going on in my life. He saw it all—the drinking, the back-and-forth flirtations, the rowdy repartee, the general depravity of theater folk. I’d hoped that Walter might get pulled into the fun (certainly the showgirls tried to lure my handsome brother into their embraces many times), but he was far too straitlaced to take the bait of pleasure. Sure, he’d have a cocktail or two, but he wasn’t about to cavort. Instead of joining us, he seemed to monitor us.
I could have asked Anthony to tone down his carnal attentions to me so as not to stir up Walter’s disfavor, but Anthony wasn’t the sort of guy who was going to change his behavior to make anybody feel more comfortable. So my boyfriend still grabbed me, kissed me, and slapped my bottom just as much as ever—whether Walter was in the room or not.
My brother watched, judged, and then finally delivered this condemning analysis of my boyfriend: “Anthony doesn’t seem very marriageable, Vee.”
And now I couldn’t get that weighty word—marriageable—out of my mind. I should say that I had never before even thought of marrying Anthony, nor was I sure that I would ever want to. But suddenly, with Walter’s disapproval hanging over my head, it mattered that my boyfriend wasn’t seen as marriageable. I felt insulted by the word, and maybe a little challenged by it. I felt that I should take this problem on and solve it.
You know—clean up my man a bit.
With this in mind, I had started making suggestions to Anthony—not too subtly, I’m afraid—about how he could boost his status in the world. Wouldn’t he feel more grown-up if he didn’t sleep on a couch? Wouldn’t he be more attractive if he wore slightly less oil in his hair? Wouldn’t he seem more refined if he wasn’t always chewing gum? How about if his speech was somewhat less slangy? For instance, when my brother, Walter, had asked Anthony if he held any career aspirations outside of show business, Anthony had grinned, and said, “Not so’s you’d notice.” Might there have been a more cultivated way to answer this question?
Anthony knew exactly what I was doing—he was no dummy—and he hated it. He accused me of trying to get him to “turn square” in order to make my brother happy, and he wasn’t having it. And it certainly didn’t endear him to Walter.
In those few weeks Walter stayed at the Lily, the tension between my brother and my boyfriend grew so thick you could have busted it up with a sledgehammer. It was an issue of class, an issue of education, an issue of sexual threat, an issue of brother versus lover. But some of it, too, I suspect, was just a matter of unfettered, competitive young maleness. They each had a lot of pride and a lot of machismo, which made every room in New York City too small for the both of them.
Finally it all came to a head one night when a group of us had gone out for drinks at Sardi’s after the show. Anthony had been manhandling me at the bar (to my delight and pleasure, of course) when he caught Walter giving him the stink-eye. Next thing I knew, the two young men were chest to chest.
“You want me to back outta this deal with your sister, dontcha?” Anthony demanded, pushing a little farther into Walter’s space. “Well, just you try to make me do it, captain.”
The way Anthony was grinning at Walter in that moment—leering, really—had an unmistakable edge of threat. For the first time, I could see the Hell’s Kitchen street fighter in my boyfriend. It was also the first time I’d ever seen Anthony look like he cared about something. And in that moment, what he cared about was not me—but the pleasure of punching my brother in the face.
Walter held Anthony’s gaze without blinking and replied in a low tone, “If you’re trying to take a crack at me, son, don’t do it with words.”
I watched Anthony size up my brother—taking note of the football shoulders and the wrestling neck—and think better of it. Anthony dropped his eyes and backed down. He gave a careless laugh and said, “We got no beef here, captain. You’re all right, you’re all right.”
Then he slid back into his customary air of nonchalance and stepped away.
Anthony had made the right call. My brother, Walter, was many things (an elitist, a puritan, and uptight as all hell), but he was not