JAY MARTIN
617
fabulous place. America. On ce Henry got sta rted on the su bj ect of
places in the United States, no na tura l end
to
hi s monologue was
foreseeable: it was like menti oning the decl in e of the Wes tern world ,
painting, sex, o r th e role o f the a rti st to him . Just as k him for a good
description of Miami or menti on Sama Fe and he'd be on the wing. He
had hi s own es pecially favorite places. such as Mo bil e Bay and Bi g Sur.
About th ese places he had never seen he could spin dazzlin g imp rov isa–
ti ons. But no ma tter how long he rambled on about these, at the end ,
when he was spent with hi s mental travelogue, Alf would a lways pipe
up with the demand:
" Now
tell me about Arizona. "
It
was not one of
Henry's specialiti es, and he' d sometimes grow l: "The hell with Ari–
zona. I'm go ing
to
bed. I've told you a ll I know. " "Then tell me agai n ,"
Fred would as k in a ton e of bli ssful expecta ti on . They'd both have had
a sk inful of wine and Fred's eyes would be shining with tears o f joy.
Almost inva ri ably, Henry would sta n in aga in , inventin g freely. Very
likely, h e'd become new ly imeres tcd in the subject and begin to talk
about th e places he wanted to visit befo re he di ed-Mexi co, Indi a,
Greece, the land of Sal adin , Tibet. From the latter he expected to
continue on to Devechan ; but before tha t time came, Henry would
ruminate, there'd be time to see Fillmore Pl ace once aga in as well as the
bayous a t the mouth of the Mississippi. When he finish ed, perhaps an
hour la ter, Fred would gratefully ra ise a ruby glass of Pono
sec
to him
and say: "Now tell me a bout
Arizona!"
Such ep ic exp ress ion s of their
sentiments limitrophes
were, of
course, reserved for special occasions and demanded Fred 's ni ght o ff
from work for proper elabora tion . And, o f course, he and Fred were not
always a lone. Occasionally, one of Mill er's fri ends would a rrivc.
Fraenkel, still deep in the writing of his gospels of anonym ity and
death, o ften came to mull over his ideas. Start him anywh ere and soon
Fraenkel would be in the cemetery and battlefi eld, ta ll ying up the
corpses . At thi s point, Fred was likely to beat a strategic retreat and take
himself o ff
to
the Res taurant de l' Escargot if he had an y cash , or, if he
didn't, to Giolotte's on the ru e Lama rtine, where the staff of the
Tribun e-housed
just across the street-could run up ta bs. Henry and
Michael would monumentall y occupy the apartmem, jabber in g about
"creative suicide" to their hea rt's content. But if he had ever been,
Henry was no longer on Fraenkel' s side. He had concluded that
Fraenkel was right in every pa rti cul ar but one: everyone was dead–
everyone but Henry himself. For Henry, Fraenkel's gospel of death
became a measure of hi s own triumph . As Michael became more and
more convin cing, Henry became more and more justifi ed. All the
