Green Shadows, White Whale Part 4

Mike drove me back to Dublin.

Wringing out his cap in the hotel lobby he looked at me and said, "It was a wild Irish night for sure!"

"A wild night," I said.

I hated to go up to my room. So I sat for another hour in the reading lounge of the damp hotel and took the traveler's privilege, a gla.s.s and a bottle provided by the dazed hall porter. I sat alone listening to the rain and the rain on the cold hotel roof, thinking of Ahab's coffin-bed waiting for me up there under the drumbeat weather. I thought of the only warm thing in the hotel, in the town, in all the land of Eire this night, the script in my typewriter with its sun of the South Pacific, its hot winds blowing the Pequod toward its doom, but along the way fiery sands and its women with dark charcoal-burning eyes.

And I thought of the darkness beyond the city, the lights flas.h.i.+ng, the electric rabbit running, the dogs yiping, the rabbit gone, the lights out, and the rain flailing the dank shoulders and soaked caps and ice-watering the noses and seeping through the sheep-smelling tweeds.

Going upstairs, I glanced out a streaming window. There, on the street, riding by under a lamp, was a man on a bike. He was terribly drunk. The bike weaved back and forth across the bricks, as the man vomited. He did not stop the bike to do this. He kept pumping unsteadily, blearily, as he threw up. I watched him go off in the dark rain.

Then I groped up to find and die in my room.

7.

On Grafton Street just halfway between The Four Provinces pub and the cinema stood the best, or so John said, Gentleman Riders to Hound emporium in all Dublin, if not Ireland, and perhaps one half of Bond Street in London.

It was Tyson's, and to speak the name was to see the front windows with their hacking coats and foulards and pale yellow silk s.h.i.+rts and velvet hunting caps and twill pants and s.h.i.+ning boots. If you stood there long enough you could hear the horses fribbling their lips and snorting their laughter and twitching their skin to jerk the flies off, and you could hear the hounds whining and barking and running in happy circles (dogs are always happy and thus their smiles, unless they are miserable because their master crossed his eyes at them); but as I say, if you stood there long enough waiting for someone to hand you the reins, the owner of the shop, seeing you as one of the blindfolded hypnotics wandered out of Huston's Barn, might come out and lead-kindly-light your way into the smell of leather and boot cream and wool; and buckle on your new trenchcoat for you and fit on a tweed cap abristle for a thousand rains within the month and measure your pigfoot and wonder how in h.e.l.l to shove it into a boot and all the while around you Anglo-Irish gents being similarly whisper-murmured at by lilting tongues; and the weather turned bad outside within thirty seconds after you set foot within, that you linger and buy more than your intent.

Where was I? Oh, yes. I stood out in front of Tyson's on three separate nights.

Looking at the wax model, as tall as Huston and as strideful and arrogant in all his Kilc.o.c.k Hunt finery, I thought: How long before I dress like that?

"How do I look, John?" I cried, three days later.

I spun about on the front steps of Courtown House smelling of wool, boot leather, and silk.

John stared at my tweed cap and twill pants.

"I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned," he gasped.

8.

"You know anything about hypnotism, kid?''

"Some," I said.

"Ever been hypnotized?"

"Once," I said.

We were sitting by the fire after midnight with a bottle of Scotch now half empty between us. I hated Scotch, but since John relished it, I drank.

"Well, you haven't been in the hands of a real pro," said John, languidly, sipping at his drink.

"Which means you," I said.

John nodded. "That's it. I'm the best. You want to go under, son? I'll put you there."

"'I had my teeth filled that one time, my dentist, a hypnodontist, he-"

"To h.e.l.l with your teeth, H.G." H.G. was for H.G. Wells, the author of Things to Come, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man. "It's not what comes out in teeth, it's what goes on in your head. Swallow your drink and give me your paw."

I swallowed my drink and held out my hands. John grabbed them.

"Okay, H.G., shut your eyes and relax, total relaxation, easy does it, easy, easy, nice and soft and slow and easy," he murmured, as my eyes shut and my head lolled. He kept speaking and I kept listening, nodding my head gently and he talked on, holding my hands and breathing his mellow Scotch in my face and I felt my bones go loose in my flesh and my flesh lounge out under my skin and it was easy and nice and sleepy and at last John said: "Are you under, kid?"

"Way under, John," I whispered.

"That's the way. Good. Fine. Now listen here, H.G., while you're there and relaxed, is there any one message you want to tell me so I can tell yourself? Give instructions, as it were, for self-improvement or behavior tomorrow? Spit it out. Tell me. And I'll instruct you. But easy does it. Well . . . ?"

I thought. My head swayed. My eyelids were heavy.

"Just one thing," I said.

"And what's that, kid?"

"Tell me-"

"Yes?"

"Instruct me to-"

"What, kid?"

"Write the greatest, most wonderful, finest screenplay in the history of the world."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"Tell me that, John, and I'll be happy . . . ," I said, asleep, deep under, waiting.

"Well," said John. He leaned close. His breath was like an aftershave on my cheeks and chin. "Here's what you do, kid."

"Yes?" I said.

"Write the d.a.m.nedest, finest, most wonderful screenplay ever to be written or seen."

"I will, John," I said.

9.

