Wild Nights! Read online

  Gaunt-faced old John Clemens, in cold storage these many decades in his dour Presbyterian heaven, would look down with abashed admiration at his red-haired son’s achievement, would he?

  Mr. Clemens laughed to think so. “‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’”

  Following The Mysterious Stranger, Mr. Twain would embark upon a project to arouse enormous excitement at his publisher’s, and among readers in America: a revisit of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and Becky, an energetic, heart-warming New Adventures of. “This, a runaway best seller. Perhaps I will publish it myself, and not be content with ‘royalties.’”

  These leaping, vaulting thoughts, these hopes were to be attributed to little Maddy Avery. Yet actual words, on sheets of foolscap, came with crabbed slowness. Though Grandpa was inspired by his prettiest Angelfish, he was also distracted by her: obsessive thoughts of her. Damn! For perhaps he could not entirely trust her not to share the secret—sacred—place with someone else; a “boy friend,” as the vulgar slang would have it. Nor did he like it that the girl’s mother so politely declined his reiterated invitations to visit him at 21 Fifth Avenue, where he might instruct her daughter in the innocent art of billiards; and seemed to have declined his invitation to be his house guests at Monadnock, Mass., where he and Clara would be renting a summer place. Other guests would keep the elderly, restless Mr. Clemens preoccupied, of course!—and among them, several very charming Angelfish—but he would miss little Maddy, and he quite resented it.

  21 Fifth Avenue

  June 26, 1906

  Dearest Angelfish,

  Are you quite certain, my dear, that your Momma will not consent to bring you to Monadnock, for a week in July? Your doting Grandpa will pay rail fare, & other expenses, happily!

  Little Maddy & Grandpa might tramp about the hills, & hunt butterflies with nets; while your Momma, who does not look like the type to “tramp,” could sit relaxed upon the terrace overlooking the hills, & be quite content, I am sure.

  Ah! Do ask, my dear; I am quite vexed otherwise.

  Love & blots (many blots!) from your Grandpa,

  SLC

  21 Fifth Avenue

  June 29, 1906

  Dear, dearest Maddy,

  I have been troubled, not to have heard from you, dear. My daughter Clara is very annoyed, I have put off our removal to Monadnock for a week, with the excuse that my commissioned piece for Harper’s must be completed before we leave.

  Our last meeting at the Secret Place was precious to me, tho’ seeming very long ago now. Dearest Madelyn, recall

  No secret

  Is sacred

  Except shared

  ’Twixt thee & me

  For Eternity!

  Your loving Grandpa SLC

  21 Fifth Avenue

  June 30, 1906

  Dearest of all Angelfish—

  Forgive me! Your doting Grandpa realized only this morning, dear Maddy, that today is a Very Special Day for you: your birthday. And so I have directed that fourteen “ivory white” roses, one for each year of your precious life, will be sent to you at once with a greeting of HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR MADDY.

  Grandpa has been vexed not to see his favorite granddaughter in some time. Please do come to the Special Place tomorrow at 4 P.M.? More gifts shall come to you, I promise.

  Do not break my heart, dear one. It is a hoary old “smoker’s heart” & quite the worse for wear.

  I will seal this letter with blots (kisses!) & hurry to post it, that, if I am very lucky, it will reach my Birthday Girl before her birthday is quite ended.

  Your loving Grandpa,

  SLC

  21 Fifth Avenue

  June 30, 1906

  Afternoon

  Dear Birthday-Granddaughter,

  Tomorrow when we meet (as I dearly hope we will!), I will bring several of Admiral Clemens’ special cakes, with magical properties: for my beloved Angelfish to nibble, to keep her always young & so very dear; & always mine; that she might fit into the crook of Grandpa’s arm, better yet, so very secretly & cuddly, in Grandpa’s very armpit with the grizzled-gray hairs that are so ticklish. (For there my Suzy pretended to hide, when she was a wee girl.)

  Your loving Grandpa has not slept these several nights in the fear that his most tender dream will vanish & his airy castles topple to the earth, yet again!

  Your loving Grandpa,

  SLC

  We are all insane, each in our own way. After some deliberation Mr. Clemens decided not to include this gnomic utterance in a postscript but to mail the letter at once.

