Bryant West

by Salvatore Buttaci

If a word had to be found to sum up Bryant West, he himself would opt for “ironic,” and he’d be right! The man was irony personified.

He read the invitation his wife had left on the huge cherry-oak desk in what he called “the lion’s den,” and twisted his mouth into his usual grimace. “Spring has sprung!” he read aloud. “Welcome to our annual Gala Event to be held again this year at the Regal Palms. Let’s see if we can exceed last year’s financial contribution to St. Dominic’s Orphanage and bring smiles to the faces of those children!”

From grimace to chuckle. To open-mouthed laughter. “Orphans!” he said to the empty white walls of his sanctuary. How he hated the word! Once he too was an orphan. Days after birth his young parents had given him up. Simple as that. Given him up. He often wondered why. And who these young parents were. He’d daydream of one day finding them and asking pointblank, “So anyway how come you gave me up like that?” but never did he place himself on the pilgrim-quest treadmill, never once did he join those fools whose lives seem to depend upon locating those two contributors to the chromosome makeup that made them who they were––pathetic in their longing for roots as if finding them, they will somehow be validated, have a raison d’etre in a life that, regardless of what they say, lacks reason and rhyme.

West gave another look at the goldenrod-colored invitation envelope again. Fancy, he thought. Last year they settled for white; this year it’s goldenrod. A subtle hint perhaps, an underlying Midas message to bring a check to the gala backed up by plenty of gold to feed and house and dress and educate those little orphan bastards who whine too much in their annual appeals to turn a man like him more sour than he already was. “Ironic, huh?“ he said to the envelope in its hand.

He heard the back door slam. Before he could turn around, she was already in the den.

“Bry,” she said, though he had so often reminded her he hated being called “Bry,” he finally gave up complaining. “Bry, did you see I left the invitation on your desk?” He nodded, waved it in the air for proof. “Are we going again this year? We had such a wonderful time, didn’t we, Bry?” His left eye twitched. “We danced all night, remember?” No, he thought sarcastically to himself, I have no memory of that evening. I have entered the onslaught days of dementia. Events are leaking out of my head like muddy water from a trough. And soon enough, my dear Gloria, I shall forget you as well.

“Yes, I remember, Gloria. We danced all night.”

He handed her the invitation now tucked back into the envelope in which another envelope fit like a Russian nesting doll and he pretended if he opened that inside envelope there’d be another and inside that another and another so on and so on. And how tiny the final envelope would be, and what tiny banner of enticement the gala committee could devise to win over those who were yet unconvinced they would attend.

“Oh, let’s go again,” said his third wife, direct descendant of an American President, a former 40-D Playboy bunny, at one time so extreme an obsession for him he had to divorce Clara East, wife number two, hardly a year after their Essex House wedding made all the metropolitan newspapers: “Tagor Textiles West Weds East.”

Gloria Van Buren was making that asinine face which she resorted to when she wanted her way: her head tilted like one of those puppies who needs to be walked immediately or he’ll wet the carpet, her collagen-injected mega-lips puckered out there for take-off, her eyes wide and sparkling with fire. Then if all that were insufficient, she followed it all with Elmer-Fudd baby talk, something he hated more than being called “Bry.”

“Pwitty pwitty please, Bwy? Say yes to your Goria?” then she threw her pretty pretty arms around his shoulders and waited for him to say, “Yeah, yeah. We’ll go cut a rug, eat some black caviar, feast on rack of torturous lamb, and write them a big check.”

“Bry, you are the best! Thank you so much, Darling. I’ll wear the midnight-blue gown you always love me in. And I’ll mail back the RSVP right now.”

He was alone again in his lion’s den where he did more lying than he cared to boast about. Deals with potential Tagor clients that promised the moon but delivered cheese. Deals that rolled off his glib tongue in that mesmerizing way of the charismatic. At Tagor they either hated him or hated him a lot. But the outsiders, those whose contracts had kept Tagor Textiles in the black for as long as he was promoted to vice-president––those people loved him! They felt their money was safe in his hands and what Bryant West delivered, as far as they could tell, was what West promised, and some of the time they were right. And needless to mention, old Mack Tagor loved his golden-haired boy who lured in the money and kept him rich. According to old Mack, “West is like a son to me!”

