All Fall Down

A Novel

James Leo Herlihy

• Publisher: RosettaBooks
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780795351389
• eBook ISBN: 9780795351211
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A teenage boy's image of his older brother is shattered by tragedy in this "remarkable first novel" by the author of Midnight Cowboy ( New York Herald Tribune Book Review).
 
Some families get a reputation for being strange, and so it is with the Williamses of Seminary Street. The father, once an outspoken socialist, now keeps to his rocks glass. The mother has a reputation for scaring children. But the older son, named Berry-berry, is the most whispered-about of them all. A traveling vagabond, he's known for his cleft chin, loose morals, and streaks of violence.
 
Then there's sixteen-year-old Clinton, who spends his time filling notebooks with every conversation he can overhear, word for word. When Clinton escapes the confines of home to find his big brother, he hopes to make a connection more real than anything he's put down on paper. But finding Berry-berry in coastal Florida will set off a tragic series of events that will stay with Clinton, and his family, forever.
 
"There is something very wonderful about this book; it has a luminous thing that is the best thing in writing or any kind of art." —Tennessee Williams
 
"Herlihy writes with an edge of iron." —Nelson Algren, National Book Award–winning author of The Man with the Golden Arm

part 1

IT IS KNOWN that in every neighborhood in the United States there is at least one house that is special. Special because it is haunted, or because of an act of violence that took place there. Or there are thought to be crazy persons living in it. Or Communists. Or someone in it is known to have served a jail term. All children, good and bad, know these stories and help to circulate them. Go to any small child on the block and ask him where such a house is located: he will know. And if you question him on Seminary Street in Cleveland, Ohio, chances are he will lead you to the house the Williamses live in.

A sign on the front door says:

LICENSED REAL ESTATE DEALER
AND
NOTARY PUBLIC

But since outsiders are seldom seen going through that door, the sign is believed to be a cover-up for some unholy activity, very likely of a seditious nature.

The Williams house is big. It is made of wood. No architect had anything to do with the designing of it. Some big development organization in the Twenties turned out more than a hundred just like it; so there is nothing unusual about the place. —But if you were to believe a fraction of the stories that are told, the house might take on a peculiar look, even the bushes out front would seem different: children claim they bear poison flowers in the spring.

They may even tell you about a lamp that often burns long into the night in one of the basement windows. Although curtains cover every possible peephole, these youngsters claim to know just what that grinning old man, the father, does down there. The stories do vary to some extent: one child will swear to you that in the Williams cellar is a small but powerful radio station on which he receives messages from some subversive organization; another maintains that Mr. Williams prepares pamphlets and speeches designed to agitate against the government; still another prefers to believe that secret meetings are held there, and that entrance and egress is achieved only through underground tunnels. Whatever clashes there may be in these childish imaginings, one belief is shared by all: the old man represents some real threat to the American form of government and what’s more, he does not believe in God. This much is known; because Mr. Williams, on a number of occasions, perhaps rendered incautious by alcohol, had, himself, in a public saloon, not only admitted to but announced certain political and religious views, which were then interpreted by his listeners and disseminated on the street.

The old man had two sons. One of them, the older, was called Berry-berry.

Berry-berry was known in the neighborhood to be a wild person, with narrow eyes and a cleft chin, who traveled around getting arrested in Covington, Kentucky; Biloxi, Mississippi, and other strange places. The Williamses’ arrival on Seminary Street took place just a month after Berry-berry’s twenty-first birthday, and it was at this age that he began his travels. A bedroom was prepared for him in the new house, but the young man had not even slept in it. His Western Stories were placed on his bookshelf, and his locked cedar chest full of childhood belongings, mostly weapons and tools, was placed at the foot of his bed. But the books were never again opened and the cedar chest was never unlocked. Since the move he had paid certain irregular and surprise visits to Cleveland, and it was on these occasions that the neighbors caught their brief glimpses of him: once, he was seen standing at a second-story window of the house, peeing on the porch roof; and he was known to be responsible for a good deal of door slamming at odd hours of the night. During one particular summer he was often observed arriving and departing in a blue Ford pickup truck; this vehicle might have aroused less speculation had it not been for the fact that, parked right behind it, was a 1929 Dodge touring car, painted a flawless shiny black, with a FOREIGN CONSUL sticker on the windshield. Berry-berry was often seen with the “ambassador” herself, a beautiful woman who wore a variety of large and expensive hats. Actual clues to the nature of his association with this woman were meager, but a number of full-blown tales grew up around them.