  Two days later, Mr. Clemens interceded the postman on the front walk at 21 Fifth Avenue, taking from him a number of letters of which but one, in a cream-colored envelope addressed in a schoolgirl hand to “Mr. Samuel Clemens” and exuding a faint, sweet fragrance, was of interest to him.

  “Papa?”—there stood Clara close behind him, observing him sternly. “You’ve gone out into the street in your dressing gown and slippers, and your hair wild and uncombed, yet again. Really, Papa!”

  So distracted did the elderly Mr. Clemens appear, Clara had to wonder if he recognized her.

  Upstairs in his bedchamber, Mr. Clemens hastily opened the envelope. His practiced eye leapt to the signature, Your loving Granddaughter Maddy, which was consoling, but the letter was a disagreeable shock.

  1088 Park Avenue

  July 3, 1906

  Dearest Grandpa Clemens,

  You are SO KIND to send such beautiful roses. Thank you THANK YOU, dear Grandpa! (Not one of my other presents meant nearly so much to me.) I am so sorry that I have missed seeing you in our Secret Place, and I regret that Momma declines your gracious invitations. (There is some unhappiness in the Avery family, dear Mr. Clemens, I will not burden you with, at this time.) Dearest Grandpa, I will be in our Secret Place on Friday, and will hope very hard to see you then. Grandpa’s magical cakes will be a treat, I know!

  Except I am sixteen, dear Grandpa; and not fourteen as you have been thinking. Already it is a bit late for “nibbling” Grandpa’s magical cakes, I’m afraid. But sixteen is a good age, I think. I will be much freer, Momma must concede!

  Hastily I must seal this with MANY BLOTS, for Momma is lurking outside my room; and is very jealous, you know. (As my school friends are jealous of my beautiful Angelfish pin, indeed! For I have boasted, Admiral Clemens gave it to me.)

  Dear Grandpa, I am anxious to see you on Friday, if that is possible, for my dear Grandpa is quite the most precious being in all the world to me, and no one’s opinion means a straw except yours, whether I am a “budding poetess” or not, for my secret identity is, I am the little girl who loves you more than all of the world.

  Your loving Granddaughter Maddy

  In his state of shock, Mr. Clemens stumbled to his writing table, where for some dazed minutes he sat without moving, as if paralyzed; then fumbled to take up his pen, to write in a rapid, haphazard scrawl,

  Dear Miss Avery,

  Friday is not possible, unfortunately. My daughter Clara insists we must leave at once for the country, & is already badly vexed, we have lingered so long in this city quite stuporous with heat.

  Your devoted friend,

  SLC

  This terse letter Mr. Clemens quickly sealed, and took away to be posted, for he feared opening it, and amending it; but later that day, having shut his bedchamber door against the ever-vigilante Clara, he wrote, in a more controlled hand,

  21 Fifth Avenue

  July 5, 1906

  Dear Madelyn,

  I am pleased that you found my little gift of roses so beautiful; yet must apologize, the bouquet was less plenteous than you had reason to expect. Apologies, my dear! But then S.L.C. is an old man, as we have known.

  Sincerely,

  SLC

  Again, Mr. Clemens hurriedly sealed this letter, and limped out onto Fifth Avenue, using his cane, to post it. And in the morning, after a miserable night of sleeplessness, wracking coughs, cigars and Scotc
h whiskey, in a fever he wrote,

  21 Fifth Avenue

  July 6, 1906

  Dear Madelyn Avery—

  Sixteen!—that will not do, you know. A most beguiling little witch, to give no hint of your age—

  It will not be possible for us to meet again, I am very sorry. Mrs. Avery may now relax her vigilance—

  I regret that I will not be able to peruse your verse any longer, dear Madelyn—as I am expected to deliver to my publisher a “major” new work, very soon.

  Sixteen is something of an awkward age—is it not? You are both a schoolgirl & a “young lady”—& soon to be schooled in witchery. Your Grandpa might regret, he failed to provide you with magical cakes to nibble in time; & so the old fool must refrain from sending you a final blot, for that would not be appropriate any longer—would it?

