Fall and Rise

CHAPTER SEVEN. The Apartment

He hangs up, smiles, slides the door open and goes outside, slaps his fist into his palm and thinks I can’t believe it, says “She’s done dood it, damn woman’s come across. Not ‘damn,’ but I’m seeing her, maybe in minutes, hot dog.” Looks around, nobody around, no good gabbing out loud to yourself on the street at any hour, not that in this city you could be put away for it. Put away? Hey, where’d that one come from? Not his but was his father’s expression, along with — well whatever along with, but “Talk back to your mother or me like that and you could be put away.” Oh dad, just look at me now. Holds out his arms, looks up at the sky and smiles. No, don’t want to act odd either. Looks around, nobody around, sounds of someone whistling sweetly from somewhere — an Irish air — rather, Stephen Foster: Ginny, Jeanie, shiny orange-red hair (what did I decide on?) — but can’t see him and now drowned-out by traffic. Traffic goes, no music. Though he first thought worst possible don’t-even-think-of-it thing to do was call her, but had a hunch she would. “Best behavior”; you bet. Now and forever, or to whenever, till hell freezes over and life ever after and I can’t exaggerate any further; for sure. Ah! “If I’ve one thing in life to teach you it’s don’t work for anyone: be your own boss.” Okay — eyes to the sky and arms out again — so I’m my own boss: now you proud of me? But he meant becoming a dentist, doctor, opening up my own law office. But now to get there. How to get there? In his head: “Tweee! — Taxi!” and first one to come stops. New roomy Checker. Slips in, flips the jump seat down but keeps its backrest folded, legs up on it but feet hanging over the seat so not to sully it. “Where to sir?.…Turn the heater up for you some more, sir?…Switch the radio station to something more to your liking like choral music, sir?…Wait for you in front while you get the fare from behind the what, sir? Bellboard? Of course, but sure you don’t mean the apartments’ intercom?” He steps into the street. Watch. Two-to-one none comes and if one does, five-to-one it won’t stop. From now on on damp cold nights, snowy or otherwise and maybe daytimes too, going to carry in my back pants pocket an extra pair of socks.

She thinks, bringing the phone into the living room in case he calls, Why did I let myself be convinced into it — to say “Yes, oh do do come up”? I didn’t say it that way, but hell. Oh well. Oh, probably not so bad. Bad, how can you say it’s not? But it’s not or not so bad. So he’ll come over. Not “so he will”: he’s coming over. So he will. And let him. Let him? Nothing now will stop him. So what? Really, so big deal what? Let him even take a shower Let him even wash his shirt and anything else he wants to wash and hang those wet clothes up. And if they’re not dry by the morning I’ll even iron them for him. Because what was I trying to say by my being so anxious about his coming here — that I can’t take care of myself? It’s just for the rest of the night. And I can quickly gauge people okay — some friends even think I have an acuity — and he seems more than all right. Story was a bit hard to believe, but he won’t do anything more than have a hot drink, clean himself, go to sleep, toast and coffee when he wakes up and leave. So set him up — blankets, sheets, pillow and case — on the couch. “Just take the cushions off and”—he’ll know how. Convertible couch is universal to just about everyone over thirteen. “Need me to make the bed for you? No? Good; I’m too tired to anyway, so goodnight.” He wants to chat, say “I’d like to, but tomorrow I’ve two tons of work.” And fresh bath towel; for one night he doesn’t need a washrag. Worse comes to worse, let him use mine on the sly that’s in the bathroom. No, with his linens and last week’s I’ll be doing a wash soon, so what’s a little washrag? And cats; hope he’s not allergic to them, but even if he isn’t I’ll keep Sammy in my room. If he has to wash his underpants and his trousers are wet and he has nothing else to wear — what else could he have? — to and from the bathroom or in bed, I’ve an old terrycloth robe androgynous enough where he won’t feel uncomfortable in it and big enough to fit him snug. Say “Anything in the refrigerator is yours,” and then go to bed. Suppose he’s a drinker? I’m really too tired to think so thoroughly about this. But don’t be shiftless; it’s in your interest: suppose he is. A real drunk, not just a once-a-monther or every-time-at-a-party overindulger, then what? He was knocking them down at Diana’s. So were we all. But if he is? Yes? Well, if he is? Damn, nothing but work for myself. She goes into the kitchen. Cabinet has a bottle of dry vermouth for someone who liked to make martinis for himself when she cooked dinner for them. Roberto; she couldn’t stand them herself. Literally like piss. Gin is finished. Why didn’t I throw the bottle out? and she shoves it to the bottom of the garbage bag and covers it with part of a newspaper so he won’t think she drank any of it tonight. Oh, get rid of the whole thing long as you’re at it, and she opens the service door to put the garbage out. Note’s on the door. Now what? “Mice have been sighted”—she looks down at the name; it’s from her next-door neighbor at the service entrance—“on the floor below and several above (10th, 13th, PH). Please dispose of your garbage (we will too, starting tomorrow when we get them…the market left them out of the order it delivered tonite) in plastic garbage bags that seal up with ties. Thanx. This is a very difficult note to write, as I’m for certain not blaming you for the mice. PS. Daitch’s has an excellent generic bag (2 ft × 2 ft 6 in × 1.2 mil) at half the price of the brand names, and it’s 2-ply. Best, Audrey Chang, 9C.” What can I say? She’s right, at least about plastic-bagging the trash, something we should have done long ago to cut down on roaches or kept in lidded pails out there, and she sticks the bag of garbage into a plastic shopping bag, knots the handles on top and puts it outside her service door. The Changs, with three children, his mother and a dog, usually have two huge paper bags of garbage and an empty carton or two by the service elevator, but just a doll box is there tonight. Back to the cabinet. Vermouth bottle is a third-filled and would take five more bottles of gin the way Roberto mixed them. She’s used a lot of it for cooking scallops or in a last-ditch gravy when the food cooking lost all its juices and got not irredeemably burned. Sherry in the cabinet to cook with also but not cooking sherry. She brings all these bottles — half-one of vodka, unopened one of Zubrovka her father brought back from Poland last year; she should put it in the freezer and take a sip of it and tell him how it is; nearly full bottle of sour mash or bourbon if there’s any difference — liquor she has just for guests — and two bottles of wine and a tiny one of cassis, to the pantry closet next to the service door. “Hello, Sammy.” Puts them deep into the lower shelf. “You want to help hide them? No? Yes?” He scratches his front paws on the service door. “Feel like skedoodling? Have to wait till summer, Babes.” She grabs his tail at the front and pulls it upwards, then tweaks the tip. Lots of white hairs float around them. “God, do you need a brushing.” Puts the ice bucket she got as a wedding gift — they got, get that straight, kid; Harris and she, Helene and Harris, the 2-H club at one time, another finer thing he refused her to use once he got so insurrectionally left-wing — tarnished, needs polish, tomorrow, along with Sammy’s brushing and nail clipping — and unopened box of wineglasses in front of the bottles. Unless he got down on his knees he couldn’t see them. She gets down on her knees. Even then. Nice job. And where’d she get the glasses? Ice bucket was from Diana — their first gift, delivered weeks before the ceremony. Glasses were from the wedding too. Got four to five boxes of them from different people and two or three boxes of brandy snifters. Must have been the gift to give that year or month — March, nice and icy — for we didn’t touch the hard stuff then and weren’t in any way real wine tipplers. Down to the last five wineglasses in her kitchen cabinet and this box she didn’t know was here. “So thanks, Mr. Krin, for being instrumental — well, just helping me find them,” and she winks at the pantry. He wants the two beers in the fridge and what wine’s left in the bottle in there, he can have them — they won’t do much to get him high. But they could keep him high. She opens the refrigerator. Pulls out the produce bin, snaps a carrot in two and chews it and drops the other half back into the bin. Better than a couple of her mother’s Mandelbrot that are in a coffee can in here or the ice cream in the freezer. Freezer, and she starts for the pantry. No, dopey, do it tomorrow when he’s not here. And four cans of beer, thought two. Puts three of them into that same pantry shelf. So, can of beer and maybe a glass of wine which by now is probably vinegar — won’t do much to him, but might make him think she’s not trying to hide any alcohol, and on the phone he seemed hurt from a head wound as he said and not high. Takes the linens and cushions off the couch. Wait a minute. He’s supposed to do this. Just do it, it’ll save time, no explaining: “Bed’s made, you know how to pull it out, there’s the kitchen, bathroom’s past that door, if you need a clock, there’s an electric one above the kitchen table, and have a good night’s sleep and goodnight.” She opens the couch into a bed, makes it, should she keep it open or closed? Close it, it’ll just look sloppy open and make movement clumsy when he gets here and make him think she’s insisting he get to sleep right away, closes it so it’s a couch again, puts a pillowcase on her one extra pillow, boils water for herb tea. Heck with it: she can afford a dozen Mandelbrots, and all this waiting and doing at this late hour is making her hungry. Whatever the reason for it, hunger is hunger and to be avoided before sleep if she can. She eats one, eats two more, re-covers the coffee can and shuts the refrigerator door. I don’t know how she does it. Works a normal workload as a caseworker, reads another twenty hours a week the most recondite books and magazines, sees a movie and play a week and goes to several of the art galleries around town and some concerts and all the new exhibitions at the art museums, yet still spends lots of time with my father and her friends and around fifteen hours a week in the kitchen making things like these. One day I’ll follow her around the kitchen while she makes them. I’ll have to follow her around three or four times before it sinks in, but I will. But maybe later on, when she’s dead, perish the thought, but everyone has to die, though if there was only some natural way I could live a full long life and still go before them, but when she is and they are, perish the thought, maybe the memory of her Mandelbrot and breads and cakes will be infinitely preferable to the actual stuff even if I’m able to bake almost the exact kind. Enough. What’s the point unless I want to goad a good cry? Great, right, what an only child has to share? And if it ends up childless, damn, hope you get a lifelong mate you love, bub, cuz if not it could be a lot to bear. Water’s boiling and she makes tea and sits on the couch with it. Now get here soon, Krinsky, and don’t for christsakes be cheap with my money and decide against a cab. Yipes. If he made good connections he could be downstairs. He’d ring the bell. She gets into pants, sandals and shirt and gets a five and five singles out of the dresser. Always tries to have that amount around the house in those denominations in case she has to take a cab from here or knows she’ll be taking one later in the day after she leaves. Doesn’t like drivers arguing they haven’t change for a twenty or ten or even a five, and then if she makes a stink, oh wow they suddenly find it, but if they don’t — to then have to give them one of those bills with no change back if she doesn’t want to wait. Gets her keys, lets the door lock and rings for the elevator. She has a police whistle on her keyring and holds it near her mouth. If he’s ringing her bell now, she’ll get to him in time. And hates, hates like anything to go downstairs alone at this hour, but nothing she can do about it.

