She had a memory that should have been on display in the Smithsonian. It might be three or four years between our seeing each other; but when I’d come out of the blue guest room searching for coffee early on a Wednesday morning during one of my visits, there would be Eusona, dusting Jimmy’s vast, endless hoard of tchotchkes; and she’d look up and grin as if I’d been there uninterruptedly for years, and she’d say, “Good morning, Larry, sleep good?” And I’d scream at her, “Hello, Eusona, how are you?” And she’d answer, “Doin’ just fine, Larry; water’s still hot.” And I’d scream, “Thanks, Eusona.”
The reason I screamed was that she wore a hearing aid. One of those little button things shoved into her ear, the cord trailing down to disappear into the capacious pocket of her wraparound apron where the shape of the battery pack bulged.
And we went on that way, amiably, until one time she stopped me in the back corridor leading to the greenhouse, took me by the hand like a small boy who’s been caught eating worms in the schoolyard, and she said, “Mr. Bedloe, why do you always scream at me?”
She never called Jimmy “Mr. Crowstairs” unless he was behaving badly or living with a woman who left globs of mascara on the mirror in the bathroom, and she never called me anything but Larry unless I had left my bed unmade. Ms. Parker made it clear she was a housekeeper, not a maid; and if I slept in it, I ought to make it when I got out of it. “Mr. Bedloe” was her way of politely saying pay close attention now, asshole.
“Why, uh, I’m sorry, Eusona,” I said, terribly embarrassed as one can only be embarrassed when one has been caught staring at the empty place between eyes and mouth where a leper’s nose has fallen off. “I was speaking loudly because I wanted you to hear me.”
“Well, I’m not hard of hearin’, dear.”
That dear of hers: butter would not have melted in her mouth. I’ve never understood what that meant, it never made sense to me, butter not melting. Whatever it meant, it’s what that dear was all about. The dear you use when you say, “No, dear, the round hole is for the round peg.”
“You’re not?”
“No, Mr. Bedloe, dear, I’m not hard of hearing.”
Mr. Bedloe and dear.
“But you wear a hearing aid. “
“Mistuh Bedloe, this is not a hearing aid.” And she pulled the earphone of the transistor radio in her apron, out of her ear and, faintly, like fairy trumpets, I heard the tinny sound of Steve Garvey batting the brains out of the Cardinals’ relief pitcher, bottom of the seventh, two out, a man on third.
All that went through my head as Kenneth L. Gross said, “Yes, Miss Parker, that’s all you have to do, is identify Mr. Crowstairs.”
“That’s him. I said it.”
“Thank you, Miss Parker.”
“Neat as a pin, everything right in place; always been like that, eighteen going on nineteen years.”
“Thank you, Miss Parker.”
“You’re welcome, dear.”
Then Missy identified him; then Jimmy as testator stated the date and stated that the will being made on that date took precedence over all other wills previously made by him, including any that might be found written in cuneiform on stone tablets by gas station attendants roaming in the Nevada deserts.
Then the roundelay went like this:
Kenny: Are you executing this document or prepared to execute this document with a complete satisfaction on your Pal. that it says what you wish it to say, and that you understand it in its entirety?
Jimmy: Affirmative. And it should be noted for the record that the last person to marry a duck lived four hundred years ago.
Kenny: Choke. Are you prepared to execute this document and accordingly state for the record, in my presence and in the presence of witnesses, that in so doing you are not acting under duress, undue influence, or under the influence of any drug or other substance that may impair your mental capacity?
Jimmy: I had a Coca-Cola about half an hour ago, does that count?
Kenny: No sir, it does not. Please!
Jimmy: Are you sure, Kenny? I mean, if you take a piece of raw meat and you put it in a glass of Coke and leave it overnight it comes out looking like something from a James Bond movie. You know, all those little piranha bubbles ill there, they could chew the shit out of your brain cells.
Kenny: It doesn’t count, damn it!
Jimmy: Then how about all the stuff I put up my nose just before we started filming?
Kenny: Aaaargh!
Jimmy: Okay, okay, take it easy. I’m just clowning. I don’t use dope, you know that. Everybody knows it. I couldn’t possibly write the crap I write if I was ripped. Having my nostrils Tefloned was just for a lark, you know that.
The attorney laid his head down on his arms and pounded the tabletop with his fist. It was pathetic what Jimmy was doing to this poor soul. We all looked around in the semidark but Kenneth L. Gross was back there in the shadows, no doubt chewing through the bit of his pipe.
On the screen Jimmy was being upbraided by his three witnesses. They whipped him into a semblance of probity and urged Kenny Gross to resume the proceedings.
The attorney said, “Therefore, in my presence and in the presence of the witnesses, God help us, is it your wish that you now execute the document and that we sign the document as witnesses thereto?”
Client responded in the affirmative.
“I will then ask, Mr. Crowstairs, that you now initial each and every page in the lower right-hand corner…”
“I’m left-handed.”
“Then do it in the lower left-hand corner but for God’s sake initial the damned thing already!” He was shouting; it seemed to quell Jimmy. He started initialing. Gross went on weakly, “Up to but not including the signature page. For your information and for the record, this is being done so that no pages can be substituted in the future into this document.”
He was standing now, over Jimmy’s right shoulder, behind him, turning the pages to verify each one was properly initialed (and possibly to insure that Jimmy didn’t sign Herman Melville or Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg).
It went on that way without hindrance. Jimmy had clearly grown bored with the activity and even bored with the japery that had made the proceedings minimally tolerable. Jimmy reached the signature page and filled in the location of execution of the will, then the date, and then he signed it. Then each of the witnesses signed location, date and name. The latter two added their place of residence. The will was returned to Gross, who asked if Jimmy wanted the will kept in the attorney’s vault and a conformed copy provided to Jimmy, or if the client wanted to keep the original with a conformed copy in Gross’s possession. Jimmy waved a hand negligently. “You keep it; send me a copy.”
Gross said he would do so and, painfully aware that the juice was running out of the presentation, said, “For the record, the witnesses need not be present during any videotaping portion which is about to occur and the only people who will be present will be myself, Mr. Crowstairs, and the two camera persons.”
Yo-ho-ho. Here we go. Up there on the screen Missy, Bran and Eusona Parker rose, walked out of camera range and damned certainly out of the room, and Gross turned to Jimmy and said, “Mr. Crowstairs, if you wish, you may say some words to your beneficiaries or for that matter, to anyone who may have been excluded by you under your last will which we have just executed.”
He placed what was obviously a seating diagram of this room as Jimmy had planned it to be arranged on the desk in front of Jimmy, got up, and backed out of camera range. Now all we had on the screen was Jimmy sitting behind his desk, hands folded demurely, staring out at us, looking right to left as if he really could see us, back there four months ago when he had known for certain that he would live forever.