In plain fact, the owner of this car was not an ambassador or any other kind of important personage. Her name was Echo O’Brien, she was a receptionist for an insurance company in Toledo, Ohio, and the FOREIGN CONSUL sticker happened to be on the windshield when she first bought the Dodge in a used-car lot. Her part in the story of the Williamses will be told in its proper place. The point is simply this:

There was often a wide and ridiculous difference between what took place in the Williams house and what the people of Seminary Street believed.

Now, the younger son was Clinton.

Clinton Williams was not yet a full-fledged person. He was a small boy with big quick eyes. Angular in body and in manner, uncertain of himself and puzzled by others, he was as graceless as a new bird.

Although these qualities are not unusual in a young person, Clinton was nonetheless the recipient of many deferential smiles on the street; they said he was not quite right, and showed their sympathy by these extra kindnesses. He was of high-school age, but attended no high school or any other school: the boy simply stayed home. As he did not seem to lack intelligence, his truancy was generally held to be a sign of some more sinister defect, perhaps a serious nervous disorder. It was known, for instance, that he occupied himself with the keeping of little notebooks in which he wrote down every word that was said to him or spoken within his hearing. This “nervous habit” became known because such a notebook, marked Number 142 (indicating the existence of at least 141 others), was found at the Aloha Sweet Shop on Mound Road and read by the manager, both clerks, and several customers before Clinton came back the next morning to claim it. He maintained to the manager that it was all part of a “fictitious” book he was writing, but since the manager had found his own name in it, and many of the things he himself had said, the story did not seem to hold water. —From then on, when Clinton passed the Aloha Sweet Shop, he walked on the other side of the street.

The fourth Williams was the mother of these two boys.

Annabel Williams was generally believed to be a sane and law-abiding person, and no unusual stories of her behavior were circulated. Her head rested on her shoulders at a deliberate and sensible angle. Annabel was thin and pretty for a woman who must be nearly fifty years old, and her hair-dos and dresses were all of the sort worn only by sensible and law-abiding women. She was never seen on the street without a full make-up; and she was a churchgoer. Therefore, if Annabel Williams was discussed at all unfavorably it was only by reason of her marriage to a man who would, some said, overthrow the United States government by force, and gladly; with one wild son whose whereabouts and doings were as a rule unknown or unsavory; with one odd son who had nervous habits like writing everything down and might one day go berserk; and with an intermittent visitor, the strangely beautiful driver of the 1929 Dodge touring car, who was the consul for God alone knew which foreign power.

At any rate, Mrs. Williams’ slate was clean—except for one trivial event that took place the day they moved in:

A flock of children gathered around the Seminary Street place to watch the Italians unload furniture from the van. Annabel hunted through a kitchen barrel, as yet unpacked, and found in it a box of marshmallows. She tried to make friends with these new children by passing out the marshmallows to them. But as she did so, something happened in the truck: a bird cage got smashed. It was a cage made by Berry-berry in an eighth-grade woodcrafting class, a fragile thing to begin with, and not large enough to be comfortably lived in by any bird. But Annabel scolded the workmen in such a way that the children withdrew and widened their circle. And then some bold child, a boy of eight, came forward and held out his hand: “Ma’am, I didn’t get a marshmallow!” Annabel turned to him in irritation. “Here!” she said sharply, “take the whole package!” But what she handed the child was the broken cage. Frightened, he dropped it at her feet and withdrew quickly to hide behind the other children. Annabel instantly realized her mistake and tried to make reparations. But the children backed off. One by one, and in small groups, they disappeared into driveways and behind parked cars. From where they watched, the children knew she was crying as she called to them: “There’s lots more left, there’s a whole bottom layer. Doesn’t anybody like marshmallows any more?” But children are suspicious of grownups who weep; and chances are, word got around that very morning that something was wrong with the new lady.

Seminary Street had hold of half the truth, and this was the half that made it wary of the entire Williams family. You could not say it was unfriendly to them. Most of the grown-up people made a point of smiling at any Williams they met on the street or in a store or gas station; and though certain older children might, on a dare, run up on the porch and try to peep into a window at night, not even the boldest of them would ever make an out-and-out nuisance of himself on their property, or repeat to any Williams the tales that went around.