Maybe I’m not doing this right. He steps back to the sidewalk, tucks the back of his shirt into his pants, wipes what dirt he can off his pants and sleeves, sees through the shirt-rip his elbow’s cut and dried blood he didn’t know was there. Feels his pocket for his comb. Must’ve been in his coat. Runs his fingers through his hair to smooth it back. “Aie yie yie,” don’t do that. Stands in the street and signals an approaching cab. Off-duty sign’s on he sees as it passes. Another cab comes. Getting lucky: two in a minute. “Cab,” he yells. Passes, no off-duty sign and no passengers inside. Cheek hurts, right one. Maybe only now getting unfrozen. Feels it. “Ah, oh,” very sore, and coasting over it, swollen. Better when numb, but maybe it’s only now begun its natural healing process. Doesn’t remember being hit there, and what he’d do now for a few aspirins. Four he’d take, and then just to lie back on a bed and rest the back of his head on a pillow. But the guy was on top of him slamming away with his fists — nobody could say what he did with the phone receiver — while I was on my hands and knees, head still echoing from the phone receiver blow, so who knows where I was hit on the head, though bystanders said everywhere. What a scene. “Beware of adrenalin, gentlemen,” a Hasenai line with a little help from me. But what am I saying? There’s always been a bit of the hothead and tough in me. “Cab! Cab! Go screw you too. You want to be so selective in whom you take, put on your off-duty sign.” Half block away by now, arm still out the cab window and middle finger raised: “Asshole!” But said to himself then: “It’s now or never, this guy’s going to beat you on the head till you’re brainless, so do something, don’t be lazy now of all times,” and still on one hand and my knees, grabbed one of his legs — both straddled me — and started bucking the guy with my back to put him off-balance and maybe to shake myself up a little and also I know so I could have time to think what else to do and then thought “Strength, use your fucking strength,” and turned around on my knees and lifted him up as I started to stand up and standing fully up threw him into the air. He must’ve weighed two-fifty but I just threw him and he flew back a few feet, tried to land standing up but landed on his behind. Then I got over him as he started to get up and grabbed his head with both hands and banged and banged it on the ground till his eyes started to stay less open than closed and then worked him up to one knee by pulling on his hair and head and still holding that head but now by the forehead and chin, lunged it at the phone booth a foot or two away, but there was no glass in the bottom panels to ram his head through — it had already been smashed out. “Cab, cab!..Thank you, got the message.” Guy’s head went through the part where the glass had been and then he just kept pushing him into the booth from behind till the guy was entirely inside except for his feet, which he shoved in. Then he ran around the booth and tried to lock him inside by keeping the door shut, not thinking the guy could crawl out through the empty bottom part, but the guy stood up, forced his way out the door though Dan pushed back, and said “Now I’m going to finish you.” The crowd surrounding them — must’ve been fifty people by now, men and women, some kids even, thirteen, fourteen years old — started to make boxing crowd noises, whistles, cheers, saying “Give it to him, fatso,” saying “Let him have it good, slim,” which I suppose was me. They thought it was just a fight. Who knows what they thought. Where was the news vendor? I felt I needed help. Later the vendor said — Cab’s coming. Get set. Nice smile. Waves, says “Hey,” but it turns into the sidestreet before it reaches him, no directional signal on. Vendor later said “Thanks,” when he shook Dan’s hand, and told him to take any newspaper or magazine for free, and that he was too afraid during the fight to do anything but run across the street and call the police from the booth there. Police came. But not before the guy, just out of the booth, walked toward Dan, saying not only was he going to finish him but “I’m going to kill you, you’ll see.” Guy’s friend — who’d pinned Dan’s arms back when the big guy said “Oh, you don’t want to go away?” and Dan had said “How can I when you’re stealing from this newsguy and about to break his glasses and beat in his face?”—now wasn’t around. Then the guy started to take something out of his back pocket. This was before the fight, when the friend held Dan’s arms back, and what knocked Dan to the ground. Dan first thought it was a handgun — it was black — and his chest got cold and heart was beating hard and he thought “What am I to do? This is the end,” and then when this thing in the back pocket was up a few inches it looked like a knife handle and he thought “Oh no, he’s going to stab me,” and strained to get free but the friend held Dan’s arms back and then the big guy pulled this object in his pocket higher and took it out and it was a phone receiver and with a blow Dan didn’t see knocked him down and kept pounding his head with it and then he was only using his fists, so maybe the receiver had flown out of his hand or he’d thrown it away. So there he was. After that: fighting back and the phone booth scene and the guy coming at him again saying he was going to catch and kill him, he’ll see. Where was the guy’s friend? Every so often he looked around for him, so the friend wouldn’t jump him from behind. Later he learned that another man, who left right after the fight, so Dan never had a chance to thank him, stepped in front of the friend when the friend tried to join the big guy in beating up Dan on the ground and said, this short but very muscular man with only a T-shirt on people said, “Let the two have it out — it’s only fair.” Dan said to the crowd when the big guy was coming to finish him “Listen, help me stop him. He tried to rob and beat up the owner of this newsstand, who I don’t see now but he could tell you, and I stepped in to help the newsguy and that’s why this big goon’s fighting me.” Nobody made a move to help. He didn’t see the friend in the crowd at the time. Later he did, when he first heard the police siren, but only the friend racing out of it and down the sidestreet. Several people said “Kill him,” either to Dan or the big guy coming at him or both. The big guy got closer, though Dan stepped back a step to each of the guy’s forward steps. The people behind Dan moved aside and he was backed up against a parked car. Jump over it? Could be done. But he didn’t want to run. There was his coat for one thing — how would he come back for it if the big guy and his friend were still here? Besides, he felt from the smells when the guy threatened him that he was fairly loaded and if he could dart around him fast enough he could grab him and knock him down. He yelled “Hey hey, look at that,” pointing behind the guy, but he didn’t bite. Then Dan jumped around him, grabbed him in a bear hug and threw him against the car. The guy bounced off it and fell to the ground on his back. Dan said “Now I’m going to beat your stupid head in, you sonofabitch, so you won’t forget this,” and sat on top of him, grabbed his shirt at the collar and wanted to punch him in the face but couldn’t. He had his fist raised and the guy said “Do it, go on, do it,” and seemed serious about it and Dan said “You’re crazy.” “I mean it, don’t be a jellyfish, hit me, you won a ticket to,” and Dan released his grip. He stood up, looked for dog shit to step in and put in the guy’s face. Looked only around him — gutter, on the sidewalk, few feet into the street — since he felt safer being near the guy while he was on the ground than he would farther away from him where the guy would have time to stand and maybe go after him. Was none. New dog-litter law this summer — something, seemed to be working, for usually it would be there every ten to fifteen feet. Then the police siren. Now he doesn’t know if he would’ve stepped in it and put it in the guy’s face. Probably not, but he can’t say for sure. He was that mad, so he could’ve, but the guy looked so stupid and for a few seconds after he said to hit him, pathetic, that he kind of doubts it. At the most he might’ve stepped in it and kept his foot raised a couple of inches above the guy’s face. Then two sirens from police cars coming from different directions. “Hold him for the cops,” someone said. He stepped back when the guy started to get up. “Get the hell out of here,” he said and the guy didn’t look at him but ran alongside his friend who’d just run out of the crowd shouting “Z-J, here, follow me!” and they ran up the sidestreet. When Dan first stepped in for the vendor and they said “Better stay out of it, sucker,” and he said he couldn’t unless they left the vendor alone and they said “Then we’ll bust you instead,” he felt there might be a fight — nothing much, more like a scuffle with Dan eventually talking them out of anything rougher — and took off his coat so he wouldn’t rip it, even if he knew this might seem to them as if he wanted his arms free to defend himself and was even keen on a fight or just not doing enough to avoid one or to show he was afraid of one or them — and threw it to the ground, though right away he knew he should’ve just dropped it, and told a man closest to it “Look after my coat, please,” said this softly so the two guys would know from his voice and the words he used that he was a peaceful and polite guy, and after the fight the man he’d told this to was gone with his coat. Maybe he thought Dan had meant for him to take it. Course not. Police came. About twelve of them — they kept coming, several in plain clothes — all in regular and unmarked cars. He gave a report of the fight and a description of the two men—“One was tall and dumpy, other tall and wiry, both around my height, maybe an inch or two taller — white — and wiry one with hair on his face, trim beard and mustache, dumpy one with ungroomed muttonchops, and actually the dumpy one about three inches taller than I but because of his bulk looked shorter than he was, wiry one inch or two shorter than I, and dumpy one with bright blue eyes and thin light hair covering his bald spots and wiry one with lots of thick dark curls beginning in the middle of his forehead and extremely white teeth, compared to the dumpy one’s rotting ones, but I never got a good look at his eyes”—and said he’d lost his coat with a few of his most precious belongings in it—“Book of poems in Japanese I was working on that will set me back a few weeks.” “Write it down, title and writer’s name,” a policeman said, “just so if it’s turned in,” and Dan said “Who will? Nobody,” and the policeman said “Just take the time, all of ten seconds, and if you do get it back through us, remember that I had to break your arm,” and Dan thought up an English title for the book and wrote it and the Japanese title in Japanese and Hasenai’s name in English on the report. “The Hungry Landowner?” the policeman said. “Which one of these means hungry?” and Dan said “None.” “Is the book about a hungry landowner?” and Dan said “I’ve no idea why the author called it that, since not only isn’t it the title of any of the poems but it’s not the theme, even stretching the point, of the book in general or any group of poems in total or any of the individual poems too, but maybe I’d have to think about that last point more.” Just then a man of about eighty came over, raised his arm with his fist cocked to Dan and said “Good for you, brother. I saw it all from the start and would have jumped in to help but you looked like you could handle it yourself, and did he ever? Officer, it was a real joy to watch the good guy win in real life for a change.” “I don’t know if anybody won,” Dan said, touching a tender spot in his head and the man said “Sure you did, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Can I look at the descriptions of those two bullies, sir?” and the policeman said “Anything you can add to it, do.” The man looked at the report, said “What’s to add? This’s what they looked like, right down to the fat one’s eyes, except I’d also say both were on drugs or drunk,” and Dan said “He’s right. The wiry one I’m not so sure about but the big guy, which is how I was able to throw him to the ground, I’ll tell you.” “You never know what your strength is at times if something gets you going,” the policeman said, and the old man said, “Strength? In circuses you see such strength. Lifted him like a feather”—“Anyway,” Dan said, “the big guy definitely smelled from booze, though I don’t see how that’s going to help you unless he passes out from it on the street,” and signed the report and said yes, he would bring charges against the men if they were caught, why not? even if the news vendor wasn’t sure he would since they ended up not taking anything or hurting him. The policeman said “Want us to take you to the hospital?” and Dan said “Think I need to?” and he said “You don’t seem that hurt, but I don’t want to tell you what to do.” “Let me see,” the old man said and the policeman said “You a physician?” and he said “No, but I’ve seen accidents and know what stops cuts,” and the policeman said “So do we and all his cuts have stopped — just get lost,” and the man walked away with his fist cocked to Dan again, saying “That a way to go, Mr. Krin — I got your name off that report — that a way to go, good show.” Policeman left. Crowd broke up. Vendor was closing up. “Usually all-night or least till four,” he said. “Not tonight. Too something in the air tonight — the sky. And truly, any newspaper, two of them, or magazine is yours.” Dan said “Instead of a magazine could I have a token or enough change to take a subway — someone stole my coat during the fight you might’ve heard and all my money and other things were in it,” and the vendor gave him eighty cents, said he wished he could afford more. “No no, this’ll be enough for fare and a couple of phone calls and if I need more I’ll try to borrow it from someone else,” and then used some of the change on phone calls from the booth he’d shoved the big guy in. Vendor locked up the stand, knocked on the phone-booth door while Dan was listening to a locksmith on an answering machine say he wasn’t in this minute, said “I’m going now — your name is what?…Mine is Shafik, Dan, and anything from this day I can do for you but give you more money, because I can’t, I do, and you always know where I am, ten hours a day every day starting at five. Before that and weekends I work at a place where there’s no phone,” and Dan shook his hand and patted his back, said “I really appreciate that, thanks.” Shafik left. He had a brown bag with maybe his dinner in it he didn’t eat or maybe his change. Dan made more calls from that booth and booths a few blocks north, borrowed a dime on his first try by saying “Excuse me, sir, but I was robbed of my wallet tonight and all I need now is a dime to call my wife from this booth if you’d be so kind,” called Helene. He tries to flag down a cab. Passes. Two right behind it. Same. What? All the empties afraid or maybe through for the night and going back to the cab garage or going back to it for gas or repairs or else their gas tanks are low and they’re looking for a gas station or going to one they know of or on call or on their breaks but haven’t their on-call or off-duty signs on. “Fucks. One of you could’ve taken me.” Walks back to Twenty-third, goes into the subway station and up to one of the new bulletproof-glass token booths and says to the clerk through the gridded speaking hole “Excuse me, but do you know the news vendor upstairs, Shafik?”

“The evening one, Sandy?”

“He said Shafik. Little guy, dark, glasses—”

“Everyone calls him Sandy. He’s an Arab. What’s up, he hurt?”

“He almost was. I don’t mean this to boast, but he could’ve been hurt a lot worse if I hadn’t stopped two men from mugging him an hour ago. He’s gone home. But someone took my coat when I jumped in to help Sandy, and all my money—”

“Can’t let you in without a token. Borrow from Sandy if you helped him so much.”

“I already said. He closed up early, was afraid something worse would happen to him and went home. He gave me enough change for the subway, but I used it all on phone calls from the booths upstairs — to get a locksmith, to call friends — since in that stolen coat of mine were my house keys. Remember I—”

“All that’s not—”

“But remember I came down before and asked if I could use the phone here because the ones upstairs were so cold and you said I’d have to pay a token to use it because it’s on the platform and I said—” He’s shaking his head. “What are you shaking your head for? I said I couldn’t pay for a token and use the phone booth because I only had enough change for a token and wanted to make some more calls to find a place to sleep tonight.”

“I only came on a half an hour ago. Want to be exact?” Looks at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes ago. It had to be Morton, if it was this station and entrance — the clerk before me. Bald? Scar across the nose?”

“I don’t recall any clerk with glasses.”

“I didn’t say glasses. Scar across the nose. Bald. Elephant ears.”

“I’m sorry. It was this station entrance and I thought it was you.”

“We don’t look anything alike. He’s tall, I’m not, but you can’t tell that because we’re both sitting — okay. But I’m much broader in the chest and no scar on the nose and a different face and ten years on him and no big ears or bald.”

“But you know Sandy. And my coat stolen’s no lie, because you don’t think I’m wearing this smelly summer sweater because it’s my choice and garishness is my style and I think it’s summer out, do you? The police gave it to me to keep me warmer than I’d be without it. And I finally found a place to stay tonight — Hundred-tenth and Broadway — the subway stop is — and the person’s given me thirty minutes to get there at the most. I called her from upstairs with a borrowed dime. ‘Mister, can you spare a dime?’—I did that. So what? — but my chat with Morton before is true.”

“I can’t let you on either. I do, which I’d love to, but am seen doing it — fired on the spot.”

“Then I’ll have to sneak on. Not ‘sneak,’ just climb over the turnstile in front of you. Because I tried getting a cab — person I’m going to said she’d leave the money for one in her lobby — but none would pick me up because of these torn clothes, I suppose, and messed-up physical condition, all of which I got protecting Freddy.”

“Freddy?”

