is his exclusively. He now
needs
the dining room, which is a real dining room, not a dogleg off the living room. Even if he is giving only a cocktail party, it is â¦
necessary
that they (one & all) noteâhowever unconsciouslyâthat he
does
have a dining room!
Right here on his desk are the canceled checks that have come in hung over from the cocktail party he gave six weeks ago. They're right in front of him now ⦠$209.60 to the florists, Clutter & Vine, for
flowers for the hallway, the living room, the dining room, and the study, although part of that, $100, was for a bowl of tightly clustered silk poppies that will become a permanent part of the living-room decor ⦠$138.18 to the liquor store (quite a bit was left over however, meaning that the bar will be stocked for a while) ⦠$257.50 to Mauve Gloves & Madmen, the caterers, even though he had chosen some of the cheaper hors d'oeuvres. He also tipped the two butlers $10 each, which made him feel a little foolish later when he learned that one of them was co-owner of Mauve Gloves & Madmen ⦠$23.91 to the grocery store for he couldn't remember what ⦠$173.95 to the Russian Tea Room for dinner afterward with Henry and Mavis (the guests of honor) and six other stragglers ⦠$12.84 for a serving bowl from Bloomingdale's ⦠$20 extra to the maid for staying on late ⦠and he's chucking all these figures into the calculator
chuck chuck chuck chuck
blink blink blink blink
truck truck truck truck
the slanted orange numbers go trucking and winking across the panel ⦠855.98 ⦠$855.98 for a cocktail party!ânot even a dinner party!âappalling! âand how slyly sweet â¦
flowers for the hallway, the living room, the dining room, and the study, although part of that, $100, was for a bowl of tightly clustered silk poppies that will become a permanent part of the living-room decor ⦠$138.18 to the liquor store (quite a bit was left over however, meaning that the bar will be stocked for a while) ⦠$257.50 to Mauve Gloves & Madmen, the caterers, even though he had chosen some of the cheaper hors d'oeuvres. He also tipped the two butlers $10 each, which made him feel a little foolish later when he learned that one of them was co-owner of Mauve Gloves & Madmen ⦠$23.91 to the grocery store for he couldn't remember what ⦠$173.95 to the Russian Tea Room for dinner afterward with Henry and Mavis (the guests of honor) and six other stragglers ⦠$12.84 for a serving bowl from Bloomingdale's ⦠$20 extra to the maid for staying on late ⦠and he's chucking all these figures into the calculator
chuck chuck chuck chuck
blink blink blink blink
truck truck truck truck
the slanted orange numbers go trucking and winking across the panel ⦠855.98 ⦠$855.98 for a cocktail party!ânot even a dinner party!âappalling! âand how slyly sweet â¦
Should he throw in the library stairs as a party expense, too? Perhaps, he thought, if he were honest, he would. The checks were right here: $420 to Lum B. Lee Ltd. for the stairs themselves, and another $95 to the customs broker to get the thing through customs and $45 to the trucker to deliver it, making a total of $560! In any event, they're terrific ⦠Mayfair heaven ⦠the classic English type, stairs to nowhere, going up in a spiral around a central column, carved in the ancient bamboo style, rising up almost seven feet, so he can reach books on his highest shelf ⦠He had had it made extra high by a cabinetmaking firm in Hong Kong, the aforementioned Lum B. Lee ⦠Now, if the truth be known, the stairs are the result of a habit he has: he goes around the apartment after giving a party and stands where he saw particular guests standing, people who stuck in his mind, and tries to see what they saw from that position; in other words, how the apartment looked in their eyes. About a year ago he had seen Lenny Johns of the
Times
standing in the doorway of his study and looking in, so afterward, after Lenny and everyone else had gone, he took up the same position and looked in ⦠and what he saw did not please him. In fact, it looked sad. Through Lenny Johns's eyes it must have looked like the basic writer's workroom out of
Writer's Digest
: a plain Danish-style desk (The Door Store) with dowel legs (dowel legs!), a modernistic (modernistic!) metal-and-upholstery office swivel chair, a low-slung (more Modernismus!) couch, a bank of undistinguished-looking file cabinets, a bookcase covering one entire wall but made of plain white-painted boards and using the wall itself as its back. The solution, as he saw itâwithout going into huge costsâwas the library
stairsâthe stairs to nowhere!âan object indisputably useful and yet with an air of elegant folly!
Times
standing in the doorway of his study and looking in, so afterward, after Lenny and everyone else had gone, he took up the same position and looked in ⦠and what he saw did not please him. In fact, it looked sad. Through Lenny Johns's eyes it must have looked like the basic writer's workroom out of
Writer's Digest
: a plain Danish-style desk (The Door Store) with dowel legs (dowel legs!), a modernistic (modernistic!) metal-and-upholstery office swivel chair, a low-slung (more Modernismus!) couch, a bank of undistinguished-looking file cabinets, a bookcase covering one entire wall but made of plain white-painted boards and using the wall itself as its back. The solution, as he saw itâwithout going into huge costsâwas the library
stairsâthe stairs to nowhere!âan object indisputably useful and yet with an air of elegant folly!
It was after that same party that his wife had said to him: “Who was that weepy-looking little man you were talking to so much?”
“I don't know who you're talking about.”