Had it only been eleven years since he had cut the strings that tied him to that Joliet cold-water flat in Chicago where he lived all but three days of his life? The Pezzuttis had adopted him. Carlo and Maria Pezzutti, both of whom had been born across the ocean in Sicily, that little stone at the toe end of Italy. They could hardly speak English, but Carlo was a hard worker, West would give him that, but with all those hours slaving in a textile plant, he brought home hardly enough to keep his wife and new son in the lap of necessity, forget luxury. They had borrowed money from relatives to allow the adoption and they would pay it back a few dollars at a time without regret, without complaint, without resentment, despite the hardship of raising a hateful ingrate of a child.

“Arnaldo,” Carlo would say so many times even he got sick of hearing his own voice say, “Why noncha you be a gooda boy? Why make-a you Mama cry?”

“She ain’t my Mama.”

Then Maria would give Carlo that look that reminded him how dumb it had been to have confided in the boy that he had been adopted when he was an infant, gave him the name of Carlo’s father Arnaldo, told him his parents could not take care of him.

“Were they poorer than you?” asked the boy. “Is that why they wouldn’t keep me?”

But the Pezzuttis were good people. They would not tell Arnaldo his parents simply did not want him. A baby was too great a burden for two young people anxious to enjoy the single life. He would only be in the way. Instead, Carlo and Maria would nod their heads and say, “Very very poor.”

When Arnaldo was old enough, he took a job in the same textile plant where his foster father worked the looms and learned how to familiarize himself with the business of textiles. First he learned how to run the loom, then he was promoted to the office pool where he worked billing and inventory. The Pezzuttis had preferred he not quit high school at sixteen, but he had had his fill with academia. What good was school anyway! He was sure they looked down at him in a kind of contempt, real or imagined, because he was an adopted son, not a real Pezzutti, but a fake one who didn’t even know his real name or his true blood parents who had proven themselves so damn untrue to him.

In and out of trouble, despite success at the plant, Arnaldo tried the patience of Carlo who was a son of the old school where a parent, blood or otherwise, would not condone the disrespect and disobedience of their children. Finally Carlo had reached the end of the proverbial rope and warned Arnaldo, “You live under my roof, you do what I tell you! I make-a the rules, you understand? You no like, you see the door? Go then.”

Arnaldo walked through that door and never once looked back. With a glowing recommendation from the owner of the Chicago textile plant, he rode the train to Columbus, Ohio, and was quickly hired by the personnel manager at Tagor Textiles. Changing his name from Arnaldo Pezzutti, a name he detested, to Bryant West, he was prepared to live his own life, earn enough big bucks to be somebody others would look up to or at least fear. As for love, he didn’t include that in the things he dreamed of attaining. What his parents had done from the start was enough to convince him love was over-rated, that it promised only broken promises, and could not buy what the world was selling.

Before long Bryant West had moved from the billing department to the top floor where the executives and production managers all had spacious offices with impressive furniture and their own secretaries. After only three years, he had climbed his way to Head of Production, his name on a door plaque in gold letters, his new attire, suit, tie, white shirt. And his own private secretary, an attractive woman named Carol Harris, whom he married several months later.

He sat now at his desk, his brown-leather appointment book sprawled open to the week’s entries. In the background a CD played his favorite songs of “Credence Clearwater Revival.” He song-mouthed the words as John Fogerty wailed, “I see a bad moon a-rising. I see trouble on the way.”

He thought of himself as a kind of modern-day prophet who knew enough about life to warn the world, “I see earth quakes and lightnin'. I see bad times today.” And he knew when the shouting was over, when all would be said and done, even the great Bryant West would have to admit, “I know the end is coming soon. Look's like we're in for nasty weather.”