“Sandy. I don’t know why I called him Freddy. Who the hell’s Freddy anyway? I’m very tired and a bit slaphappy. Was hit on the head by Sandy’s muggers several times. The Lebanese. Dark, small, but big in the shoulders and arms. I only noticed that later. Looked like he lifted weights. Truth is he could’ve helped me more than just by going for the police. Maybe he has a lead plate in his head or, young as he is, a heart or some other condition. Or afraid. And why shouldn’t he be? Or in that job, in that outpost and late at night and probably with a wife and kids at home, the ironclad rule ‘Never fight back.’ But glasses, Sandy, thin mustache, sweet voice and face, heavy lips, he called the police and they came promptly and muggers ran. But you weren’t around when it happened.”

“If it happened after I came on I still wouldn’t have heard it. This box is soundproof except when you speak into it or I want it to be, which, if you don’t mind — pardon me, okay? — will be now,” and he unhitches a disk to cover the hole and looks at the newspaper on the change counter. Morning News, BRIDGE SPLIT IN STORM, photo of freighter’s front rammed into a suspension bridge, car dangling off the side, caught in the cables, “2 die, 7 hurt as supertanker Ignatius’s prow,” he thinks the caption begins, clerk’s eyes on him every now and then, “—Tampa Bay.”

“Then I feel free to jump over. Cop comes, I’ll explain. I have to stay someplace tonight and I’m sure they’ll have the mugging report or I’ll ask them to call in for it. They’ll see why I tried beating the fare, if I’m caught, and they’ll look at you as if you’re nuts. Not nuts but just wrong for carrying out your job so much.” Clerk, without looking up, points to his ear and then the closed hole while shaking his head. Dan goes to the turnstiles. Climb over or crawl under? Each seems an effort. Looks back. Reading the paper. “Come on,” rattling the gate, “buzz me in.” Clerk looks at the clock behind him. Nearly three? Dan can’t quite see. Once — Fiftieth and Broadway stop — watched unobtrusively from the platform — late afternoon last week — fare beaters sneak in by slipping through the turnstiles. Started counting and one of every seventeen people got in that way though a few by going over or under. He try it, one of the arms will pin his waist to the stile’s side just when the police come. Would seem easier to go under and goes under and over to the platform edge to see if a train’s coming. None. Looks back. The paper. Who’s he fooling? — he’s looked at me. Platform pay phone. Had a dime he’d call Helene to say “Complications — finally on my way.” Do and she might say “Forget it, much too late.” Come on, train, come on. Hopes it’s the local which he’ll take all the way to a Hundred-tenth. Looks back: paper, clock, stair exit, never me. Hole where the train could be coming: dark as far back as the next station. But this is Sixth, so at the Seventh Avenue stop or even Forty-second or Thirty-fourth, just to throw the police off if the clerk did call them, he’ll change for the D, if the train that comes is the E or F, but if it’s the D, take it to Fifty-ninth, though maybe changing cars along the way, and change there for the Broadway local.

Suddenly has to pee and walks toward the other end of the platform. “I’ve reported you now, striped sweater,” clerk says over a loudspeaker somewhere, “so you better pray a train comes soon and on it isn’t a transit cop, which at this hour every train’s supposed to be.” Takes off the sweater and pushes it through a trashcan flap. Has to pee badly. Men’s room locked, but he wouldn’t have used it, and hates to do this but does, zipping down his fly just in time, with a train coming into the station on the other side and his back up against the last pillar on the platform onto the tracks.

“You there, you filthy slob,” a man shouts from the downtown platform after Dan turns to pee against the pillar because he can’t stop. Train goes, nobody over there or on his side, zips up, train on the uptown track’s in sight but don’t get your hopes up as it could be at this hour the train to pick up money from the token booths or one to collect the trash or clean the tracks.

Now this is going too far. Should have just said to him, well whatever I should have said I didn’t, and now look at the time. He’s never going to come. Maybe he’s a great practical joker. Say, that what you are too, Mr. Bum? Well if so, last time. But he seemed truly desperate. “Oh I have to, oh I must.” But stop making a big fuss. Go to sleep. Can’t do yet. Then give it another five minutes, ten, fifteen at the most. That’s more than anyone should expect from an almost total stranger, but cut it off at fifteen. Even if the downstairs vestibule bell rings a split second after his time is up. Starting from — clock — now. Good. So, sweetie, what to do till then? Yesterday’s morning coffee? No, I’m up. Maybe something’s on TV. Turns it on. Ad. Switches channels. Ad. Ad. Then nothing on, nothing, and then an Abbott and Costello movie or TV short. Watched these on TV as a kid and thought them senseless then. Who would have thought so many programs at this hour? The wasteland never sleeps. UHF? Too many channels to dial. Cable. Switches around and only thing on but tomorrow’s cable listings and today’s final stock-quotes do they call those is a nude videotape movie or scene in one. Two men and about five women rolling around together and engaging in real or simulated copulatory and oral sex on what looks like an enormous waterbed in an over lit cheap motel room. A TV’s on the bed or is that the monitor of what the video camera’s recording? Very violent rock music interlarded with human sucking and smacking sounds as a soundtrack. Then the sex and sounds stop, couple or triples uncouple, whose-is-it Adagio for Strings comes on faintly as background music and a man wrests himself from the others, stretches a leg as if he’s working a cramp out of it and walks to the camera shaking his semierect penis. “See this,” he says to the camera angrily. “Yeah,” the nude people say behind him, looking at the monitor, women shaking their breasts or behinds at the camera and the other man his penis. “I’m fucking crazy angry,” the man says to the camera, “and you want to know why?” “Yeah,” they say to the monitor, shaking their parts harder. “Not you nymphozodiacs — you already got it all. But those sex crazed viewing mothballs out there, hellbent on blowing up this sensual globe, that’s what it is, sensual, with one and one-half tons of TNT per human person in the great U.S. of anuses. I’m fucking craziness angerness because this mother-eating lunacy hypocrisy frustration world, inside and out, and this is the truth inside the troot so you cockcruncher mothballs out there better be listening to me or I’m gonna shit on ya, gonna shit on ya, is—” Turns the TV off. Even if people want this rubbish and pay for it? I’m no prude but — Makes you wonder about the extras in the scene, not the lead himself. He’s hopeless, but they think they need an acting credit that much where — But I’m getting away from my — I can’t even begin to assimilate why — What if a youngster’s up now and turns to that channel? My folks should see this. No, they’d still say this is the greatest country and the greatest city in it and the reason is the freedoms you have in both and though some things might seem to go too — So what’s my main objection? Not just the self congratulatory fatuity and vulgarity — And the Albinoni, if that’s whose it was — not even a nod at cleverness — Oh a nod, yes, but just because you play serious music, quote unquote, that’s supposed — Why even think of it? And my feelings that such bilge shouldn’t be on has nothing to do with censorship. Just that — If I had to argue the point rationally, in other words, I’d say — In other words it’s not that anything about life shouldn’t be brought into the open, though whether everything should be seen on TV is another — Not “another”—everything shouldn’t. That was made-up life, antilife, vomit-manure to make tons of money out of life — Good God, I like to fuck as much as the next person but — So what if it’s past three and only a few thousand onanists are watching this — What I’m saying — Hell, I like to play with myself as much as the next person too, but — Maybe not as much — No. What’s that biblical quote about how many good or just men or just good just men each civilization needs — No sense is going to come from me tonight on this or any half-serious — And nothing to do with fatigue, I believe, and it’s possible that quote comes from the Talmud. Just that I’m too darn — I’m so damn mad because — Just shut your eyes and do away with it. Shuts them, slashes her hand through the air, opens her eyes to the Times and turns to the TV page. Ten just men was it? If so why does “36” appear? Sex times sex? Some other day. Say, supposedly great movie is on, one she’s wanted to see for years. Terrific critical reviews and one of the few movies her mother didn’t walk out of in twenty minutes, and the hookup of those two was usually a good recommendation. Turns the TV on to one of the channels from before. Ad. Turns the sound off but picture stays on and reaches for the book of poetry by her bed. Opens it to her marker and reads “Lights are like a lot on fire/ From somewhere far-off doomed to zoom into your—/ The city, the city, someone speak to me about the city/ Tell me what could be more important, far-off or close by?/ Speak to me about manholes and women’s bones/ About the surfeit of noises, smells, indirect touches and sights/ Lights, gloom, lots, afire/ Burned-out hearts and backyards of barbed wire/ Speak to me if you can and please, in the city/ of the city/ Where the rich don’t even speak to the next-door rich/ Both so thin as the poor but from slimming drinks/ and diet creams/ The poor, groomed to be entombed to tumble and tumefy/ Rooming sights unseen to multiply/ Swooning sores unsettled to—” Tosses it to the floor. Tell me, am I just dumb or is this just junk? Movie’s on. Even if she’s my colleague and sort of a friend and had her publisher send me an inscribed copy, I feel cheated having spent half an hour with it. But I’ll say in the Monday note I’ll drop in her office box “Thanks loads, am enjoying your book I can’t say how much, and lovely cover, beautiful type, acid-free paper and sewn instead of gummed? it’ll still be around when the rest of ours and us have moldered to dust, overall the publisher did a bang-up job of putting it together and you must be awfully proud of the production, I know I’d be, though wish you would have given me the chance to buy the book, which I will anyhow and always do when I get one on the house, and present to a metromaniac friend — maybe he’ll see what he’s up against and just buy poetry instead of writing it for a while and start taking care of their kids,” which should get me off the hook, because I’ll never finish it. Then give it to the library on a Hundred-fourteenth. Librarian says he appreciates any gift, since if he can’t circulate it he can sell it at their annual book sale. Or destroy it. Done it with others. Into the trash pail and out with the garbage, vanity-press works and textbooks on how to write and publish and potboilers so I should spread the serious word I somehow get through the mail or sometimes by messenger. The library, don’t be such a Nazi, and poet lives in Rockland County, so little chance she’ll find out.

Turns the sound up but movie’s so good that she’d rather risk seeing it in a revival theater some time than see it now, and turns it off. Clock. Six mins, Mr. Krins. Then it’s lights out in this gritty city, far-off or nearby, to tumble into the night where I hope my tumefied dreams will multiply. Say. Not good but bad. Should buy a shade for this window, I keep saying, and not for the little bowlered man across the river and his superhighpowered telescope.

Marietta, talking about telescopes. Superhighpowered for sure — what a dandy idea. One great thing about having your best friend in California is she can call you before eleven A.M. at the maximum overnight discount rates and you can call her when you can’t call anyone else in the city because it’s too late.

“Marietta, Helene, it’s not too late?”

“Is a bit, but it’s okay. Great to hear your voice, but past twelve, Helene — anything wrong?”

“No, and darn, damn time difference again, because I thought it was just eleven where you are. And me, of all people, after this big long debate with myself tonight — not with myself but somebody else—”

“Who dat?”

“Oh, no one. Boy, stupo, stupo,” tapping her temple with her knuckles. “But what I meant was that I’ve always been such a stickler about phoning people at a reasonable hour. I’m sorry. And I know I’m over apologizing in excess of and above and beyond that, but I’m sorry. Listen, before I completely don’t make any sense, I’ll — I only wanted to hear how my only godson’s doing, but I’ll call tomorrow at a decent hour.”

“Nah nah nah, we’s up. And it’s not that late. Just that I’m in the mist of breastfeeding it — he, him, little Nick — sorry there, butch — so I won’t be too clear myself.”

“I’ll call back when you’re finished. How long?”

“No guarantee. Could take twenty minutes, could take two times twenty if he still wants what I seem to too quickly run out of and he has to go on form. Just that it’s tough to talk when I’m breasting. I’d give you Bob but he seems to have conked out — Bob? Bob? He’s really gone this time, not just a-possuming. He’s done it before — snore, snore — when Nick’s ready for the bottle or to be burped, since he thinks they’re the most monotonous jobs possible next to reading Freshman English comps, right there, Bobby? — Really out. We’re both so beat since Nicholas was born. Ech, now he wants me other breath. When he latches on sometimes, watch out, sport. But here’s the big tunity for you two to talk. Say something to your g-mother, Nick. Your other mother, not your udder mudder. This will be his first phone talk if he talks. He’s bound to howl when I switch jugs on him and keep him off the dug for a few sees. He digs that dug. You do dig dat dug der, don’t ya, ittle Ick? See the usage I’ve reduced myself to. I can’t speak to adults no more and particularly colic per-fects. Here, speak to godmamala Helene.”

“Honestly, you don’t have to—”

“Say hi to the old boy. You don’t, he’ll feel rejected and won’t sup.”

“Hi, Nicholas Erasmus sweetheart of mine, how you doing, honey?”

Baby cries.

“There, his first words,” Marietta says. “Let me get them down for post-puberty. ‘Whaa-whaa,’ or was it ‘ya-ya’?”

“‘Ya-ya,’ I think. What do you think he said to me?”

“What did you say to him? He was only responding. Six weeks? — sheet, you can’t expect much more than that from him for a few more days.”

“I said ‘Hi, Nicholas Erasmus’ etcetera.”