  When Sam Clemens was sixteen, a century ago, in the raw State of Missouri, he was obliged to be an adult; & to work a ten-hour day, at the least, when he was lucky. In New York City of our time, in the civilized domains of Park Avenue, etcetera, a sixteen-year-old young lady is poised on the brink of “fiancée”—“bride”—“wife”—indeed, “mother”: quite beyond the old Admiral’s jurisdiction.

  If you wish to wear your Angelfish pin, my dear, I hope that you will not go about boasting of its origins—

  Unless—there is a magic in such wishes—you might go back to fourteen—to thirteen!—for there is such innocence in your dear face, there could be no impropriety.

  Auf Wiedersehen, & good night—

  SLC

  So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth away. So toppled my airy castle to the earth and left me stricken and forlorn.

  Ah, Sam Clemens was a revered man among men! A man with countless friends of whom many were very wealthy. Yet Mr. Clemens’ closest friend was Mr. John, whom he’d met long ago in 1861 in Carson City, Nevada, in a rowdy and drunken poker game.

  Mr. John was a perpetual houseguest at 21 Fifth Avenue. Mr. John traveled with Mr. Clemens into the country. Mr. John listened closely to the applause erupting in Mr. Clemens’ presence: how protracted, how ebullient, how punctuated by whistles and cries of Bravo! Bravo! Mr. John was not invariably impressed. Mr. John was by nature not very impressionable. Mr. John was a cold-hearted sonofabitch, in fact. Yet Mr. John was Mr. Clemens’ dearest comfort. Mr. John nestled snug in Mr. Clemens’ inside coat pocket. Mr. John was warmed by Mr. Clemens’ blood. Mr. John slept beneath Mr. Clemens’ goose-feather pillow. In the night, Mr. Clemens was wakened shuddering, for his skin had turned cold, his blood-warmth drained from him by the chill of Mr. John.

  In the filigree-framed mirror Mr. Clemens stood with Mr. John tremulous in his right hand, barrel to his right temple.

  Mr. John?

  Yes, Mr. Clemens?

  Are you “at the ready,” Mr. John?

  I believe so, Mr. Clemens.

  You will not flinch, Mr. John?

  Sir, if you do not flinch, I will not flinch.

  Is that a promise, Mr. John?

  Why no, sir. It is not a promise.

  What? Why not? Are you not my Mr. John?

  Indeed yes, Mr. Clemens. Which is why I cannot be trusted.

  Mr. John would be discovered by Clara in a locked cabinet in Mr. Clemens’ bedchamber, after Mr. Clemens’ death, six bullets intact.

  I am alive, still—am I? Is this life?

  Mr. Clemens withdrew to Monadnock where, to fill up the hole inside him, he was determined to write.

  In Monadnock Mr. Clemens took up again, with the fever of madness, as with muttered curses, the turgid tale of the Viennese-gentleman Satan; with Mr. John as his solace, though the cold-hearted sonofabitch could scarcely be trusted, he managed to finish, in a fever of loathing, a ranting polemic titled “The United States of Lyncherdom,” which no magazine would publish during his lifetime; he exhausted himself and all who attended to him in that household on tiptoe, with his scattered imaginings of The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: “For surely there is a God-damned best seller here. And surely, it is time.” Yet in the notebook in a wandering and dream-like hand Huck comes back 60 years old from nobody knows where—& crazy. Thinks he is a boy again, & scans every face for Tom & Becky, etc. Tom comes, at last, 60, from wandering the world & finds Huck, & together they talk the old times, both are desolate, life has been a failure, all that was lovable, all that was beautiful, is under the mould. They die together.

  “Well, Papa! You must be flattered, your Park Avenue pen-pal is most tenacious.”

  There stood Mr. Clemens’ devoted daughter Clara, hands clasped in a lace handkerchief that looked as if it had been strangled.

