Kelly Law

This is a character portrait I wrote sometime last year.

Kelly Law’s parents grew up in West Texas on cattle ranches and dreamed of moving north and settling among the Boston Brahmins. They made it as far as southern Virginia, bore one child, and named him Kelly. Back in West Texas he would have been stoned for that kind of name, but in Lexington it garnered dignity, and everyone assumed an eponymous blue-blooded relative, perhaps even a martyr in the Civil War.

He was handsome at the age of twenty, popular with men and more so with women. But tonight he’d had too much to drink, and nobody could get him to shut up about Cornell.

“This kind of thing would never happen at Cornell,” he said, pacing the hall and holding an unlit cigarette between two fingers like a gentleman. His dress shoes went tap tap against the hardwood floor. “The university,” he emphasized, stopping to steady himself with his hand against the doorknob of the coat closet, “would shut down if the bars closed.” Kelly lit the cigarette in one motion, took a drag from it and continued. “How is a man supposed to enjoy his night when there’s not a dram of liquor to be bought in the county?” He shook his head, brought the cigarette to his lips and let it dangle there. “I tell you, men, the fellows at Cornell know better than that.”

“I know, Law,” Sebastian sighed, “you told us already. Have a seat, alright? You’re making me nervous. My parents are asleep upstairs. And you’re really not supposed to smoke in here. Cigarettes, anyway. If you’d like to have one of my father’s cigars in the library that’s a different story.”

Kelly Law liked to be in an armchair when he smoked a cigarette, leaning back and crossing his legs at the knee. He’d point his chin to the sky and a thick gray rope of smoke would twist from between his lips into the warm light of the house. Kelly Law liked to talk euphemistically about his sexual exploits, and to him they were always women, never girls.

He boasted about things great and small, and somewhere along the spectrum was marked his keen sense of smell.

“I can always tell,” Kelly began, sticking his forefingers against Graham’s chest. Ash fell from his lit cigarette onto the tip of Graham’s shoe. Graham shook it off and stepped back from Kelly, plucking his hands into his pockets and drawing back his shoulders with a sigh. Sebastian eyed the little pile of ash scattered on the hall floor as Kelly swayed drunkenly.

“For Christ’s sake,” Sebastian cried, snatching the ashtray from the top of the secretary. “I told you, Law, if you’re going to smoke in here you have to watch the ash.” He thrust the brass ashtray into Kelly’s side. Kelly smiled at him sideways, took the ashtray, and tipped the end of his cigarette against it with a raise of the eyebrow. Then he lifted his palm and looked around the room, eyeing them one after another, the three other men and two women. “I can always tell,” he repeated, “if she’s wearing the same perfume as another woman I’ve been with.” He raised his eyebrows once more and took a drag from the cigarette. “Smell has a profound psychological effect on me. I could be a police dog, if I’d only screwed the drug possessors beforehand.”

“But haven’t you?” quipped Will.

“You’re repulsive,” Charlotte smiled.

Kelly stumbled over to Charlotte, his heels tapping against the wood floor, where she leaned smugly against a bookcase. He slipped one hand into his pocket and planted the other against the wall by Charlotte’s head. His hair fell over his eyes as he slurred, “You sure about that?”

Everyone in the room rolled their eyes, including Charlotte, who nonetheless continued to smile.

Kelly put the cigarette out against the moulding that lined the wall. Sebastian snatched up the ashtray from where Kelly had left it and clacked loudly across the room. “Law, what did I tell you,” he said, thrusting the ashtray once more against Kelly’s side.

Kelly took the ashtray and threw it across the room. It smacked against the wooden secretary and clanged loudly once, then several more times as it clattered to the floor.

“Oh my–” Sebastian gripped his skull.

“What’s your problem, Law?” Will aggressively loosened his tie and planted one hand on his belt.

“You’re going to wake his parents,” sighed Graham.

Audrey and Charlotte raised their eyebrows at one another.

Kelly laughed, bending over his swaying legs. He ran across the room, the slick soles of his shoes slipping against the marble, but when Will realized he was going for the ashtray he grabbed Kelly at the waist and yanked him back. Kelly’s feet slipped out from beneath him, but, struggling, he regained minimal balance and achieved a kick in the direction of the ashtray so that it clattered pathetically across the floor.

“That’s it!” seethed Sebastian. “Everybody out of here!”