“So he was saying ‘Hiya baby, etcetera’ back. Now I have to switch breasts. He’s right between us in bed and I have to be careful Bob doesn’t flip over during one of his Ph.D. exam dreams and thrash and crush him. Phone receiver will be right above my head on the pillow, so tell me what’s been happening with you lately and every so often I might be able to divorce myself from this formidable pleasure and say a syllable or two. Cracked nipples and engorged mammae and all, sometimes I feel so sunny and voluptuous doing this that I think I’m the one being held, musically mobiled and fed.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Here comes Peter Cottontail.”

“What the mobile plays?”

“Mmmm.”

“You’re gone.”

“Yuhhh.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Work?”

“Going well. Nothing new. Book too. Working hard.”

“Ten?”

“Chairman’s made gestures but I won’t take if offered. Don’t want it. I’ll either try something new, get a better book contract for the next one and live rather penny-pinchingly for two years, or go to another school.”

“Daft.”

“Why? I don’t want to be screwed into the same school the rest of my life or even teaching or the East Coast or maybe even America, I think.”

“Sab.”

“Sabbatical? No, I want to do something different or the same thing in a different place, but not take a year off on the university when I might never come back. It’d seem like cheating and also would be keeping a needy scholar-teacher from getting my job.”

“Bob?”

“Way ahead of you. Months before I leave I’ll tell him and then recommend him to my chairman.”

“Years.”

“Been looking?”

“Two.”

“Delaware.”

“He’d even take a job in Delaware.”

“U. of. In the last MLA listing. And you?”

“Too. But Bob best. Rest. Me. You just talk.”

“My folks are fine. They’ve sent Nicholas something. It’s extravagant, so don’t send it back.”

“Yes.”

“No. They love you and only wish the same for me.”

“Two.”

“Two babies? You’re already planning to have another?”

“Me too for you. Rest.”

“Boy, I’m really getting it about that tonight. If and when the time comes, all right?”

“Now!”

“Stop?”

“Man?”

“Hey, wilt, will ya?”

“Well?”

“Several. Nobody special. This one and that. Part of the reason I called. One I met tonight, not even a this or that, is on his way here—”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing to get excited about — he got himself locked out of his apartment and that’s that. But I’m waiting and waiting. Met him at Sven and Dot’s wedding reception.”

“They?”

“Okay.”

“It?”

“Glittering. Grim-visaging. Wanted to commit partycide. What the hell. Their affair. But this man there — met him for a minute — no, that was at Diana Salter’s earlier homier affair — Dan, and what do you know goddamn, he called and is coming over to sleep on the couch because of that lockout and I’m waiting and have nothing to do, not that I don’t always love talking to you, except when you’re pressing me to get wed — been, remember? been — so thought of calling you.”

“Glad.”

“After this call — even during it if he rings from downstairs — not answering or letting him in. The phone, the door — heck with it, it’s already become something of a joke.”

“Do.”

“What, let him in?”

“Do.”

“Why?”

“Why? Want some honest but for a change good advice? No. Can’t. It’ll still the mill. Rest.”

“I’m curious though. Just take a few elucidative sees.”

“Feel.”

“Feel isn’t to see. Because he doesn’t seem that interesting. Nothing I said made him out to be. Locked out — what’s that? Translates lits — hot stuff? Just a nice nervy and slightly flaky bright guy who’s kept me from sleep too long. And if he was that interesting or more interesting than I see and interested in seeing me again and I thought him interesting enough to want to see, he could always or I could always, call me or call him, but another day next week.”

“Do. Ohhh—”

“Sounds incommunicable.”

“Is. Then painful. Then is. And not just the engorgement and cracked teats. For when it comes down sometimes, pain like knives needling the breasts. Ever hear about that before? No nonmilker did and mixed up the knifing needles likening a twit and I’m not the only feeder to feel this. What, some collusion or my illusion about eternal women where we milkers are only allowed to talk about it among ourselves? Worth it? Yes — Had enough there, schnooky? No. Got its mitts up and wants me to stick it back in. But that tit can’t take anymore and other’s temporarily out of the running. No. Shakes his head. Wronged face. About to grief. Okay, got some drops left in both but gonna talk while you’re bleeding them — Hear him? Whale of a wail Bob’s said. My mind’s felt like pudding since but oh this is so incommunicable having a kid — It’s Helene — Bob just woke up. Rolled over. Missed the kid. Scratched his butt. Squeezed his nuts. Seemed to say hello to you, so hello from Bob.”

“And hi,” Bob says from afar.

“Hi and hello, Bob.”

“You hear the baby say ‘hi’ too?” Marietta says. “An imitative hi but a hi. You say impossible. Well, you can say ‘impossible’ because you’ve some days on him, but so far he can only say ‘hi,’ and twice an ‘oy.’ He really did twice oy, but almost anytime I want, a ‘hi.’ Say ‘hi,’ baby.”

“Hi,” the baby or Marietta imitating the baby says.

“You hear? Amazing, no? Ah, now baying, so back to the breast. It’s…what can I say? How can I put it? The — help me, Helene — what would be the words to best express what you say’s the incommunicable, although you were referring to Nick then on my breast: we both just love the damn kid to death. Helene, you must have a baby. And no differing or quibbling with me either: what I said’s a command. And you want to see your husband cry like a baby, have him there in the room when you give birth. And you want to be as close as you’ve been and maybe ever will be to someone and then two people, have him in the room for those reasons too. Yes, without question, you have to have a baby. With a man you’re stuck on and who’s stuck on you and who’ll stick and I want you to have it soon. It’ll be the second happiest moment in my life. No, the third. First was having this baby and Bob crying like one, second was when Bob and I said our vows, fourth will be when I’m standing beside you at your wedding again and holding the ring you’ll slip on him, the third when you have the baby. Fifth will be when your amnio-C results come in and they say all the tests turned out negative. No, fifth was when we got our results, so sixth when yours come in. No, fifth was when I took the E.P.T. and the doughnut showed. So fifth was the doughnut, sixth the amnio-C results, seventh will be when your results come in negative and maybe eighth when you phone and say your E.P.T. showed a doughnut. So what do you say, Helene? You’ll be the mère of mères. You are this moment depriving yourself of everything incommunicable we spoke about and your unborn child of your maternalness and milkiness and everything else you’ll give it and each day you wait, the world another day of your great child and what you gave it and — rest. Sor. But do. Give birth.”

“When the time comes.”

“Now.”

“I can’t just grab any man and say—”

“Now, damn you, now. This is important enough to take Nicholas off for a minute. Little trick. Stick my pinky between his lips while I pull out the tit — I know, wail. Wake up daddy — Here, Bob, hold him for a minute. I don’t care if Mrs. Larkin from downstairs — Give him the bottle then. On the side table. Has my milk in it anyway, expressed.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll find out. I’ll in fact drive East after you give birth and bring you everything you need — clothes, crib, carriage, changing table and my breast pump. But listen. You’re my dearest friend and have been for years. We’re as close as close only-sisters. I know times are tough for some women — even most. Anyway, they’ve been complaining more than usual lately about men — the shortage and also the sexuality of potentially good ones. But you? Men have to be scratching at your windows no matter how many flights up you’re up and purring and panting behind your door.”

“Not so.”

“So. I know. New York’s just a holler away. I heard about ten wonderful men at least over the last few years, two of them nonpareil and childless and who wanted kids, who fell for you or would have at the slightest sign and you for a while with two of them, although not the peerless ones of course. But for your own reasons none ever quite stacked up to your—”

“Once.”

“Okay, him, once. Tried to forget him but okay, him, once. And the man you were married to — let’s not forget that winner long as we’re at it. Anyway, all these other wonderful recent obtainable champing-for-children men, your reasons you dropped them, one dropped you — let’s bless him — but — hey, can you really afford this call, late as it is to ask that?”

“It’s ultradiscount time, and even if it—”

“Drop, drop, except for the one you wanted to marry and am I glad he didn’t. But reach out for someone — not off the street, but if that happened to be, go with it: you never know who you’ll meet leaving the movies — and let the thing happen again. Fall freely and deeply and get married in a year and go off on your honeymoon a month pregnant. And I want it to be a girl. I want our children to have children together. I want us to grow old together as related in-laws. I want you, past all kidding, to be supremely happy again as you were with your first husband when we all should have known better, and I know the only way you can. Forget books, forget teaching — they’re all great and worthy but secondary, and you can always go back to them. And the—”

“Okay, enough. And maybe the phone bill is running up too much.”

“And the man who’s coming by tonight—”

“Mara, let her alone,” Bob says.

“The two of you — let me finish — get your hand off the phone, for I see an opening here that could change her life — And the man who’s coming by — don’t turn him away just because the time’s long passed when he should have been there and so on. Maybe the cab he caught crashed and he’s crawling this moment to your door. Think of that.”

“Will you stop being silly,” Bob says.

“Or the subway he might have been on caught fire and he’s now maneuvering his way to you underground through pillows of smoke and will probably end up coming to you from your building’s basement. Or the helicopter he took exploded in midair and he’s now parachuting to your building’s roof and, if he can get the roof door unlocked, will walk to your apartment downstairs. Or the — or, picked up for suspicion while running to your place, he wanted to get there so fast—”

“Pay no attention to her, Helene,” Bob shouts. “Once she starts in—” “—and this will happen right after we finish talking. He’ll call you from the police station, in his one allowable call, to set him loose. Who can say in your city? But I have good instincts, and a rather adolescent imagination — too many movies and maybe living in movieland too long and maybe also too deep a belief in down-to-earth romance. But anyone who’d get himself locked out of his apartment, if we can believe him — and if it’s not true, then that’s saying a whole lot about his feelings and determination for you too. But anyone who would and then phone the same night he met you for only how long did you say? Anyway, you know what I think would make you the happiest, and Bob, for all his criticizing my silliness, agrees completely with me. So we hope you do it — with the one coming over or some other man you take the plunge for, and now you can hang up on me if you like. Wouldn’t blame you the slightest, but first tell me this fellow’s name again, in case I maybe know him and can warn you against him if my instincts about him were a hundred percent wrong.”

“The name of the man who’s supposed to come over but never will? Daniel Krin.”

“Krin. No. Well, we beat the band for Dan.”

“It won’t be Dan but—”

“Seriously, Helene, you can’t know how wonderful almost everything is in having a baby. Even to doing it in one room while the kid’s sleeping peacefully in another. I mean, he sleeps in our room at night, but sometimes, in the afternoon, when Bob—”

“I’ll consider it if at the time we have two or more rooms.”

“And breast-feed it too.”

“At the same time or different? Anyway, if the man comes, baby comes and then the milk comes, I will.”

“You’ll be such a relaxed mother, it’ll just spill. I’ll start saving the money to fly in for your wedding. Not with Dan-the-man so much, but you know what I mean. If you gear yourself up for it to happen, it’ll happen, listen to me. Before Bob there were plenty just as highly desirable and a couple even more so — I don’t kid you and I never did him. But I wanted to go to grad school, travel, work, kick it up a little and so on — you know me — till I said it was time to, since I was approaching thirty-five and beginning to risk Down’s for the kid and along came Bob. Whups — sleepytime yawn. And look at this. Bob — and it seems to be a straightout nonfake — fell asleep holding the bottle to Nick’s lips and Nick’s asleep too, on Bob’s chest. So it’s one big sleepy family. But he has to be burped. Minimal ten minutes or we get a magnum of gas. But before that I’ll get my hard-wrung expressed back into the refrigerator, get the Polaroid and flash attach and snap a few pictures of these two. So, my dearest dream of a generous friend — refrigerator, pictures, burps, then rock Nick in his carriage a bit and probably one more diaper change — I’ve got a lot to do so really must say toodle-ee-oo.”

“Much love to Bob from me and a big kiss on the tuchis for Nick.”

“That a way to go.”

“Hey, come on there, get this wagon moving — move it along,” man in the subway car says into his newspaper. He stands up, slaps the paper against his leg, opens the window by his seat and sticks his head out of it and says “Hey, come on there, get this — conductor. Hey, conductor there, what’s going on? We’ve been — hey there, you. The one in the blue coat. Yell to the conductor there we’ve been parked in this station for the last two days…With the Parka — that’s right, the blue one, you. Yell to the conductor there I want to see him. That we — damn it. Conductor, hey, conductor. What’s with this train? Get it moving, get it moving. When are we supposed to be here to, next Thanksgiving parade?”

“Any minute,” a man yells from where this man’s yelling to. “We got a light up ahead to stop and haven’t got one to go.”

“Then get that light. Call them up and tell them to put on that light because a mistake’s been made and nothing’s in your way. Get that light and go. People like me have to get to work or lose our jobs. Jesus,” and he sits, looks around, realizes he’s sitting on it, pulls his paper out from underneath him and starts reading it.

“Will you please close your window?” a woman across from him says.

“What are you worried for? The doors are open and not going to close.”

“When the train starts the doors will close. Will you please be so kind as to close the window you opened?”

“It’s only a little fresh air.”

She gets up, says “I knew you wouldn’t,” makes sure the four shopping bags at her feet are positioned against one another and the seat so they won’t fall, says “Excuse me if it’s no trouble” to the man, he moves over a couple of feet, and squeezes the levers at the top of the window but can’t get the window to move. “Mister,” she yells to Dan sitting at the other end of the car. “You’re my last hope here and not because you’re the only one left. Could you please help me close this window — it’s stuck.”