  Dear Clara glaring-eyed and smirking. Yet, in the sprawling country place in the scenic Monadnock hills, where Mr. Clemens took care to surround himself with a succession of lively houseguests including the Hirshfelds, the Wallaces, and canny Mrs. Pope and her daughter Molly, calmly the elderly gentleman received the letters forwarded from 21 Fifth Avenue as from another, left-behind life: cream-colored and lightly scented envelopes addressed in an eager schoolgirl hand to Mr. Samuel Clemens. Too elderly, and too much the gentleman, to rise to the bait of Clara’s sneering tone but calmly taking away the cream-colored envelopes with his morning’s stack of mail, to open and peruse in the privacy of his bedchamber where Clara dared not venture. At least not while Mr. Clemens was on the premises.

  “‘Tenacious’—yes! As a bloodsucker to the carotid.”

  1088 Park Avnue

  July 7, 1906

  Dear Mr. Clemens,

  I am conscious of having offended you, for your letter of the other day that had no date but seemed to have been written on July 5 was so abrupt—have read & read it with eyes dimmed by tears—I will not wear my beautiful Angelfish pin—if you do not wish—I will return it to you—if so instructed—

  It may be that Momma will be taking me away to the Jersey shore—Momma’s family at Bayhead, on the ocean—this year, I dont wish to go—

  I wish—dear Mr. Clemens—that I could “turn the clock back”—I think you would not be angry with me then

  May I send love & blots? For I am feeling so lonely, for I am the little girl who loves Mr. Clemens Who else am I

  Your Devoted Friend,

  Madelyn Avery

  1088 Park Avenue

  July 8, 1906

  Dearest Mr. Clemens,

  I have just now received your letter of July 6—it is horrible to me, to think that there has been a misunderstanding—Mr. Clemens, I did not think your lovely bouquet of roses was “less plenteous” than expected but wished only to inform you that I am not fourteen but sixteen. Dear Grandpa, I meant no harm!

  I hope that you will forgive me? I am not sure what I have done that is wrong. I am very stupid I know. At school our teacher praises my work & there is this buzzing in my head Oh but you are stupid, & you are ugly & it seems that my teacher is mocking me & all the other girls know. Momma has scolded me lately, for it seems that I can do nothing right, Momma says I am “clumsy”—I am always “blundering.” If I thought that my dear Admiral Clemens was unhappy with me or scorned me I would be struck to the heart & like Joan of Arc I would welcome any hurt to be done to me.

  Your Devoted Friend,

  Madelyn Avery

  1088 Park Avenue

  July 11, 1906

  Dear, dearest Mr. Clemens,

  Rereading your letter, I seem to feel that you are unhappy with me because I am sixteen. Please don’t stop loving me Mr. Clemens, you are so kindly a person, my dearest “Grandpa” who would not hurt me? May I send you love & blots? Admiral-Grandpa has teased to make me laugh, please when I wake from my sad dream, let this be so.

  Your Devoted Friend,

  Madelyn Avery

  1088 Park Avenue

  July 15, 1906

  Dear Mr. Clemens,

  I believe that you are away in the country—“Monadnock”—which I have not seen—where you were so kind to invite Momma & m
e—but we could not visit Oh I wish that I could be there now, dear Admiral Clemens! It would be so wonderful to see your kindly face, & hear your voice again dear Grandpa it is very lonely here

  You promised to teach me billards dear Grandpa have you forgot

  I wish I knew why you are angry with me. I had thought that sixteen was a hopeful age for it would allow more freedom, even Momma must concede. When you gave me books & encouraged my poems, Mr. Clemens it seemed you had hope for me, in two years I will go away to college & be a “young lady”—I had not thought that was shamful

  I hope that you will write to me soon, I am feeling very sad for I am the little girl who loves you,

  Your Devoted Friend, Madelyn Avery

  223 Oceanview Road

  Bayhead, New Jersey

  July 23, 1906

  Dearest Mr. Clemens,

  As no letters have been forwarded to me here, at my grandparents’ summer place, I am fearful that you have not written; & that you continue to be displeased with me. I wished to say that in your letter of July 6 which I will cherish for all of my life, you are so correct, sixteen is an “awkward” age, & a very unhappy age. I am not conscious that “witchery” will come to me but other things will come, unwished for. I am ashamed, that I have become this age, that I could not help. I have cried myself to sleep many nights, I feel that my heart is raw & sore like something scraped. Dearest “Grandpa.” I promise I will not be a “fiancée”—“bride”—“wife”—“mother.” Not ever!