Glimmering

Still, life went on (“That’s what life does,” Keeley snapped at him one night, during one of Jack’s sinking spells), and Jack watched it, mostly on TV, when the TV worked. Amazed at the compelling illusion of canonical American Life cast there: talk shows, baseball and football games (though the cameramen avoided crowd shots of Wrigley Field, which had been severely damaged in the riots), reruns, and a few tentative, new episodes of the most popular sitcoms, which Jack found himself analyzing obsessively for what they might tell him of the world outside. Recycled advertisements were, gradually, replaced by new ones; apparently not even intimations of apocalypse could interfere with sales and production of Coke, Pepsi, Big Macs, Miller beer. Jack thought of the old joke, about what would survive a nuclear holocaust. Cockroaches and Cher; and it seemed that there would be plenty of junk food for them to eat. Not that Jack ever saw any of it.

That was 1997. By 1998 he had grown accustomed to life under wartime conditions; that was a bad year, too. Nineteen ninety-eight was the year during which Jack was certain that The Gaudy Book, after a century, and more incarnations than the Dalai Lama, would finally expire. And while he had never confessed it to anyone—not even Jule, not even Grandmother Keeley—for his entire life Jack had believed that his fate was tied inextricably with that of his family’s magazine. If The Gaudy Book died, so would he.

In September, The New York Times had run a sad little front-page piece, a preliminary obituary embalming The Gaudy Book in three inches of newsprint and electronic lettering. Travelers on the Infobahn (Leonard amongst them) had chortled, seeing this as another death spasm of the Written Word.

Still, the magazine continued to limp along. There were a few thousand stalwart subscribers: Jack imagined them as silver-haired toffs sitting upright in deck chairs aboard the Titanic, Gaudy Books firmly in hand, reading from the Slings and Arrows feature while the band played “God Save the Queen.” And there were dwindling loans from Jack’s own dwindling finances, the last copper pennies from what had been one of the great fortunes of the twentieth century. Leonard had helped, too, improbable as that seemed; but then…

“It’s the least he can do. The bastard.” Since high school Jule had suspected Leonard of the worst of intentions, and time had proven that Jule was usually correct. “If I were you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

Jack tilted back in his chair. They were in the carriage house, the office of The Gaudy Book. “I know, I know. But…”

His voice trailed off. Jule snorted in annoyance: Jack had never quite gotten over an intense relationship with Leonard that had seen him through his twenties. “But nothing.” Jule gazed with distaste at one of Leonard’s prints, framed in silver on Jack’s desk. It showed the charred carcass of an Antarctic snow petrel, now extinct. “He’s gonna fuck you up again, Jackie, you know he will. Don’t do it, Jackie. Don’t talk to him.”

Jack stared at the ceiling through half-closed eyes. After a moment he shrugged. “Well, anyway, he has this idea to help bail me out. I just want you to look over the proposals and make sure I’m not liable for anything.”

He handed Jule the thick folder Leonard had sent via bike courier that morning. His friend took the package and stuck it into his knapsack, then stood to go.

“Right.” Jule pushed a lock of longish graying hair from his forehead, grimaced, and tugged at his shirt collar. “God, I hate fucking court appearances. The phones are dead, so you can’t call anyone, you get down to the courthouse and you’re fucked ’cause the DA couldn’t get a fucking message to you that the case has been dismissed. I haven’t had a decent haircut in a year. Do I look like an asshole?”

Jack laughed. “You look very nice, Jule. Emma pick out your tie?”

Jule looked wounded. “No, she did not.”

“I figured.” Jack pointed with his pencil. “It’s got something on it.”

“Shit! Really?” Jule stared down in alarm.

“Ha-ha. Made you look.”

Jule glared at him, then started toward the door. “Later. Don’t sign anything till you hear from me.”

“How long will that be?”

“Who fucking knows? Maybe tomorrow if the phones are up, maybe a week. See you, Jackie.”

When Jack was alone again he sighed. On his desk scattered bills and manuscripts, collection notices, and invitations to charity dinners formed a jagged white plain, like a field of broken ice. He picked up a small card, hand-lettered in pale blue ink on Crane’s stationery.

Dr. Peter Fulbright & Ms. Anna Herrin-Fulbright

Request the Honor of Your Presence at the

1998 Harlequin Ball

Proceeds to Benefit

The World Wildlife Fund Genome Project