The gala event. Why didn’t Mack Tagor go in his place? Mack was Number 1. West was Number 2, trying real hard to one day fill the old man’s shoes. Look, Mack, if you love me like a son, make sure, Dad, it’s in writing that I pick up where you leave off.

###

He had an uneasy feeling about tonight.

Gloria was in her glory. She had spent at least two hours getting herself to look sexy enough to instill in the mind of every man at the gala enough impure thoughts to last a few weeks. Maybe more. The midnight-blue satin she wore dazzled like stars some god or angel tossed at it. She was looking good. His eyes played over those two globes peering over the horizon of her low-cut gown. He had to admit: Gloria Van Buren could still pass the Hefner test of pulchritude. She could still grace the cover of Hugh’s magazine the way she did some years ago when he’d stare bug-eyed at those glossy pages, wishing she was all his, in the flesh, forever and ever.

Of course, those days were gone. West was never one to really believe in forever. It was just a word. Nothing more. He spoke it but could never make it true for long. So his forevers could be counted in a handful of years. Already he was contemplating another marriage; this one, Wife Number Four, a younger woman already married, in fact, to one of his former clients who had jumped ship to do business with Margate Silk in Dayton. It would be a momentous satisfaction, he knew, to steal the man’s wife from under his nose. It would prove a double triumph, a kind of So you proved yourself disloyal by dropping Tagor, so now your wife proves disloyal by dropping you!

What was he feeling? The down to Gloria’s up? The two of them on opposite ends of the spectrum that measured what this gala would prove to be? She was whirling through the rooms, spinning the midnight-blue round and round her nyloned legs, singing some old Ronstadt, “Love Is a Rose,” and stopping every so often to throw kisses his way as if, catching them, he could get into the gala mood, find some fun in the company of fundraising goodie-two-shoes who will succeed in only one thing: to bore him, if not to tears, then to gagging. He would much prefer remaining home working on his plan to capture the heart and soul of his next wife, the scrumptious dark-haired queen of his dreams, Bella Scranton, soon-to-be ex-wife of turncoat Max Scranton.

Here he was, on the verge of adding a new one to his list of the women he married, and suddenly he recalled the first one. Carol Harris. As with Clara and Gloria and now Bella, he had fallen heavily for Carol. It was his way: when love knocked, he would tear open the door, devour the knocker, and then after he had gotten his fill of her charms and graces, spit her out so he could stuff his mouth with new love. West suspected he’d be playing that love game for as long as he’d live. And he also knew he would never apologize for it. West was West. Take it or leave it. No one had to like it. Not even Carol.

Last he heard she had left Columbus for parts unknown. At the end of their marriage things got bad. She refused to believe this man who had loved her so completely, swept her so totally off her feet into the heights of pleasure and promise wanted an out, a divorce, a parting of the ways. To her it did not seem possible. Where had all his love gone? How could a man change feelings like ties, like suits, like… It was impossible! And she fought him, refused to admit their relationship had run its course, ran out of steam, needed to be put down like a worthless race horse that no longer could deliver.

She never called the cops after he would drink too much and then slap her around till she cried herself to sleep. She never called the cops when he brought home women he had met in nightclubs and escorted home––his home! She never called the cops when he threatened to kill her if she did not sign the damn papers. “Sign them! Get out of my life!”

“Someday you’ll wish you hadn’t hurt me this way,” she predicted the last time he saw her on the steps of the courthouse, moments after a judge officially cut the bindings to a marriage that was long since over. “Time will heal all that you made me feel, but time will also bring justice when it decides the moment is right.”

Carol disappeared. None of her old friends he’d occasionally meet ever mentioned her again. It was as if she had literally vanished into another world far from him and his new life with Clara, then Gloria, and soon enough, Bella.

