What to make of him? Neither André nor “Monsieur Casteene,” he was the hale, unpredictable fellow I’d first encountered, along with Joe Morgan, in the Maryland Historical Society back in 1961: back-slapper and back-stabber, yet disarmingly “up front” about both and particularly forceful. Unrepentant for having sided with John Schott against Morgan, and later against Ambrose and myself, Cook nonetheless managed, whilst improvising with my friend a whole new scenario for the evening’s shooting, to intimate to me that he was having second thoughts about his Marshyhope appointment: he had urged Schott to sound me out on possible reinstatement! “Of course,” he went so far as to add, “you’ll want to tell him where to get off. But we must have a chat about Germaine de Staël and the Bonapartes, especially between Elba and St Helena. Fascinating!”
As, one must acknowledge, is he, whoever he is. For all my urge to keep him at arm’s length (I curbed my urge to press him about his ancestor’s letters to his unborn child, and reacted neither way to the mention of my reappointment), I found myself involved — if only because Ambrose was, with a clearly therapeutic relish that warmed my heart — in the most preposterous bit of business yet mounted in this absurd production. We are a long way, John, from where we started in March, with a “motion picture based on your latest work, but echoing its predecessors”!
Are you ready? As thunderclouds pile up out over the Bay (and a pleasant buffet supper is spread by our host), Cook recounts in the first person to all assembled, from memory, his ancestor’s “posthumous” description of the burning of Washington. The man is a raconteur of some talent and has obviously absorbed his Poltroons & Patriots; whether Andrew IV’s letter is real or not, Andrew VI gives us a convincing “eyewitness” account of the events of 24 August 1814. And the shtik (to borrow Ambrose’s tidewater Yiddish) is that as he chronicles the destruction — for us and for the microphone and cameras — we move outdoors from set to set and, approximately, reenact it.
Not forgetting, alas, the ongoing subplot, what’s left of it: the War Between Image and Word, a.k.a. Director and Author. Nature cooperates with approaching lightning bolts and thunderclaps as the “Capitol’s” canvas doors are battered down and “Andrew Cook IV” answers aye to “Admiral Cockburn’s” motion to fire the building. The hippies set to with a will; Cook’s caretaker brings umbrellas for the ladies, none of whom, save myself, minds getting drenched. Merry B. is inclined to huddle against Reg P. from the flames and the lightning, which are indeed impressive; but that silent fellow has been waiting his moment, and when we move now, in a pause in the downpour, behind the burning flat to a row of dripping bookshelves representing the Congressional Library, he breaks away from her to do a surprising, dangerous thing. Ambrose has of course been cast momentarily as the librarian, reading aloud from Tucker’s history of this episode; Bruce and Brice stand by, a-filming; suddenly an eight-foot case of “books” (actually painted rows of spines, but the case itself is a heavy wooden thing) comes tumbling upon them, pushed by the Director, from an angle such that to avoid it they must spring toward the flames!
I am astonished (it will later be surmised that Prinz’s real targets, ever more ascendant, were B. & B., not A.; he had better gone after C.). My betrothed, however, seems scarcely surprised: in the same motion with which he leaps clear, he whales Tucker Vol. 1 at Reggie’s head, and seeing either that his aim is off since the famous First Conception scene or that Tucker’s history is a less accurate missile than Richardson’s novel, unhesitatingly he pulls half of the burning flat itself — a flimsy thing which the storm is breaking loose from its supports — down upon his adversary, knocking him into the mud!
No injuries on either side. Merope and I restrain our macho mates from further such exchanges. Right on, the hippies cry. Cook applauds and resumes his recitation. T-Dum and T-Dee exchange meaning glances and take up their stations.
I pass over other such notable moments to sing their culmination. The mise en scène is a flat representing the Tripoli Monument in the Washington Naval Yard, whose original was defaced by a British demolition team. We are to turn its (painted) sculptures into the following tableau vivant: Merry B. to represent Fame, as indicated by a great bronze palm; myself to represent History, wielding a similarly impressive pen (these props Cook claims to be the originals, long in his family’s possession and much coveted by the Smithsonian). At a certain signal, “Director” and “Author”—both of whom have long since been usurped of their functions! — to see which can snatch what.
Places, everybody? But wait: I have not mentioned that our signal is to come, not from A. B. Cook, IV or VI, or any other of us, no, but from the United States Navy itself. Bloodsworth Island — as everyone seems to know except me — is mainly an aerial gunnery target, uninhabited below Barataria except by very intrepid herons and muskrats. At 2200 hours there is to commence a night-firing exercise in the Prohibited Zone, just south of us; there will be helicopters and patrol boats to insure that the area is clear before the fighters roar in from Patuxent Air Station, across the Bay. It is half after nine already; there they are now, the choppers, blinking and flashing and raising a frightful racket, obviously interested in our floodlights and smoking scenery. Cook waves at their searchlights. The hippies raise clenched fists and shout obscenities. The cameras roll. We take our places.
Am I mistaken in remembering our last sight of Jerome Bray (not counting the sound of him at the Ft Erie Magazine Explosion) to have been his departure by Newswatch helicopter, early in August, from Delaware Park in Buffalo? Well, sir: as if reinvoked by these awesome, clattering navy machines (we do not know how in fact he arrived; Cook alone seemed surprised to see him), just as Fame and I take our rain-soaked places, and Reggie and Ambrose toe the mark some metres off, and Cook makes ready to flag the start, a Union Jack in one hand and the Stars & Bars in t’other — it is 2155; it is 2156; we await the roar of jets—
Yup. Jerome Bonaparte Bray, on top of our trompe-l’oeil monument. Had anyone doubted the man is mad? Then picture him now, as Brice’s cameras do, in archetypal madman’s garb: his alleged ancestor’s tricorn hat; the cutaway coat with turned-up collar and epaulets; the waistcoat under; and, yes, the wearer’s right hand tucked in above the third button. He has escaped from Elba, Bray declaims, to aid the U. States against G. Britain: also from St Helena, to establish his Second Empire in America! He claims for himself both palm and pen, in token of his “conquest of letters by numbers.” Able was I, he concludes, and I swear I quote him exactly: Able was I… er…
Here the chopper drowns him out; the fighter planes blast in at heart-stopping low altitude to fire tracer shells and heaven knows what else into the marsh below us; the storm has paused but not passed, and contributes its own apocalyptic sound-and-light background. Taken aback by Bray’s appearance (in both senses) and by the racket, we are spellbound — all save Merope, who at first sight of him shrieks, flings away the palm, and runs. Reg Prinz jumps the gun and dashes for her trophy. Bray comes down at me, loony-eyed; it is the pen he wants (thank God), and I find myself, despite my alarm, in a proper tug-o’-war: plain limey stubbornness, I suppose. Wham! Here come the planes again, taking all our breaths. Ambrose rushes to my assistance: everyone is shouting over the din, myself included; Bruce and Brice impede my lover with lights and dollies; Prinz trips him up, swings at him with that palm. But like Perseus at the wedding feast, Ambrose wades through all obstacles to my side and snatches up the pen. Bray flees at once, behind or over the Tripoli flat, whither lately flew Fame.