“If it’s stuck I don’t see what I could do to close it.”

“Give it a try. It might be my strength.”

“A try then.” He goes over to the window, says “Excuse me” to the man, who’s moved back under the window and now moves again to the side, presses the two sets of levers in, window won’t budge. “Seems really stuck.”

“Now you see what you did?” she says to the man.

“What I do? Fifty years of this train going down the drain and you’re blaming me? And you got heat — feel it,” and he puts his hand on the seat. “Heat, so you won’t freeze.”

“I’m an older person. My bones are brittle. I get frozen faster than you.”

“Then move to another car. There’s actually too much heat coming up, making me want to take off my sweater, so it’s nice mixed with a little fresh air.”

“But I like this car. It’s cleaner than most and who knows what’s in the other cars. And this one was the perfect temperature for me without the window opened, which is why I walked through the whole train before I came back to sit here. I have a long way to go.”

“What else can I say? I pulled a window down, now it won’t go up. Point of issue has to be finished, for if he, a big strapping man, can’t close it, there’s nothing more anyone but a train mechanic can do.”

“Maybe you have a special way with those window clickers.”

“I don’t. I put my fingers on them like you did and him.”

“Ask him to try to use his special touch again,” she says to Dan.

“I’m sure there isn’t any.”

“There isn’t,” the man says. “But what’s the difference? This train’s never leaving here, so we should all stop crying. It’ll be another one they’ll tell us to get off of and then it’ll roll out to wherever they go, probably to the next uptown station to pick up passengers, who’ll think ‘Hmm, why’s the train so empty?’” He stands, yells out the window “Hey there, we’ve been here fifteen minutes if you want to know the exact figure — either tell us to get off and you get another train here to take us, or get this one moving. Conductor there — I talked to you before about it…oh go to hell with yourselves, you’re all a pack of meat and never gave two craps for the next guy,” and he leaves the train.

“Maybe you can give it a last good try,” she says to Dan. “Sometimes the first times unloosen it.”

Dan shrugs, tries the window again, strains and gets it up two inches.

“That’ll help but not by much. That all it’ll do?”

“That’s it.” His fingers are black and sticky from some crust on the levers and underneath the top window frame. “Maybe this is the problem,” showing her his fingers. “A grime, like glue. Probably down the sides of it — where the window slides up — too.”

“I’m going to another car. I know of one almost as warm if no one there opened the windows. Want his paper? It’s Saturday’s.”

“He might come back for it.”

“With all he did we don’t deserve his paper?” She crams it into one of the shopping bags, picks up two in each hand and a long umbrella and plastic raincoat that had been behind them and goes into the next car. Odor about her. Lots of junk in the bags. Small pots, rolled-up clothing, wooden hangers, loose toggles, stacks of letters, tied-up twine and string.

Conductor rushes through the car holding a flashlight. “Anything wrong, sir?” Dan says.

“We’ll be moving in a minute,” and goes into the next car. Dan sits, shivers, tries the window, rubs what grime he can off his hands under the knee-part of his pants.

“Hold the door,” a man shouts, running down the stairs. He runs into the car, “What luck it was still waiting,” pats his chest, “This isn’t good, I shouldn’t be losing my breath like this,” sits.

“Someone, will someone please help me?” Man in the middle of the platform, turning around in one spot, tapping a white cane on the ground.

Dan looks at the man in the car. “Not me,” his face says, takes his wallet out of his side pants pocket and puts it into the back, puts his athletic bag against the window and leans his head back on it, curls in his feet, pulls the ends of his coat down over his knees and shuts his eyes. Dan gets up and stands by the door nearest the man on the platform. “Sir, what is it?”

“Good — someone. Thank you. First I want to make sure of one thing. Are we at the Seventy-second Street station?”

“Ninety-sixth and Broadway — the uptown platform.”

“What I thought. Were you here five minutes ago when the uptown express left?”

“Five minutes ago? If it did, it went completely by me.”

Feels a watch on his wrist. “Five and a half minutes ago exactly. I was on it and meant to get off at Seventy-second but fell asleep. And a woman, when I woke up between stations, said the last stop was Thirty-fourth when it was Times Square, which is how it happens I’m here. Could you help me get to the downtown side?”

“Excuse me, but you are blind, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well you see, I’m standing inside the local, waiting for the doors to close. So I’d like to help, but I have to get to someplace which if I’m any more late for—”

“Thank you. Someone,” he shouts, turning around, “will someone please help me get to the other side of this mess?”

“Wait — listen. The stairs are over there — stop turning—now, you’re facing them. Maybe fifteen feet in front of you at the most. Walk straight — I’ll stay here and guide you, and if the doors close, guide you from the open window here long as I can — feel for the bottom step with your foot or cane, grab the railing on your right and go upstairs. The stairs to the downtown platform are to your right about thirty feet once you get up there.”

“I don’t know this station. I’m also very tired, so for that reason also I’m being extra cautious.”

“I can understand that. But much as I truly want to — and I truly do—”

“Hey,” the man from before, head sticking out the window of the next car, “get this thing going. You maybe already made me lose my job. My supervisor can’t believe when I say these trains are always breaking down — he uses a car. So move it — stop your stalling.”

“If the train doesn’t leave before I see a transit cop,” Dan says, “I’ll call one over for you or someone else who seems safe and is waiting here—”

“Help me out now?”

“Believe me, you can’t believe how late I am for where I’m going. And I’m freezing here. I lost my sweater and coat tonight. So I just don’t want to lose my train.”

A man approaches, heading for the stairs. “Sir,” Dan says, “could you take this gentleman here — he can’t see, as might be obvious — up the stairs and deposit him—”

Man’s past them, never made a sign he saw or heard, hurries upstairs.

“Thanks a lot. That’s where he was going — And when I mentioned your sight, sir, I only thought — Wait, I’ll do it. This train’s never going. Should’ve done it before and I would’ve been back by now.” Steps out of the car, grabs the man’s arm. Train motor starts up. “I have to get in. Ah, I don’t know what I’m doing.” Doors shut. “Oh well, macht nichts. If this one’s been here so long, another should be close behind it.”

“Whatever it’s costing you, I’m—”

“Finally,” the man in the next car says. “Hurray,” and pulls his head in and shuts the window.

“No problem whatsoever” Dan says. “That’s not so, but let’s try to do it quickly without either of us tripping. I won’t rush you though.” Doors open. Dan walks him a few steps to the staircase, says “Wait a second, maybe I can have both,” walks him to the car, wedges a foot against the part the door slides out of, says “Don’t worry, I’ll get you over there one way or the other without much more delay, but maybe in the next few moments someone will come who can take you. Hello,” he shouts, “but is there anyone here who could take this man whose sight is bad to the downtown platform? I can’t. My uptown local’s leaving — Don’t worry, I will if no one else does,” he says to the man. Two men a few pillars down the platform look at them, then seem to look away. “If one of you gentlemen is waiting for the uptown express — I just thought of something,” to the man. “Come with me to a Hundred and tenth — the stop I’m going to — and once there I’ll take you around to the downtown platform, stand with you till the local comes — I don’t care how long it takes — and then you can take it all the way to Seventy-second without getting off. Four stops. Hundred-third, Ninety- and Eighty-sixth, Seventy-ninth and then-second. Five. It’s a fair compromise. I’m going out of my way doing it that way also, but that’s okay — I don’t mean to sound begrudging or guilt-making. I want to help you, but you also shouldn’t have been out alone this late and on the subway in the first place.”

“I work downtown — baking, my living. I’ve never had trouble or missed my stop. Just take me—”

“Here, feel my arm,” and puts the man’s free hand on his arm. “Just one long-sleeved shirt. A thick cotton but not sufficient and no undershirt underneath.” Motor starts up again. Doors close except for the half-door his foot’s holding open. Man inside the car says “Make your move, in or out, but let the door close.”

“In a second. I’m trying to get someone to take this man to the downtown platform here.”

“I’ll get someone myself,” the blind man says and takes his arm away from Dan.

“Come with me, really. Two quick stops — Hundred-third and — tenth, and the downtown train you’d eventually get here will probably be the same one you’ll get at a Hundred-tenth. If one leaves as we get there, I’ll stay with you till the next one comes. You ask me, that’s more than a fair compromise.”

“I’ll manage.”

Conductor comes into the car.

“Have to go,” Dan says. “How about it?” Man steps farther back.

“Hey,” conductor says. Yelling man from before’s right behind him.

“Watch yourself and take good — ah, said all I can say,” and steps into the car. Door shuts. Conductor and yelling man from before turn around. Dan goes to the open window as the train starts moving and shouts “Will someone please help this man get to the downtown platform? Someone — you,” to a man running downstairs. “You missed it so help that guy with the cane there get to the downtown side. He’s blind, could use help. I tried—” but train enters the tunnel.

She goes to — beer? no, stops, then what? Doesn’t know — to bed, that’s it, for the last time, do what you said. Turns around, bedroom, bed, clothes off, here, there, heck with it, on the floor, chair, tomorrow she’ll pick up, clean up, whole place, her weekly mess, also one of these weekend days, clean the stove, but before that defrost the fridge — covers back, light off, radio on? No, enough, plenty, too much, sleep now, that’s what she needs. Lies back, sighs deep, feels good, covers up, pillow’s not right, leave it. No, leave it and she’ll never sleep tight. Light on, both pillows still up for reading not sleeping, down, plumps them, once, twice, light off, lies back, deep sigh, covers up, burrows in, pillowcase smells, tomorrow, also the laundry, or Sunday at the latest. So? So what? Go to sleep. Shuts her eyes. Thoughts pass — what a day, some day, night, whole day, part, party, parties, Dot and Sven, seeing Peter again, Arturo wasn’t his name but what it should be, though what’s that mean? “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Sounds so odd, voice in the dark. But she should, this Arturo business, be allowed to — it’s night and very late so she can make as many meaningless observations and statements as she wants till she falls asleep. Make another. Can’t think of any. “Hello, hello?” Still sounds odd. “Mama I’m cold.” Maybe always will sound weird while the light’s out. Alone’s probably why, while with another person, dark or light, he’d say “What’s that you said?” and she could say “I don’t know, just testing, testing, one, two, now back to head, so pretty please pay no mind,” and neither would think much of it. Pleasure of company, safety in numbers. Thinks that’s right, doesn’t care if it isn’t. But make another meaninglessism. Abracadabrafagabrahachoo! “I love you.” Very odd, maybe the mostest. Talk shortly and marry a Swiss miss — at this age, his age, versus Ms. Rage — now she’s making no sense. So what and what if she is or isn’t? For good, more meaninglesspish, quicker to sweep she’ll get. And this other guy. Coming by. You bet. But don’t forget if he rings — no way, late sir. Goodnight or good morning but a newer knowner day. Enough, pointy, too much — stop that, in fact. What? Any thought goes, quicker to deep. But something Diana said — hole back the tide. Means Marietta, means hold, means pellucid, means lucid, about chillen, she in relation to them — as daughter? mother? — but forgets. That she should breast-feed? At least on one breast? Which one — right? left? Sure, tanks, but getting much too much late. Not to conceive but to keep from sleep. What’s Bugs Bunny doing in her predreams? Scat. Where’s Tom or Jerry the cat to chase him away? Never liked Bugs or that cat: too mean, tiger-toothed and wool of wiles. Opens her eyes. That usually does it and did. For when she closes them right after, people or things she doesn’t want in her predreams disappear. How-do mom and dad. Stepping out of the front seat of a car, circa 1960, both doors going bang. Why? Neither can even drive. Who knows how these rings bed in here. Some conglomerate conjectural connection. What? Eléctrica, that’s all. Electrolux — the best — puff puff. Sheep sleep. Folks gone. For no one or thing stays for long. Friend Cecily from golden tooth days comes on stage. Make cents? Haven’t thought or seen of her in these predreams or from what I can member from regular deeper dreamers for years. Hi Cec me friend — Cecily, hi. She waves. Long brout cigarillo in her mout when she never cigaretted before. Then all of a sodden’s in a big, kid’s balloon skying flyward till she’s gone. “Bye.” Smoke burnts to dust. Dog runs on chased by many mangy dogs. Tease the real country. Wobbly dirt road with wheel pebbles in it, tall green fluffy trees round wed apples on them on either wide of the ride, blue shy, white shouds, green operas on the trees also and yellow forwards in the hills, clear day, all day, all the dogs’ tails raving, then nice sleek chased one barks. At me. Hark hark. I smile. A god, had one as a girl, but a different breed, ran away, posted rhymes up on every lamppost every day, visited all the city pounds, cried for nights, didn’t want Granada, Rolph! Rolph! by now gods and countryside have disappeared. Sailing ship in empathy dark seas. Coffee brewing, moo cows, nightleak rain, and ship sinks. Now sunshiny and tree talking pigs painting a two-story mouse. Pigs with overalls on, from come comicbook or cattoon, housepainter’s hats. Fuss me getting slippy. Nice we slice wheat thins the. Feels it humming on. When the cattoons come and all that sleep speak, it’s only minutians away. Slap slap. Up and at. Don’t go yet. Want to have some fun. Force someone on. Who you want to see? Could also force lovemaking if I hunted two and have done so in these seams with sexsex seferal times. Grandpa, that’s who. Opposite of thef. Grandpa, come on Grandpa, come on looking just as he looked when she last looked him a week before he dired. Reddy face, thin freame, straight postique, thick spectators and that wonder bread smile. Daying Hiya darling, meyer darlink, my riddle sweetheart — how ya truly doing? “I’m fine, Grandpa, sleepy but mine, and you?” Knew. Disappears. Forgot what I wasn’t supposed to tak long aloud in my pregleam dreams. Grandpa, bag on stage, wall in, say huddough to me again peas. Does, same suit, hat on now though. Quarter times she saw him he bore a half. Hi Grandpa — Grandpa, if knew you would do it anyruddy could, and hi. Hell me mo beautiful grandchild. Miss you, Grandpa. Me too to you, my child squeet. Miss you so much, Grandpa. Me me to too, my toot sweet. Miss you that much and am more glad I not falls into deep before I liss how much I say you, Grandpa. Me ma, ah-goo, sweet child. Wiss I had you round to isk about lots of doorbell rings. He’s gone. Eyes open. Grundpepere’s gone. Downstairs bother’s binging. Downstairs bell’s ringing. Don’t answer it a night song. Only could be key. Won’t let Kin in. City. Minsky. Who’s he? She’s too lazy. He was too late in coming. She doesn’t want to see anyone now. Too sleepy, not lazy, go away awhile and maybe. Again. Downstairs buzzer’s buzzing, no downstairs ring or bell. Just take the money and understand? Plenty. Or let him in or speak. Show him the courtesy, give him the couch and a wishrag and trowel and go back to sheep. Kidding? Buzzer’s rebothering. Gets up, turns on the light, hasn’t been in bed long, runs to the kitchen, pushes Talk on the intercom and says “Who is it, Dan Krin?” and he says “Yes, hi, and I know it’s much later than I said but could you ring me in? — this lobby’s cold.” “Listen, it’s — you see, well, I’m distressingly — painfully — just plainly sleepy, so I don’t think I can.” She still has her finger on the Listen button. Presses Talk and says “Hello?” and presses Listen and he says “Still here, but can you let me in?” Talk: “Did you find the money?” Listen: “Money, money — forgot all about it. Yah, it’s here. I didn’t need it but thanks. Is anything wrong?” Talk: “Take it anyway to get wherever you have to, but I really — I’m very sleepy — so if you wouldn’t mind, okay?” Listen: “I promise no problem. On my hands and knees, and it’s not just this lobby. I’ve only a shirt now, no sweater, so just to get warm. What I’m saying is — just as you’ve been too generous as it is — but don’t leave me stranded down here. Really, it’s too cold and I haven’t the right clothes — so a few hours sleep anywhere in your apartment. Even, as I said on the phone — and I’m not joking — I wasn’t and I’m naren’t, aren’t, am not now — on the rug.” Talk: “You through?” Listen: “Yes.” Taik: “All right, since I suppose I can’t go back on what I promised. And no rug. Just come up. Ninth floor, first door to your left when you get off the elevator, which is directly ahead of you past the lobby door, but don’t whatever you do get detained along the way,” and buzzes him in.