Bryant West shook his head to clear it of Carol’s face and Carol’s parting words. He sipped the scotch he had poured to take the edge off the gala he would be attending in less than an hour. He wanted to feel a defensive buzz in his head, something to blot out the throng of galateers who lined up at the door like wedding attendees with their pat little praises, their empty “So happy to meet you! To see you again! To share an evening! To––” He stared into the scotch sluicing between the clinking cubes of ice and then drained it down his throat.

“Ready, Bry?”

He put the glass down on the green desk blotter and smiled woodenly.

When they arrived, it was the way all these gala events began. The line of greeters, the band playing high-brow concertos softly and yet to him obstrusively, reminding him of the music Maria Pezzutti loved listening to as she cooked her macaroni, hummed along with the radio’s classical station he detested. He wished he had downed at least one more scotch before they left and promised himself he would drink his gala share.

Finally one of the members of the fundraising committee, microphone in hand, stepped up to center stage and tapped the mic so that those attending would take it as a call for silence, for attention, which everyone did little by little till the entire dining hall of the Regal Palms was quiet as a church.

“Good evening, everyone. My name is Rose Wyatt. I am your hostess tonight, wishing all of you a wonderful evening, and to remind you that once again this year we are calling for your generosity in the name of the children of St. Dominick’s Orphanage. Nearly all of us were blessed in our childhoods with loving parents and normal home lives, a luxury these orphans do not have. We can make it up to them tonight. We can pour out our hearts to them by taking out our checkbooks and writing out kind contributions. Thank God, we are financially able to do this. It is a blessing to both give and to know the one receiving will be blessed as well.”

West sat in the front row of the assembled chairs. Beside him, her hand which she wriggled inside his, sat Gloria. He played a game in his head, pretended he was on some distant island waiting to be rescued. He watched the sun blinking his eyes closed, the night sky slowly advancing and turning everything dark and silent. Gloria poked him open-eyed. He sneered at her.

“And tonight we have with us a man who has done so much for the orphans of his city. In fact, Mr. Attilio Calfano single-handedly financed the huge orphanage in Tampa that houses over three hundred children.”

He knew that name! Tagor had spoken of him. A man of means whom Tagor had mistaken for a legitimate businessman too many years ago when Calfano still lived in Columbus. A made man. One of those men who had worked his way up in crime and now sat comfortably in the family’s highest seat.

“And some of you,” Ms. Wyatt continued, “may remember his wife, Carol, who once upon a time lived in Columbus too. In fact, she worked for Tagor Textiles, didn’t she, Mr. West?”

He could feel his heart pumping so hard and fast, he worried it might burst. Carol! Calfano! How could both of them be spoken in the same damn breath? She was married to a mafia don? This woman I had thrown away?

“Mr. West?” Rose Wyatt was calling to him, but all he could feel was fear. He remembered her words about time and justice and how they would meet up at the right moment and he trembled thinking, Is this the right moment? Now?

“Yes,” he finally replied. “A long time ago.”

And then Carol––once his Carol, the woman he swore eternal love, the woman he scorned, abused, discarded––that same Carol was now flanking Rose Wyatt, taking the mic from her hands and introducing herself, not to the audience, but to Bryant West.

“A long time ago. You’re right, Mr. West. How time seems to fly. But here we are tonight, homecoming of sorts, isn’t it?”

Bryant sat immobile. He could not even venture a nod.

“I promised you I would come back to Columbus when the moment was right, didn’t I, Mr. West?”

He didn’t need a road map to figure out where this all was heading. Every dog has its day. West figured now this day would be Carol‘s. His next wife would have to remain Max Scranton’s wife. Bella would never be his. Nor would Gloria who sat beside him totally confused, her eyes trying to look for some explanation in his eyes that he kept turned away from her as they stared up at Carol’s smiling face.

Once more irony rears its ugly head. You had it all; you lost it all, he told himself. And now it was goodbye, Mack Tagor and Tagor Textiles. Goodbye again to little Arnaldo Pezzutti who hated his old name and those dumb, poor wops who tried to raise him to be dirt like them. Hello again, Carol. Hello, Mr. Calfano. Welcome to this gala celebration.