PULL DOWN VANITYI
363
bergh baby, was then something of a mystery; for I had never even
taken part in the intimate, nervous cannibalism of New York literary
life, and the few facts available about me from my own poems (I
had been a tail gunner in a B-29; I played tournament golf; I had
learned to break horses) were probably not believed.
Certainly, Chuck Bligh, the organizer of the Conference, had
been pleased and a little incredulous, as he came forward to shake
my hand. "Well, well, Milton," he said, pretending not to notice my
grimace in his scurrying to pump my hand, pat me on the back, and
push up a chair behind me all at once, "Well, well-"
"It
depre~es
me to be called by my first name," I told him, as
indeed it does-reminding me at once of my obligations to the muse
("that one talent which is death to hide") and of my foolish mother.
The boys at school call me in friendly mockery "Tex"; and in the
Air Corps I was, incredibly enough, called seriously by that nick–
name; to myself I am simply Amsterdam. "And when I get depressed,
I review the poetry of my friends."
t..
"Very good. Very good, Amsterdam. I told Ed Fenton here
that you'd answered none of my letters after the first, and Ed," he
kept emphasizing the "Ed" like a reproach, "has been saying you'd
never come. Didn't you, Ed?"
I turned to look in the direction indicated by Bligh's limp hand–
and there was Fenton perched on the edge of a desk, grinning at me
with unexpectedly robust malice. "Didn't think you'd dare face the
Old Master in person, Milton. I've been telling little Judy here,"
he reached over to pat the cheek of Bligh's secretary who was scarlet
with
embarra~ment
and pride at being part of so distinguished a
group, "that you'd crap out for sure. You're certainly
prettier
than I
expected, though. Christ, you're prettier than the young Edna Millay
-although she wasn't Jewish at all, was she?" He looked around
in pretended bewilderment, as
if
for an answer; and bending over
toward the secretary who was mumbling something confused, almost
pushed his nose into the crease between her pale, flagrant breasts.
Even in my annoyance at my own dumbness before Fenton (Why
did he talk like that? so differently from the involuted, sly style of
his essays!), I could not help feeling how attractive she was-her
extraordinarily fair skin not white but silver, dusted over with a