Funny girl, sounded mad, can’t wait, just to get inside some place, what’ll he say? aiee, aiee, at this hour the apartment can’t have much heat, only don’t get playful, just Hello, thanks — play it straight — Don’t want to trouble you any farther — further — So just…eighth…seventh…show me the rug or couch or whatever it is I’m to rest on, and if it’s still okay a shower first if you don’t mind, as you can see I really need it, and a towel in any state of dampness or decay would be much appreciated, so you just go to sleep, night-night, don’t worry about me, and much more than my thanks, you’ve been, what can I say? divine…second…first…

Bathrobe, something for underneath, just a pair of panties from here or there, like to put up her hair but hasn’t time, tie the belt tight, tuck the top in, nothing needed for her feet.

Door opens as he has his finger—“Hi, heard the elevator door open,” closes.

“Hello, thank you, you startled me,” holds out his hand, “—forgot my key. I—”

“Shhh — neighbors.”

“Sorry, and no dumb, and besides, confusing that dumb remark when you also consider that I lost my own housekeys. But anyway, seriously”—her hair down, more blonde than orange now, how’s that? could be the ceiling light — smooth, shiny—“I don’t think I should leave my shoes here, do you? They’re not wet and I wouldn’t want to lose them.”

“Why, is it raining?”

Big breasts, thick thighs, small waist, under the robe, what he can detect—“No, why? Don’t know why I even said it, I mean,” cute little feet. “I’ll leave them on. They might be dirty, I guess that’s why. Said it, I—”

“It’s all right, this isn’t a Japanese household. Come in.”

“Thanks.” She steps aside, he shuts the door, she locks, her back, large buttocks. “Nice place.”

“You haven’t seen it.”

“The lobby downstairs, the vestibule. Which is it? The second entrance room, with all the marble. Oh, befores I forgets,” gives her the cab money in his hand.

“No, I don’t want—” trying to give it back.

“Please, it’s not mine — Then a dollar for the subway tomorrow, which I’ll mail back,” takes a dollar bill. “But I always get those two rooms mixed up or never had them straight.” Face, smile, teeth, height, high cheeks, those sweet feet, almost oriental eyes, simple powder-blue bathrobe, paint, print, light fixture in this small room, all in good taste, tons of books shelved, don’t let it get to…turn your…make you…something, what? No time.

“Lobby,” she already said. Also: “Vestibule’s the first one with the nailed-down floor runner and bells.” Now: “At least I think—”

“So the door from the outside’s the vestibule door and one to the lobby’s the lobby door. That hold true for going out? Lobby door leading to the vestibule still the — well, not important, except for a translator’s zealotism, zealotry—zeal for the exact word. I bet you thought with that last one I wasn’t serious.”

“I didn’t think. Anyhow—”

“Sure: no talk; sleep. I’m sorry, and by nice place downstairs — just to finish this up, so you don’t think I’m altogether bats — I meant old New World New York or something or another. Handsome. Hatful. Tactful. Those aren’t it, blubber blubber, so whatever words I mean.”

“You’re tired.”

“Us both. I’ve kept you up and up. Lucky you’re still talking to me.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can.” Yawns. “There”—another—“see? I’m catching a yawn, and for all I know I’m dreaming in my sleep.”

“If you are, where’s that leave me? Where would I be if—”

“No taxing thoughts. And maybe you should take off your shoes. How’d they get so muddy?”

“And my hands,” untying the shoelaces. “I should also probably leave them in the anteroom do you call this room? The shoe room? You have a newspaper I can put these under?”

“Leave them. I’m doing a big clean-up tomorrow. And this room is my apartment’s equivalent to the downstairs lobby. Or foyer. That’s what this and that one downstairs is. Foyer. No, bring your hands with you. You’ll need them to pull out the couch bed. I haven’t the strength for it anymore.”

Goes, follows. “Hmm, nice room. And nice couch. Don’t worry about sheets or anything. All I need’s a blanket or heavy coat.”

“The bed is already made. And I’d say ‘Let me take your coat,’ or would have in the foyer, but you really don’t have one. You didn’t when you came to Diana’s?”

“It was stolen. I didn’t tell you about the newsstand?”

“You did. I’d ask to hear the whole story”—yawns—“as you can see,” pointing to her yawning mouth. “Mine always seem to come in twos.”

“Makes no diffieren—” Shudders.

“Ooh, you’re really chilled. I can make you tea. Or a drink of something. Scotch, vodka? Somehow Zubrovka sounds medicinal — know what it is?”

“Buffalo grass. I’d love it, thanks. And look at the view. Mind if I look?” Goes to the window. “Incredible. I once knew an editor — he had me come to his endless apartment overlooking the East River in the Seventies. About a translation — first I ever published — around ten years ago — it was a literary magazine. Now he’s got to be the most successful writer of other people’s autobiographies in the country. Every book he ghosts he gets a quarter of a million for and he does them in a year. He also appears in an American Express Cheques ad, saying ‘You don’t know me and never will know the titles of the books I write, but four million of you bought my books this year,’ or that’s what someone told me, since I never saw it. But forgot what I was going to say about his apartment. What’s that? Looks like a floating lit Christmas tree.”

“In the water?”

“Moving very slowly.”

“Probably a tug.” Comes over. “A tug.”

“Why’s it alone? And where’s it going upriver this late?”

“They’re often alone. Picking up ships there — Yonkers, Albany — barges with concrete or coal on them, sometimes pushing eight at a time. I know that editor-writer. I’ve gone to his parties and seen him on TV.”

“Really. When I sold him the translation I was told — it was also in a New Yorker Profile about him and his distinguished family — that every contributor for the year was invited to his annual New Year’s Day party, but I wasn’t. I was disappointed. They’re known to be — were then — now he’s married, has children—”

“His parties still are. Elaborate smorgasbord. Bar with bartenders making real bar drinks. Servants scudding around with the most exotic finger foods and champagne. Lots of well-known or interesting or very smart people there or all three. Quartet playing Schubert or pianist playing Broadway medleys. It’s not what I like to do or have time to any other daytime day, but it is a great illusionary way to start the new year.”

“He never took anything of mine after that, though it’s true other people now edit most of the magazine for him. No big deal. I wanted to go to eat and drink well and, to be honest, to meet women — society girls involved in literature and literaturists, I understand, and just women writers and artists of every kind, and I’d probably want to go for the same reasons now. Maybe I would’ve met you there one of these last years if I’d sold one of the many translations I sent his magazine in that time and he had invited me, if he still invites contributors.”

“I don’t think that’s how most of his guests get there anymore. I went with a friend and Sanderson talked to me for an hour about post-World War Two alcoholic writing and has sent me an invitation for the last three years, but hasn’t invited my friend since the first time. I don’t know how it works. I think my friend and he pumped iron at the same health club. I’m not yawning anymore but I am as sleepy. I’ll get you that vodka now, if you’re still interested, and say goodnight.”

“Yes, of course, excuse me. And may I use your bathroom?”

Points, he goes, shuts the door. Won’t stay closed unless he forces it into the frame and locks it, which he does. Smells flowery. Bloomingdale’s soap. Carnation. Knows without seeing it. Woman he knew used to buy them by the box and used a red one too. What scent? rose scent, both soaps too hard to lather his shavingbrush with. Polka-dot shower cap on the shower’s hot water valve, backbrush hanging handle-end up on the cold, series of enlarged framed photos along one wall of turned-over beached rowboats, photo of a cat strolling the coast of what seems to be the bouldery sea of the boats, Marin watercolor or oil of sea trees, rocks and island, thick deep blue bath and face towels and washcloth, three toothbrushes in the holder, bobby pins and antique ring in the cup stand. Washes his hands, face, hands again, then the soap under the faucet to get the grime off it. Water in his mouth, gargles, spits out, still tastes foul. Maybe she has a mouthwash he could swig from the bottle and spit out. Opens the medicine chest. Diaphragm case with jelly alongside but forget it. Mouthwash, but she’ll know if she smells his breath or follows him into the bathroom that he’s been inside the chest, and closes it. Water on his hair, wants to brush his hair with her brush on the sink. No, his gray hairs, but with all her blonde or orange or both, she’ll never know. Three strokes — sides and middle — checks, brush is clean but for one gray, long enough to be hers, which he pulls out and drops into the bag in the basket under the sink. Pee. Picks up the seat.

Knock knock.

“I’ll be right out.”

“Just thought, because of your chill, you might want the vodka now.”

“I do, thank you. I still feel chilled. But I’ll be right out. Then I’ll take it and go right to sleep.”

“You don’t want to shower? On the phone I thought—”

“I do but didn’t want to put you through—”

“Now that you’re here, shower if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll get you a washrag and a fresh towel.”

“If you don’t mind, one of these will do, and no washrag. Excuse me, Helene, but I have to urinate badly. So I’m going to break off this conversation for the moment.”

“No, use it. And sorry.”

Looks at the commode as he pees. Clean, outside and in. Hopes she isn’t still there listening. Finished, flushes, seat down — should he? — cover too. She keeps the cover up when she’s alone, just as he does, or is that assuming too much? Rinses his hands, then washes them — clean as the commode was he might’ve touched feces on the seat’s underside — feels his fly, it’s up, last glance in the mirror, unlocks the door. She’s standing in the living room, stemmed shotglass on the table beside her. Wants him to go, doesn’t care if he stays, what’s her face say? No smile, quite blank, all in, that could be all. “Didn’t mean to take so long or cut you off like that.”

“What are you talking about?” Hands him the glass.

“Smells good.”

“Polish, supposed to be much better than the Russian. Also supposed to be ice-cold, but I thought with a chill you’d—”

“Any way is fine and probably room temperature’s better.” Holds up the glass. “Everybody’s got imported vodka today. Diana had Russian, I think; friend of mine has Finnish—”

“This was from my father.”

“Oh, very generous. My father never even offered me a drink. Didn’t like me to. Was afraid I’d become a rummy.”

“Rummy?”

