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Authors: David Rain
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ignominiously. The library at Columbia fired her for reading the novels she should have been putting on shelves. St Vincent’s Hospital let her go for talking to patients instead of mopping
out the wards. Her days as an usherette at the Shubert Theatre ended when she was discovered in a compromising position with an audience member in the back row. Defensively, she had pointed out
that the fellow was an old flame. Only yesterday a theatrical booking agency had fired her; it seemed she had got two of the acts mixed up. ‘A children’s pantomime,’ Aunt Toolie
told me, ‘and a burlesque show. Dear Agnes! Was there ever such a girl?’
I was about to venture a remark on Arnold Blitzstein, and whether Miss Day thought he was the saviour of Western music, when a voice startled me: ‘Sharpless! It is you, isn’t
it?’
At the end of the balcony, hunched over the balustrade, was a small man in evening dress with long, pale hair. A cigarette glowed in his hand. He had turned to me, and his eyes glittered.
Of course, I knew him at once.
Not since the night he knocked out Eddie Scranway had I seen Trouble. That victory had seemed at the time a new start, a marvellous beginning. In truth, it was an end. Next term, Trouble was
gone from Blaze. Scranway’s father, the head of the Board of Trustees, had taken up the matter, demanding expulsion. Trouble was sent to a day school on Long Island. It’s ever so
progressive , he wrote to me. Boys and girls are mixed, and we have swimming lessons in the nude. For a few months we exchanged letters, but, as is the way with prep school boys, neither
of us kept it up. But I thought of Trouble often and wondered what had become of him.
Eagerly, I moved forward to shake his hand. How diminutive he was! He had barely grown since Blaze. Next to him I felt lumbering, absurd. When he asked me why I was at this party, I explained
that the hostess was my aunt. ‘Don’t tell me you know Aunt Toolie too.’
‘Oh, I came up with some fellows from the place downstairs. Not sure where they’ve gone. That apparition’s your aunt? Quite a legend, it seems.’
‘I didn’t know you were in New York,’ I said.
‘I’ve been abroad. I’ve been all over. I’m just back from Europe.’
Only after some moments did I realize that Agnes Day had gone. She must have slipped back inside while Trouble and I were talking.
Our old intimacy might never have been broken. He suggested we needed a drink. That night, in an apartment swirling with smoke and chatter and squawking jazz, huddled on one of my aunt’s
shabby sofas, we learned about our lives since we had last seen each other. Swiftly, I passed over my days at Yale – my scholarly career had been less than glorious – and announced,
with a firmness that surprised me, my ambitions as a poet. Did I reveal, that night, that it had been Trouble, and the strange magic he created around him at Blaze, that first had stirred me to
write? I suppose not. I was more interested in him: in the many schools and several colleges from which he had been ejected; in the weeks with a singing teacher in Vienna, which ended his ambitions
for an operatic career; in the months on a ranch in Montana, where the senator had hoped that his son would learn at last to be a man; in the career as a travelling salesman, Trouble’s bid
for independence, which had ended with his return home after only two weeks on the road. His latest travels – he grimaced – had been with an elderly professor from Columbia, an old
friend of his mother’s. The professor sought to introduce his pupil to the art treasures of Europe; the pupil (so he claimed) took it upon himself to explore more worldly matters.
Trouble narrated all this with delightful drollery, and I was longing to hear more when he glanced at his watch, sprang up, and said, ‘Christ! I’m taking Mama to church in the
morning.’
I thought he was joking, but he pushed his way through the crowd, calling
out the wards. Her days as an usherette at the Shubert Theatre ended when she was discovered in a compromising position with an audience member in the back row. Defensively, she had pointed out
that the fellow was an old flame. Only yesterday a theatrical booking agency had fired her; it seemed she had got two of the acts mixed up. ‘A children’s pantomime,’ Aunt Toolie
told me, ‘and a burlesque show. Dear Agnes! Was there ever such a girl?’
I was about to venture a remark on Arnold Blitzstein, and whether Miss Day thought he was the saviour of Western music, when a voice startled me: ‘Sharpless! It is you, isn’t
it?’
At the end of the balcony, hunched over the balustrade, was a small man in evening dress with long, pale hair. A cigarette glowed in his hand. He had turned to me, and his eyes glittered.
Of course, I knew him at once.
Not since the night he knocked out Eddie Scranway had I seen Trouble. That victory had seemed at the time a new start, a marvellous beginning. In truth, it was an end. Next term, Trouble was
gone from Blaze. Scranway’s father, the head of the Board of Trustees, had taken up the matter, demanding expulsion. Trouble was sent to a day school on Long Island. It’s ever so
progressive , he wrote to me. Boys and girls are mixed, and we have swimming lessons in the nude. For a few months we exchanged letters, but, as is the way with prep school boys, neither
of us kept it up. But I thought of Trouble often and wondered what had become of him.
Eagerly, I moved forward to shake his hand. How diminutive he was! He had barely grown since Blaze. Next to him I felt lumbering, absurd. When he asked me why I was at this party, I explained
that the hostess was my aunt. ‘Don’t tell me you know Aunt Toolie too.’
‘Oh, I came up with some fellows from the place downstairs. Not sure where they’ve gone. That apparition’s your aunt? Quite a legend, it seems.’
‘I didn’t know you were in New York,’ I said.
‘I’ve been abroad. I’ve been all over. I’m just back from Europe.’
Only after some moments did I realize that Agnes Day had gone. She must have slipped back inside while Trouble and I were talking.
Our old intimacy might never have been broken. He suggested we needed a drink. That night, in an apartment swirling with smoke and chatter and squawking jazz, huddled on one of my aunt’s
shabby sofas, we learned about our lives since we had last seen each other. Swiftly, I passed over my days at Yale – my scholarly career had been less than glorious – and announced,
with a firmness that surprised me, my ambitions as a poet. Did I reveal, that night, that it had been Trouble, and the strange magic he created around him at Blaze, that first had stirred me to
write? I suppose not. I was more interested in him: in the many schools and several colleges from which he had been ejected; in the weeks with a singing teacher in Vienna, which ended his ambitions
for an operatic career; in the months on a ranch in Montana, where the senator had hoped that his son would learn at last to be a man; in the career as a travelling salesman, Trouble’s bid
for independence, which had ended with his return home after only two weeks on the road. His latest travels – he grimaced – had been with an elderly professor from Columbia, an old
friend of his mother’s. The professor sought to introduce his pupil to the art treasures of Europe; the pupil (so he claimed) took it upon himself to explore more worldly matters.
Trouble narrated all this with delightful drollery, and I was longing to hear more when he glanced at his watch, sprang up, and said, ‘Christ! I’m taking Mama to church in the
morning.’
I thought he was joking, but he pushed his way through the crowd, calling
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