[6/7/2011] Perelman Tonight: The author's next phase plus Part 1 of "Acres and Pains" (continued)

"In a scant fifteen years I have acquired a superb library of mortgages, mostly first editions, and the finest case of sacroiliac known to science. In that period I made several important discoveries. The first was that there are no chiggers in an air-cooled movie and that a corner delicatessen at dusk is more exciting than any rainbow."

-- from Chapter One of Acres and Pains

(from The Most of S. J. Perelman)

PART II

1944-1950

The ensuing pieces were published, with one exception, in the Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, and Holiday. The very first compendium, Acres and Pains, was the by-product of a dozen years of country living. Of it, critics have been gracious enough to say that it is irradiated by a tenderness, a nobility of vision that recall Ella Wheeler Wilcox at her most glutinous. Throughout its pages resound the cheep of the junco, the croak of bullfrogs, and the wail of the oppidan who has been taken to the cleaners. It is not too remarkable, therefore, that after my exposure to rural highbinders, I should have sought solace in early fantasies -- specifically, in the novels (and later the movies) of my adolescence appraised under the running head of "Cloudland Revisited." The omnivorous reader, dismayed at the omission of his childhood favorites like Voynich's The Gadfly, Girl of the Limberlost, and The House of Bondage by Reginald Wright Kauffman, may suppose that I overlooked them. He is mistaken; from Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth up to Viña Delmar, from Warwick Deeping right back to Kirk Munro, I reread every glorious bit of bombast. One rhinestoned tidbit only lingers in my memory, from an author I can no longer identify. It ran: "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's bureau that morning. Wide-eyed and distraught, she stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."

Included toward the end of this section is Westward Ha!, the record of a trip around the world in 1947, and two chapters from a subsequent journey in 1949, The Swiss Family Perelman. Their appearance in print, it is proper to note, aroused a storm of protest in several quarters. Certain Venetians contended that I had plagiarized Marco Polo shamelessly, while some handkerchief-heads in Muscat asserted that I had glommed whole pages from the works of the great fifteenth-century Arab geographer, Ibn Battuta. Rather than defile myself with mudslinging, I deposited the royalties from the books in an escrow account at my bankers (Messrs. Cox & Baring, Ltd.), with instructions to pay them to any heirs of these ancients who might materialize. Both coins are still there, firmly secured by Scotch tape, which effectively demonstrates, I think, the absurdity of the charges. So much for chiselers, whether Venetians, Arabs, or publishers.

* * *

Acres and Pains

ONE

If you can spare the time to drive sixty miles into the backwoods of eastern Pennsylvania, crouch down in a bed of poison ivy, and peer through the sumacs, you will be rewarded by an interesting sight. What you will see is a middle-aged city dweller, as lean and bronzed as a shad's belly (I keep a shad's belly hanging up in the barn for purposes of comparison), gnawing his fingernails and wondering how to abandon a farm. Outside of burning down the buildings, I have tried every known method to dispose of it. I have raffled it off, let the taxes lapse, staked it on the turn of a card, and had it condemned by the board of health. I have cut it up into building lots which proved unsalable, turned it over to picnic parties who promptly turned it back. I have sidled up to strangers and whispered hoarsely, "Psst, brother, want to buy a hot farm?" only to have them call a policeman. One rainy day, in desperation, I even tried desertion. Lowering a dory, I shouted, "Stern all for your lives!" and began sculling away rapidly. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to remove the flowers that grew in the boat, and nightfall found me still on the lawn with a backache and a fearful head cold.

I began my career as a country squire with nothing but a high heart, a flask of citronella, and a fork for toasting marshmallows in case supplies ran low. In a scant fifteen years I have acquired a superb library of mortgages, mostly first editions, and the finest case of sacroiliac known to science. In that period I made several important discoveries. The first was that there are no chiggers in an air-cooled movie and that a corner delicatessen at dusk is more exciting than any rainbow. On a fine night, no matter how fragrant the scent of the nicotiana, I can smell the sharp pungency of a hot corned-beef sandwich all the way from New York. I also learned that to lock horns with Nature, the only equipment you really need is the constitution of Paul Bunyan and the basic training of a commando. Most of the handbooks on country living are written by flabby men at the Waldorf-Astoria, who lie in bed and dictate them to secretaries. The greatest naturalist I know lives in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. He hasn't raised his window shades in twenty years.

Actually I never would have found myself in the middle of eighty-three unimproved acres had I been a bit less courteous. One day back in 1932, I was riding a crosstown trolley in Manhattan when I noticed a little old lady swaying before me, arms laden with bundles. Though almost thirty, she was very well preserved; her hair was ash-blond, her carmine lips wore a mocking pout, and there was such helpless innocence in her eyes that I sprang to her rescue. Dislodging the passenger next to me, I offered her the seat and we fell into conversation. It soon developed that we had both been reared in the country and shared a mutual love for wildflowers and jam. At the next stop, I persuaded her to accompany me to a wildflower-and-jam store where we could continue our chat. It was only after our fifth glass of jam that my new friend confided her desperate plight. Her aged parents were about to be evicted from their farm unless she could raise five hundred dollars immediately. Through sheer coincidence, I happened to have drawn that amount from the bank to buy my wife a fur coat. Knowing she would have done likewise, I pressed it on the fair stranger and signed some sort of document, the exact nature of which escaped me. After a final round of jam, she presented me with her card and left, vowing eternal gratitude. On examining it, I noticed a curious inscription in fine print. It read, "Licensed Real-Estate Agent."

I still have the card in my upper bureau drawer. Right next to it, in a holster, is a Smith & Wesson .38 I'm holding in escrow for the lady the next time we meet. And we will -- don't you worry. I've got plenty of patience. That's one thing you develop in the country.

* * *

TOMORROW IN PERELMAN TONIGHT: More "Acres and Pains": "Outside of a spring lamb trotting into a slaughterhouse, there is nothing in the animal kingdom as innocent and foredoomed as the new purchaser of a country place"


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#