It's not often in the life of a writer lightning truly strikes. And I mean, there he is on the steeple, begging for creative annihilation, and the heavens save up spit and let him have it. In one great hot flash, the lightning strikes. And you have an unbelievable tale delivered in one beauteous blow and are never so blessed again.

And here's how the lightning struck.

I had been hard at it with harpoon and typewriter for three hours out at Courtown House when the telephone rang. John, Ricki, and I had gathered for lunch and another try at trapping the pale flesh of the great Beast. We looked up, glad for the interruption.

John seized the phone, listened, and gave a great gasping cry.

"Well, I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned!"

Each word was exquisitely p.r.o.nounced-no, not p.r.o.nounced: yelled-into the telephone.

"Well, I'll be absolutely and completely G.o.dd.a.m.ned!"

It seemed that John had to shout all the way to New York City and beyond. Now, gripping the phone, he looked out across the green meadows in December light as if somehow, too, he might stare long distance at that man he was yelling at so far away, "Tom, is it really vow?" he cried.

The phone buzzed: yes, it was really Tom.

John held the phone down and shouted the same way at Ricki, at the far end of the dining room table. I sat between, half b.u.t.tering my toast.

"It's Tom Hurley, calling from Hollywood!"

Ricki gave him one of her elusive, haunted smiles and looked down again at her scrambled eggs.

"Well, for G.o.d's sake, Tom!" said John. "What are you up to? What are you doing?"

The phone buzzed.

"Uh-huh," said John, emphatically, listening. "Uh-huh! Uh-huh!" He nodded. "Good, Tom. Fine, Fine. Lisa, yes, I remember Lisa. Lovely girl. When? Well, that's wonderful, Tom, for both of you!"

The telephone talked for a long moment. John looked at me and winked.

"Well, it's the hunt season here, Tom, yes, great fox-hunting country. Ireland's the best in the world. Fine jumps, Tom, you'd love it!"

Ricki looked up again at this. John glanced away from her, out at the swelling green hills.

"It's the loveliest land in creation, Tom. I'm going to live here forever!"

Ricki started eating rapidly, looking down.

"They have great horses here, Tom," said John. "And you know horses better than I do. Well, you ought to come over and just lay your eyes on the beauties!"

I heard the voice on the phone say it wished it could.

John gazed at the green fields. "I'm riding with the Waterford Hunt Thursday, Tom. What the h.e.l.l . . . h.e.l.l, why don't you just fly over to hunt with me?"

The voice on the phone laughed.

Ricki let her fork drop. "Christ," she muttered. "Here it comes!''

John ignored her, gazed at the hills and said: "I mean it, be our houseguest, bring Lisa too!"

The voice on the phone laughed, not so loud this time.

"Tom, look," John pursued, "I need to buy one or two more horses to race or maybe breed, you could help me pick. Or-"

John stared out the window. Beyond, a hound trotted by on the green field. John sat up suddenly, as if the animal were inspiration.

"Tom, I've just got the d.a.m.nedest wildest idea. Listen, you do want to bring Lisa along, yes? Okay, pile her into a plane tomorrow, fly to Shannon-Shannon, Tom-and I'll come to Shannon myself to drive you here to Kilc.o.c.k. But listen, Tom, after you've been here a week we'll have a hunt wedding"

I heard the voice on the phone say, "What?"

"Haven't you ever heard of a hunt wedding, Tom?" cried John exuberantly. He stood up now and put one foot on the chair and leaned toward the window to see if the hound was still trotting across the field. "Tom, it's just the best d.a.m.n kind of wedding for a man like you and a woman like Lisa. She rides, doesn't she? And sits a horse well, as I recall. Well, then, d.a.m.n it, think how it would be, Tom! You're getting married anyway, so why not you two pagans here in Catholic Ireland? Out here at my place ..." He cast a quick glance at Ricki. "Our place. We'd call in every horse in ninety miles around and every decent hunter, and the lovely hounds, the loveliest hounds and b.i.t.c.hes you ever saw, Tom, and everyone in their pink coats-what color, Tom-and the women in great-fitting black coats, and after the marriage service you and Lisa and I would go to hunt the finest fox you ever saw, Tom! What do you say! Is Lisa there? Put her on!" A pause. "Lisa? Lisa, you sound great! Lisa, talk to that b.a.s.t.a.r.d! No arguments! I'll expect you here day after tomorrow for the Waterford Hunt! Tell Tom I won't accept the charges if he calls back. G.o.d love you, Lisa. So long." John hung up.

He looked at me with a chimpanzee smile of immense satisfaction.

"By G.o.d now! What have I done? Did you hear that? Will you help out, kid?"

"What about Moby d.i.c.k, John?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, the Whale will survive. G.o.d, I can just see the parish priest's eyebrows burning. I can hear the rouse in the pubs when they hearl"

"I can watch myself cutting my throat in the bathtub." Ricki headed for the door. It was always the horses to be ridden or tubs soaked in up to her mouth at a time like this, which was usually twice a week, living with a power unit like John. "So long, lousy husband. Goodbye, cruel world."

The door slammed.

Not waiting to hear the fierce douse of water above in the giant bathroom, John grabbed my knee.

"G.o.d almighty, it'll be a time!" he cried. "Ever seen a hunt wedding?"

"Afraid not."

"Christ, it's beautiful! d.a.m.n! Beyond belief!"

I looked at the door through which Ricki had gone.

"Will Tom and Lisa come, just like that!"

"They're both sports."