As a result of all this politeness, only Clinton, of the Williamses, had any hint of the fact that he and his family lived under this special scrutiny. And he was too concerned with internal affairs to give much thought to outside opinion. Besides, Clinton always regarded it as the New Neighborhood and did not even try to make friends in it. Outside his own family, the only people of importance to him were a small handful of Old Neighbors from Amelia Street where he was born. At first, he set out to make regular Saturday trips on the streetcar to visit these Old Neighbors; but as he began to suspect that in certain of those kitchens his visits were regarded as a nuisance, the trips soon petered out and stopped altogether.

Here are some sample pages from one of Clinton’s notebooks; they were written on a certain November day during the Williamses’ first year on Seminary Street:

[Clinton’s Notebook]

“I see you’ve pulled your blankets out again.”

I pretend to be asleep. She raised the blind.

“I suppose you think you’re getting away with this.

Sleep till noon, make a servant of your mother. Lord, I wish I knew how anyone could sleep with the blankets pulled out. I couldn’t sleep a wink if I thought my feet were . . . ! —You’re awake, mister, I can tell by your breathing. I’m looking at your eyelids right this minute, now see if you can keep them from fluttering!”

I opened my eyes and faced her.

“Do you think your father’s going to sit by and let you get away with this?” She got busy with the blankets.

I said, “I don’t think he cares whether or not I sleep with them tucked in.” I knew she wasn’t talking about the blankets, but I had some impulse to throw her a curve.

“Smart.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“I thought you said noon.”

“There! I knew you weren’t asleep! I can always tell by your breath when you play possum. I always know when you boys are lying. Now why don’t you just own up, and tell me where you spent all those days? If it was perfectly honorable and decent, why so secret? Do you think I won’t find out? Do you think it won’t come home to roost? There’s something else I want to know. We’re going to have less secrecy around here. Are you in secret communication with Berry-berry?”

“No.”

“Clinton. Do you love your family?”

“Yes.”

“So does Berry-berry, loves us to pieces. I don’t doubt that by an eyelash. Are you getting up or not?”

“I can’t while you’re standing there.”

She started walking toward the door. “Berry-berry always slept without his bottoms, too. I don’t know why. I couldn’t sleep a wink if I thought my . . .”

“If you thought your what?”

“Smart!”

“You want me to get up?”

“Look here, mister star boarder. You haven’t gotten away with a thing. You’ve got some questions to answer, so don’t think you can rest on your laurels.”

She left the room. I put on my clothes and went down to the kitchen. She was sitting at the table with her coffee cup, looking pretty good what with the vaseline on her eyelashes and the sun coming in through the orange curtains. I poured myself some coffee.

“Clinton.”

Beware. Soft voice. She may decide to weep.

“Yes, Annabel.”

“Why is it I have never got used to being called Annabel by you boys? You’d think after years and years—but it was never my idea, this first-name thing with this family. It’s all part of your father’s contempt for the family unit. He thinks Mother is a dirty word.”

“That’s because some mothers blackmail their kids about the birth trauma and all that. It makes good sense.”

“That’s right. If you’ve got a weak board,” she said, “then by all means burn the house down, Heil Hitler, and away we go. Ooooh! (A noise of distaste; very hard to spell.) —I hope you don’t believe every word your father says is gospel!”

“I don’t.”

“But on the other hand, you should respect him for what he was.”

I looked at her.

“Don’t think you can poo-poo your father, or be condescending to him. Not by a long shot, mister fourteen-years-old-and-don’t-forget-it.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Because he was as brilliant a man as I’d ever met—before he started committing suicide. Sweetheart, I wouldn’t lean on that stove in those nice trousers; it’s impossible to keep it that clean, clean enough to just lie down and go to sleep on.”

I moved over to the cupboard and leaned against it. “What did you mean about suicide?”

“It’s no secret. Your father’s been committing systematic suicide for the last thirty years. Bourbon. Ever hear of it?”

“That must not be a very effective method of killing yourself. I mean if it takes that long. Now if he really wanted to do the job . . . !”

“Whoah! Just whoah!” She took a big drag on her cigarette. I love the way Annabel smokes, she always fills up her whole body with the stuff. I had a sudden very strong urge to light up about a dozen of them and smoke myself blue.

“I realize,” she said, “you’re educated to the point where it’s...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• CONTENTS
• part 1
• part 2
• part 3
• part 4