Chapter 22 - The Third Chance

The Blue Canoe Saloon is much better than this.

Many of the people who are significant in the development of Persephone were present at the opening of the Blue Canoe Saloon. This is not really a coincidence as artists have come together in groups throughout history, especially in the history of New York City.

The nightclub was opened by a young interior designer named Francis DeLisle who had earned fleeting notoriety as a trendy interior designer. His particular style was to make a space seem grandmotherly. He was into brick-a-brack, ribbon candy and crocheted afghans. He put doilies on wing chairs and dusty ceramic lamps on end tables. He did all of this, not as a matter of personal taste but because he knew the style would be popular and would make him enough money to complete his dream of owning and designing a night club.

The Blue Canoe Saloon was an experiment in sticking to the strictest of design concepts. First of all everything was a shade of blue or yellow. No light was left unfiltered so everything had a green hue that changed in value depending on from which angle it was viewed.

Oliver was at the opening because Francis considered him a friend. Langley Chelmsford was there because he was at the time a much sought-after bartender. Cassandra Calo stopped by because of the event’s prestige, this is also why she didn't remember attending. She also attended disguise, something she did often and very well. This time she was dressed, rather unattractively in an expensive black and white polka dot designer two-piece, a false nose and a curly black wig. She went straight for the dance floor where she attracted as dance partners the less affluent, more ambitious single men, most of whom danced very well.

Oliver, who at that stage preferred to find hiding places at parties where he could observe unnoticed, and who all throughout his life drank far too much at social gatherings, found his way onto the catwalk from which the club's lights were hung and, securely fastened with a stage electrician's harness, lay face down next to the base of the largest disco ball and sipped scotch from his favorite hip flask as he watched people socialize.

Langley, who expected Oliver to be there but had not seen him arrive, spent the whole party looking over his shoulder whenever someone came in through the main entrance. He had a project he wanted to pitch to Oliver and had pilfered a fifth of twenty-five year old single malt to encourage acceptance. As it went, he ended up splitting the bottle with a business card designer who was a natural blond and whom Langley would immortalize in a book of poetry.

Oliver undoubtedly saw both Langley and Cassandra from his vantage point, and we can be almost certain that he recognized them both. Cassandra, though she was an actor of both great breadth and depth, was someone who worked within a style and Oliver by that time must have known that style better than his own genitals, and Langley Chelmsford has never gone unnoticed by anyone, anywhere.

Oliver must have had a reason for not connecting with them that night, and this is most likely not the same reason that he avoided Cassandra at the airport. The play was finished, the atmosphere was perfect, Oliver, Cassandra and Langley were all together in jovial creative moods. Persephone must have been trying to chisel her way out of Oliver's skull but for some reason, Oliver refused to let her out. The night of the opening of the Blue Canoe Saloon is extremely important and worthy of intense study because, besides being a lovely evening with fine music, excellent drink and the good time had by all, that night provides only evidence we have that Oliver Fagin Thomas ever doubted his own ability.