“Expression of his for me. Guzzler and juicehead and lush were others, all exaggerated and inaccurate, and a little unfair since he drank his share way past my present age till he was ordered not to. And I didn’t mean that imported vodka has become a fad. If I had my choice, believe me…Is there an appropriate toast I should make before I drink this?”

“None I know in Polish. Prosit perhaps or down the hatch.”

“I almost feel I should make a blessing, not a toast. I’m thankful for being here. To you for being so hospitable and kind. I don’t know what I would’ve done, at the end of my end and so on, and as I said—” Tears come.

“You would have found something. Drink.”

Drinks. “Delicious.”

“If the Poles, my father says, advertised their vodkas as much as the Russians, they’d take the market away. Or maybe they think that taking business from them would only be one more reason for the tanks to roll in. Anyway, that’s countries.” Looks at the couch. “Towel, washrag, extra blanket…bathrobe.”

“Don’t need one.”

“It’s important. I don’t want you running around in a towel or your undershorts.”

“Ah, if you only knew.”

“What?”

“Nothing sinister — really, thank you. You have a robe that’ll fit and won’t itch?”

“And ambisexual. I’ll get it.” Starts for the bathroom, stops. “What were you saying ‘if I only knew’?”

“Nothing. Just something about underpants. That the robe was a good suggestion. But don’t worry, because nothing’s wrong with my underpants or their environs or any idea connected to them in any way.”

“It still doesn’t sound right.”

“I don’t have any on. There you go. I used them to wipe my behind earlier tonight because the john I was in — it was in a bar but I only went there for coffee, to sober up, to dry off — was all out of paper.”

“Are those pants in your pocket now?”

“I flushed them down — their toilet, not yours.”

“Okay.” Goes past the bathroom into another room. What’d she think when she saw the tears and he mentioned his environs and then his behind? That he never should’ve brought any of it up? That for the sake of good manners and taste, etcet. He didn’t see how she looked when he cried because at that moment he looked away, quickly got rid of the tears. He was being honestly emotional she could think — a virtue? fault? folly? — or dishonest, trying to suck her in with his tears, or trying to affect or impress with his directness and frankness about his environs and behind, or just still a little drunk, which might scare her. If he were she he’d think at least What is it with this guy? He shoots the rest of the drink down. But her concern, papa who compares Slavic vodkas, soap, clean commode, woman with a river view, bobby pins and simple ring, obvious smarts from the start, affectionate to revered way people spoke about her, spryness, hair, just this pretty glass, puts it on the table — why didn’t he ask how her evening went after Diana’s? He can be clever but never learned to hold back enough or know when soon is soon enough or — jumps. Something at his feet. Cat, same one it seems from the photograph, a light bluish white, yanking one of its front nails with its teeth, saying Who are you? in Siamese, settling down inches away, pulling all its paws in and staring at him.

“So, Sammy found you. He must have been under the couch. Are you allergic to cats?”

“Why, am I acting like it? I like them, but takes me a while to be over-friendly.” Bends down to pet it. Cat hisses, hand retracts.

“First put your finger out and let him smell it. They like to get to know you slowly, and one big hand coming down on them too fast can be hair-raising.”

Squats, puts out his finger. Cat sniffs it, licks it, sits up and bumps his head several times on Dan’s palm, he pets it and looks up.

“Now you’re pals.” Hands him a bathrobe. “Nothing else I can think of — you?” Shakes his head and stands. “You need another blanket or any toilet articles, in the linen closet opposite the bathroom. Feel free in the kitchen. Stove burners are automatic, if you want to use one, and oven you need a match, which are on top of the cupboard to the stove’s right. Are you a big drinker?”

“Not at all. Why, my remarks?”

“For a while I didn’t know what I was getting into with you, pre- and post-phone. Some of the things you said — they might be amusing or right for some people, and maybe any other time in my life or hour of the night I might respond more favorably to them, so what am I saying?”

“No, you’re right. Fact is I was thinking the same thing before you said it. That I might’ve sounded too fancifully bizarre — I’m being euphemistic here so you don’t think too unfavorably of me. Or am I now doing the same thing? — but too soon saying these things and maybe for any time.”

“Well, let’s not get down on yourself too hard. Just have a good shower and snack and a pleasant sleep. If you like Mandelbrot — do you know what it is?” He nods. “Some of my mother’s homemade ones are in a coffee can in the refrigerator. I’ll probably be up earlier than you but I’ll patter around. I don’t think Sammy will get out of my room, but if he does and ends up on your bed, don’t be alarmed — he doesn’t scratch. I’ve no shades on any of my windows, so if it gets very bright out it might wake you. Any idea what the weather report is for tomorrow?”

“No, and go ahead and wake me. Do everything you’d normally do if I wasn’t here. All I want is a few hours sleep. Also, and I know it’s a little late in the conversation for this, but you never said how your evening went after you left Diana’s. The wedding reception?”

“I didn’t. Thought I had. Anyway, you probably still want to talk and I don’t. If you want to chat later in the morning and I don’t feel too rushed to get busy with my work, we can do so over coffee.”

“Fine. Do you have to use the bathroom, because I’m going to be in there a while.”

“Give me a minute and then it’s yours. Oh, one more thing and then you’ll be set. Around five or five-thirty a man might yell ‘Mike’ from the park side of the drive a few times and possibly startle you. Either he’s crazy and doesn’t have a dog or he does have one and it runs away from him and gets lost every other day. Otherwise, have a good night.”

“Goodnight.”

She’s dreamed. How old is she in it? — that’s always the first thing she asks about her dreams. Same age she is today. She and Dan were on a beach. It seemed like the same beach she rents a cottage on every summer for one or two months, lots of pebbles and shells and huge smooth tocks sticking out of the sand or the water near shore. Then it seemed like Coney Island, a gray colored sand but without people or wire trashcans or lifeguard highchairs on it, and no pebbles, shells or rocks. The sky was clear, weather was mild and the sun was setting in the East. He was in bathing trunks and a tank top, she in a light sleeveless cotton dress, more like a young girl’s dress with blue forget-me-nots all over it and a big bow at the waist in back. She have one like it as a girl? Doesn’t recall. They were holding hands. The Boardwalk and Parachute were behind them — still no other people — and she pointed to the Parachute and said “I once got stuck at the top of it for half an hour when there was a fire in the gear box thirty feet above me and it scared me so much I couldn’t speak for a week and could never go on an amusement park ride again, not even the merry-go-round or one of those dumb bumping cars I used to love.” All that happened. She also couldn’t get into an elevator for months or on a plane till about ten years ago and even today when she drives a car over a high bridge her pulse speeds up. He said “Don’t look at it then,” not that sympathetically; “let’s just count birds.” They turned back to the water. Both were barefoot and her feet were sinking into the muddy sand, making her shorter and then much shorter than he. She held a finger out to point at birds and he held a pen and pad in his free hand. A bird flew past. She said “There’s one — a tern. How many are we up to now?” He said “One,” and let go of her hand to write the number in the pad. She said “It seems we’ve been here much too long for just one tern.” “There’s a second bird,” he said; “quick, what is it?” “A sandpiper, but they usually travel in twos or schools.” “Prides,” he said. “Plagues,” she said, “or maybe not. I can be very morbid, so you better watch out for me.” He said “I’ll do more than that; a gaggle of mores. I’ll look out for you, look after you, look forward to you, look into you, look up to you, but I’ll never look down my nose or look through you, or so I say.” “Never mind,” she said, “but tell me: why are we counting birds?” “We were asked to for the betterment of our environment, yours, mine and the child’s.” “Never mind, and look; there’s a third one — a murmuration bird,” and she took his pen and wrote the number and name in his pad. He hugged her, she didn’t resist. He said something like “Stabilize your mouth, I’m going to navigate you,” she opened her mouth wide and moved her head closer to his. He kissed her neck and fiddled with her dress bow and shoulder strap. She said “Will you get your hands and lips off me? I don’t know you and I do mind.” He let go, held his hands out to her in a strangulation pose. She backed away and he dropped to his knees, put his face to the hole her feet had made and screamed the most horrified scream and she thought he’d just found his child dead in its crib, and woke up.

What to make of it? The dream, if just the scream and dead child thought, certainly woke her up. But what of the rest? Multiple meanings of tern? Fiddling with her bow only in there for a laugh? All the baby talk with Marietta could explain the dead child being in, but what does that dropping-to-his-knees scene mean: child she wants but might never conceive, being stillborn? Her wanting to kiss him, then resisting, related to what happened with Peter before? Was the mud she was in primeval? The strangulation pose supposed to be what she thinks sex would be like with him? The sandpiper flying past the piper of passing time? Nothing she can now think of makes her think the dream was very self-revealing or profound. Engaging, moving, cinematic, even tragic, and her favorite kind stylistically, one that for the most part moves forward and tells a story. But when the meaning doesn’t come at once or after some thought, she lets the interpretation of it drop till it pops out on its own. Now that’s interesting.

She gets up, her mouth dry from all the drinking tonight. Bathrobe on, shuts the bedroom door to keep Sammy in. Bathroom still steamy from what must have been a long shower. Doesn’t have to pee but will on her way back so she won’t have to get up again tonight. Heads for the kitchen for a glass of water. Living room’s dark except for the street lights but ample light to see. He seems to be sleeping, hardly breathing. She holds her breath, doesn’t even hear him then. He can’t have anything on underneath since his pants are folded on the floor beside the bed and he said he lost his undershorts. On top of the pants his neatly folded shirt and beside them on top of a newspaper folded in half his shoes side by side with what appear to be socks inside. Why’d he move the shoes in? Probably from some infixed sense of order or he didn’t want her to feel his things were strewn all over. He’s on his stomach, covers down to a little above his waist. Room’s fairly cold, so won’t do for his chill. She goes to the side of the bed he’s not facing. He has big shoulders, fairly big back muscles which seem unusually tight for a man sleeping, even flexed. Big tuft of hair on his back just below the neck, also hair that comes up almost to the tops of his arms. He smells from her hair conditioner, so he must have shampooed. Same smell she smelled when she passed the bathroom. All right by her if it made him feel better, but maybe he should have asked if he could use them. She pulls the covers up to his neck, he doesn’t move. She goes into the kitchen, runs the tap water to get it cold. What’s she doing? — she has enough bottled spring water to take a bath. She gets it out, in the refrigerator light pours out a glass. Shuts the refrigerator door, drinks. Too cold to drink all at once, truck roars past. At this hour and that sound could only be a Times or News delivery truck, hopes it didn’t wake him up. Thinks between sips he’s a very bright guy, a terribly nice guy, well just a bright nice lively guy, that much is clear, with a tendency to get into scenes. Also a lot better looking than she remembered him, grubby as he was when he got here, with a sense of neatness and cleanness about himself, and that while he was here, big contrast to Peter, he didn’t make any kind of pass. In the morning he’ll ask — she’ll sit down for toast and coffee with him — if he could see her again, and what will she say? Say yes, see what he’s like once he gets over his nervousness about her and evening fatigue and lingering tipsiness, meet for tea, maybe the second time for a long walk and lunch, and if he gets as pushy as he was on the phone, stop him, and if he continues to be pushy after that, drop him, since that’s not the type of man she ever especially liked and certainly not what she wants to start up with again, so just, and this has to be the main thing, go slowly with him from date to date and if it works it works, what more is there to say other than she thinks this is what she’ll still think if she remembers it when she wakes up again later today, and sets the glass upside down in the dishrack, tiptoes to the bathroom without looking at him, pees nothing much so doesn’t flush it, more not to waste water than not to wake him, gets down in a crouch and slowly opens the bedroom door, grabs Sammy just as he’s about to scoot out through her legs and kicks the door shut and carries him with her to bed.