“The one with the three strands of hair pulled up from the side and draped over his scalp.”
He knew she was talking about Johns. And he knew
she
knew Johns's name. She had met him before, on the Vineyard.
she
knew Johns's name. She had met him before, on the Vineyard.
Meeting Lenny Johns socially was one of the many dividends of Martha's Vineyard. They have been going there for three summers now, renting a house on a hill in Chilmark ⦠until it has become, well, a
necessity
! It's no longer possible to stay in New York over the summer. It's not fair to the children. They shouldn't have to grow up that way. As for himself, he's gotten to know Lenny and Bill and Scott and Julie and Bob and Dick and Jody and Gillian and Frank and Shelly and the rest in a way that wouldn't be possible in New York. But quite aside from all that ⦠just that clear sparkling late-August solitude, when you can smell the pine and the sea ⦠heading down the piney path from the house on the hill ⦠walking two hundred yards across the marshes on the pedestrian dock, just one plank wide, so that you have to keep staring down at it ⦠it's hypnotic ⦠the board, the marsh grass, your own tread, the sound of the frogs and the crickets ⦠and then getting into the rowboat and rowing across the inlet to ⦠the
dune â¦
the great swelling dune, with the dune grass waving against the sky on top ⦠and then over the lip of itâto the beach! the most pristine white beach in the world! and the open sea ⦠all spread out before youâyours! Just that! the sand, the sea, the skyâand solitude! No gates, no lifeguard stands, no concessions, no sprawling multitudes of transistor radios and plaid plastic beach chairs â¦
necessity
! It's no longer possible to stay in New York over the summer. It's not fair to the children. They shouldn't have to grow up that way. As for himself, he's gotten to know Lenny and Bill and Scott and Julie and Bob and Dick and Jody and Gillian and Frank and Shelly and the rest in a way that wouldn't be possible in New York. But quite aside from all that ⦠just that clear sparkling late-August solitude, when you can smell the pine and the sea ⦠heading down the piney path from the house on the hill ⦠walking two hundred yards across the marshes on the pedestrian dock, just one plank wide, so that you have to keep staring down at it ⦠it's hypnotic ⦠the board, the marsh grass, your own tread, the sound of the frogs and the crickets ⦠and then getting into the rowboat and rowing across the inlet to ⦠the
dune â¦
the great swelling dune, with the dune grass waving against the sky on top ⦠and then over the lip of itâto the beach! the most pristine white beach in the world! and the open sea ⦠all spread out before youâyours! Just that! the sand, the sea, the skyâand solitude! No gates, no lifeguard stands, no concessions, no sprawling multitudes of transistor radios and plaid plastic beach chairs â¦
It is chiefly for these summers on the Vineyard that he has bought a car, a BMW sedanâ$7,200âbut very lively! It costs him $76 a month to keep it in a garage in the city for nine months of the year, another $684 in all, so that the hard nut for Martha's Vineyard is really $6,684âbut it's a necessity, and one sacrifices for necessities. After three years on the Vineyard he feels very possessive about the place, even though he's a renter, and he immediately joined in with the move to publish a protest against “that little Albanian with a pickup truck,” as he was (wrongly) called, some character named Zarno or something who had assembled a block of fifty acres on the Vineyard and was going to develop it into 150 building lotsâone third of an acre each! (Only dimly did he recall that the house he grew up in, in Chicago, had been on about one fifth of an acre and hadn't seemed terribly
hemmed in.) Bill Tâââwrote a terrific manifesto in which he talked about “these Snopes-like little men with their pickup trucks”âSnopes-like! âand all sorts of people signed it.
hemmed in.) Bill Tâââwrote a terrific manifesto in which he talked about “these Snopes-like little men with their pickup trucks”âSnopes-like! âand all sorts of people signed it.
This campaign against the developers also brought the New York Media & Lit. people into contact for the first time with the Boston people. Until the Media & Lit. people began going there about ten years before, Martha's Vineyard had always been a Boston resort, “Boston” in the most proper social sense of the word. There wasn't much the Boston people could do about the New York people except not associate with them. When they said “New York people,” they no doubt meant “Jews & Others,” he figured. So when he was first invited to a Boston party, thanks to his interest in the anti-developers campaign, he went with some trepidation and with his resentment tucked into his waistband like a .38. His mood darkened still more when he arrived in white ducks and an embroidered white cotton shirt, yoke-shouldered and open to the sternumâa little eccentric (actually a harmless sort of shirt known in Arizona as Fruit Western) but perfectly in the mood of standard New York People Seaside Funkâand found that the Boston men, to a man, had on jackets and ties. Not only that, they had on their own tribal colors. The jackets were mostly navy blazers, and the ties were mostly striped ties or ties with little jacquard emblems on them, but the pants had a go-to-hell air: checks and plaids of the loudest possible sort, madras plaids, yellow-on-orange windowpane checks, crazy-quilt plaids, giant houndstooth checks, or else they were a solid airmail red or taxi yellow or some other implausible go-to-hell color. They finished that off with loafers and white crew socks or no socks at all. The pants were their note of Haitian abandon ⦠weekends by the sea. At the same time the jackets and ties showed they had not forgotten for a moment where the power came from. He felt desolate. He slipped the loaded resentment out of his waistband and cocked it. And then the most amazing thing happenedâ
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