Shulumu, gutsofar. What is, with, I affir, I affir, behind me befar, so near, so nar, cower me dup tweetly, twilleries, get back there and didn’t let are, wise up me for once, buf something like one like, gist wanded to see what she would do, nice, she was so noose and then some niece, covers over me, I was too tired to and thought I’d freeze, in time I might’ve covered myself up all right, a find kine lady, eager to see her out of mourning in daylight, now go to slip, sluff, go to, sloop, time to, eferthink fault wheret May, going fizz, fuzz, bing bomb, bye bye blackbird, how do you fly today? climb on its back, time another time goodbye, slaff, baa, shhh, ssss, sleepily, bobby go nug, not knee, pot cheese, flug dwempt tomb, tinny time, tommy too, tea for tots, sofa mat, softer than mine, wean my gloom, bridge slapped dashed on, sheet and pillowcase so smellowy clean, he and Helene in a car with two men friends, don’t know whose and, catching them in the rearview, who they are, but everyone having a ding-a-dang time, yokes, laughs, “Catch this one,” one of the men says, Dan in the driveler’s seat steering, North is his best, South on his left, West afront, East ahind, Helene beside him speaking, silent visible words out of her mouth letter by letter “Lovely landscape. Nice drive. Big bridge. Why’s it rise so high? Tale-telling clouds. I see a hamstring in that one, a man strung in the next one. Beautiful ocean or bay. Where are we, Dan, and where we going?” “We’re crossing the George Washington Bridge — the one that’s lit up like a brassiere on its back. You don’t recognize the Jersey side?” “Don’t reproach me,” she says. “Just ask ‘Do you recognize it?’ rather than ‘Why don’t you?’” “I said it like that?” he lies. “If I did, I deeply apologize,” when one of the men grabs him around the neck from behind and yells “The bridge, dimwit — watch it!” and they’re all screaming as the car crashes through the side-railing and coasts over the water a few seconds before it starts to dive. “Are we in a pursuit plane?” Dan asks Helene. The men punch open their doors and make expert jackknife dives out of the car and with their arms out glide downward side by side talking about the great view. Helene’s in the back seat screaming, a one- to two-month-old baby’s in her lap sleeping, car’s still diving straight down. Dan shouts “Oh no, oh darn, oh my dolls, we’re ruined, dashed, we, so soon, nothing nothing I or any man can do,” and throws his arms back to grab them in a last hug but can’t reach them. Then when he reaches them his arms won’t come down. Then they won’t go around. Car roof’s gone, blue sky and white clouds and a preschool teacher and her class flying above and below. He stands on the seat, top half of his body’s outside, and yells “Help us, stop it,” raises his arms, “All right, I suppercake, I beg!” is on his bed, where’s he? Helene’s, sleeping over, now he sees, it’s still dark, orangy sky, strange window frame shadows on the ceiling, Mondrians they remind him of, sofabed, softer bed, better pillow, just a dream, mean, man on the mule mews moody night, jorst a morst a lost a florst by morning heights dive, doors, forced, birdmen’s frenzed strength, bridge, scary biz, bees, buzz buzz, by, ben, aboo, “Mr. Krin?” “Yes?” he says. “Dr. Krin — Professor, nitch?” head of his department says. “No, jest a lecturer, Professor Fish.” “Lieutenant Krin then, we’d like you to take a fourth class ex pes this term — physics, and on the cusp I’m a fade, since we don’t have the font to pay extra, extra.” “Me? Fee free? Physics gas and lab? That’s good for a gaff, cost it’s the last thing I could dabble in. As a unicycle student I used to freeze whenever I went into my physics and chemistry classes and I never got higher than a D.” “Chemistry has nothing to do with it, Lieutenant, and do it for me. It’ll help you in this apartment, Sergeant, take it from me. I gibt you ein box, privately. In it is Miss Effie’s things to know how to teach your physics class.” He gives Dan an artist’s paint box. “Return it clean,” and leaves. Dan takes an old leatherbound book from the box, thumbs through it and sees everything he’s supposed to teach. Chapter One: First Class. Chapter Two: Second Class. All the way to thirteen. Bit book but not hard, he thinks. He takes the box to the office next door. Helene’s typing a letter at her desk. “Dear sir,” she says to the page as she types, “the bill must be paid.” “Helene, a minute of your time, please. The chairman wants me to teach cottage physics in addition to my three languages and lit quarts this term.” “Physical? What do you know about physical?” “Roughly nothing, but he gave me this monstrous book and I brushed through it and found I coo do it. It’s in this box. I’m not afraid.” He opens the box. Several other books besides the big one are in it, all old and bound in the same dark leather. He takes out the smallest book. It’s a wooden alarm clock that looks like a model of an operating table with many drawers underneath and stirrups and straps on both ends. “I’m sure I’ll be expected to explain this clock to my class, but damned if I know how it works. I’ll save it for the last meeting.” He puts it back and takes out another book. It’s a cuckoo clock, handcarved in the Black Forest it says on it, and when he holds it up a wooden bird pops out, cuckoos twice, pops back. He tries to open the cuckoo’s door, tries to open the hatch in back, both are sealed shut. “How do they expect me to teach about this cuckoo clock if I can’t get into it? I know what. I’ll call in sick the day of the cuckoo clock class. But I’m going to teach this course. And from elementary go on to advanced. I can make a good living this way and can use the change. People need people who can teach physics. It’s an important subject. Goddamn, it’s the law.” “Economics is important also,” she says. “For instance, in Port-au-Maine—” Someone’s starting up a motorcycle outside. If she has a cat, where’s the litter box? “What’s that your saying, Helene? Car harley hear ya.” He wants to go to the window and tell the motorcyclist to stop that noise. But he’s in bed, no clothes on, it’s the ninth floor and not his building, she might come into the room again thinking he’s asleep and see him naked and ask him to leave. Noise is even louder now. Gets up, just to look, sees he has an erection, forces it back between his legs, tries to pull the blanket off the bed to wrap around him but it doesn’t seem it’ll come off without ripping. He goes to the window naked. “Mike,” he yells outside, “can that damn rocket — people have to sleep.” Mike, seated on a motorcycle, jams his foot down on the kick-starter several times. The motor always starts up and stops. A young woman sits behind him watching television on a small set strapped to the seat between them. “Fuck this machine,” Mike says and gets off. “Mike,” the woman says, “stay here. This is the best part. I’ve seen it five times before. Television I’m telling you is the wave of the future and maybe even now is where it’s all at.” Mike walks up to the window, holds his fist under Dan’s nose and says “This little finger’s the cylinder, this next little finger’s the transformer, the middle little finger’s the responder, the fourth little finger’s the resonator, and the littlest little finger’s the thumb that’s gonna pop out your eye, screwball,” and thrusts his thumb at Dan’s eye, it goes through the window, glass gets in Dan’s eye but it doesn’t hurt. “Oh my,” he says, “not feeling the pain usually signifies the last moments of the eye. I’m losing my brother,” and starts to cry. He puts his hand over the eye, is in bed. Feels the eye, closes the other one: outside it’s beginning to get light. Orangy sky still, supposed to mean snow. Maybe she took the kitty litter box into her bedroom, thinking it’d be unpleasant for him to be near it. Brushing his teeth and seeing and smelling those turds, maybe it would, but he’s sure she keeps the box clean. Physics dream. Yes? Something like the ones when he was in school and shul and couldn’t get out if not. Motorcycle drives off. Five, six, even seven o’clock? If he’d washed his socks and wrung them tight, he could’ve put them on the bathroom radiator and by eight they would’ve been dry. But she wouldn’t want to see his socks when she goes into the bathroom. Kind of ugly too: black nylon, thin, frayed if not holed at the heels and toes, one of his father’s pairs he didn’t want but his mother gave him to wear or throw out. He likes the Christmas season because of all the oratorios the radio plays. But doesn’t want to give Helene the impression he’s trespassing with his socks and songs and — They’re at a restaurant with friends. Really the lobby of an old unrundown hotel with tables and chairs in it, gurgling fountains and cartouches around the room. Diana and the Hungarian novelist and two couples from her party that night: Chase and Nancy, good friends of his from Hokku; Hasenai and his wife, Hasenai looking angry that Dan lost the poetry book. Dan reads the note Hasenai slipped him before: “Who do I impale whales to but you? Drink drank, roustabout. Must brake relations fast: let this’ve been our ship’s wake.” “Jun,” Dan says, “I was going to call you in Japan — I know the dialing code and rates. You dial one-one. You dial two-two. You get the overseas Asian-American connection and you say ‘Three-three, four-four,’ and she gives you the operator on a ham sandwich island off the coast of Japan. To her you can speak Japanese or say ‘Five-five, six-six,’ and then the phone number which I have here in my address book.” He goes through his pockets. “Ding, that book must’ve been stolen too.” “Act,” Hasenai says and goes with his wife and the other couples to the cloakroom. “I guess we’re stuck with figuring out how to divvy up the chick,” he says to Helene. “I think we should pay it,” she says. “All? I thought half.” “All,” she says. “People have been paying our way for years.” “Not so. Since when? Okay, let’s for a change turn the tables on them.” The other couples come back with their hats and coats on and Dan says “I’m picking up the check today—we are — it’s entirely up to us.” “No,” the novelist says and pulls out a wad of twenty-dollar bills. “Let Dan,” Hasenai says; “he’s cost me the cost of more diners than I can name.” “Thank you, Jun,” Dan says and opens his wallet. The check comes to $53.22 including tax and he only has fifty-three dollars on him. “I think, after all, I will need about ten dollars from the rest of you for the tip.” “Pay with our credit card,” Helene says. “What credit card? I’ve no credit or cards of any kind.” She pats his side pants pocket, pulls his wallet out and takes several cards from it. “Where’d they come from? And they’re all in my name too. Waiter,” he shouts, “waiter,” and a waiter comes over carrying a tray stacked with plates of food. Dan’s sitting at a small square table in the back of a delicacy store, eating off of a plastic tray. Chicken, baked potato, roll, salad, beer. Three people he doesn’t know are eating at the same table. He finishes the beer and goes to the front of the store and stops at the turnstile next to the cashier’s booth. “Where’s your food ticket?” the cashier says. “Do I really need to go back for it?” Dan says. “I know what I ate and you can ring it up when I tell you what it was.” “If you don’t have your ticket, the rules of the house say we have to ring up the maximum in quality and amount that someone your size and age can eat in one sitting before we can let you leave. What’s your height and weight?” “Look, I’m an old customer — everybody here knows me by now. Oh, just guess.” “Six-one, hundred and seventy-eight, thirty-nine fifty and three cents.” “For one small-portioned cafeteria meal without even an appetizer or dessert? I’ll find my ticket.” He goes back to his table. The tray with his dirty dishes and the ticket that was on it are gone. “Any of you see my food ticket?” he says to the other diners. “It was punched to about a dollar-eighty.” They all keep eating without looking up. “Did any of you, then, take my ticket because it was punched less than yours?” They keep eating without looking up. “Then my tray — did you see the clean-up man or anyone else take it away?” They keep eating. “Thanks.’” He goes to the cashier, says “Listen, I’m even better than an old customer. Without seeming immodest, I’m an exceptionally good customer in a number of different ways. Not only do I regularly eat complete meals in the cafeteria and always pay for them, but I buy from the retail sections a few hundred dollars a year of smoked turkey legs, sliced sable, coleslaw, pickles, olives, Russian coffee cakes and pâtés. So you have to take my word when I say I only had four things — a baked potato, fried chicken-wing and two other things, but give me a second to remember what they are.” Just then two black men come into the store and go into the men’s room behind the cashier’s booth. They look like father and son — almost the identical face. The room quickly fills up with people buying from the retail counters, the booth disappears behind several tall women and men, it’s an underground garage they seem to be in but one without cars. Something awful is happening in the men’s room and some of us should go inside. That young man looked sinister, the old man looked helpless. I’d go but maybe I’m wrong, as they were both so well-dressed in stylish suits, homburgs and vests, and I’d also never be able to get past all these people in time. The young man comes out of the men’s room, cuts through the crowd with swishing motions of his hands, stands a few feet from Dan on top of a small flight of steps leading to the exit door. Everyone looks at him and then at the men’s room when the door there opens. The old man staggers out, his hand around the handle of the knife in his chest, leans against the wall and starts crying and coughing. Everyone goes “Ohhh,” but seems afraid or too squeamish to touch him. The young man points over the crowd and says “Dat man demoralized me,” and goes out the exit door. I’ve got to get the police, but if I go out that door he might be waiting with a knife. He pushes through the crowd to find another exit, sees the old man on the ground, bends down, listens for his heartbeat, feels for his wrist pulse, breathes into his mouth several times, pulls his eyelids back and lets them drop, says to some people watching “I think he’s had it. I knew we should’ve gone into the men’s room to help.” “You should have said something,” a woman says. “I knew something was wrong also and I would have gone in there in two seconds if I’d had support.” “Meanwhile,” Dan says, “the kid ought to be caught, but it’d be asking for it for anyone to go through that exit door.” “Try up there.” She points to the car ramp leading to levels B, C, D and F. He runs up the first ramp. A car’s speeding down and he has to jump out of its way. “Bugger,” he yells after it. “Roach!” The car starts to back up. He runs up the other ramps and leaves through the roof door. He’s on top of a tall hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and Pacific Ocean. I’ve seen this same view in a movie, with the actor standing exactly where I am. He runs down the hill to find a policeman, all the time looking around to make sure the young man isn’t nearby. His mother, sister and he go into the Seventy-second Street IRT station. I’ve had this dream before, he thinks, stopping in front of the turnstiles. His mother says “Everyone has the correct change to get in?” His sister and he hold their coins up, his mother says “Good, then let’s go, but stay close.” He’s first and is about to put his coin in when he sees a sign on the turnstile: Exit, No Entrance. “Don’t let’s go in there,” he says to his mother. “We’ll never get out if we do. That sign. It means death’s inside.” “That sign means you can only leave through that turnstile, not go in, so try the next one without a sign.” His sister puts her coin into the next turnstile. “Don’t let her go,” he says. “I’m not a dumb-ox. I know what that sign means.” His sister goes through and his mother follows her. “Both of you — come back through the leave-turnstile while you’ve still time.” “Hey, kid,” a man says behind him. “You coming or going, but you’re blocking my way.” He steps aside, the man looks at the sign and puts a coin into the next turnstile and goes through. “Dan,” his mother says by the downtown stairs. “I’m fed up with your emotional notions and tantrums. We’ll wait for you on the platform. If you’re not there by the time the train comes, go straight home,” and they go downstairs. “Please,” he shouts, “I don’t want you both to die or for me to be left alone.” He hears the downtown train coming into the station, pulls his cap down over his ears and runs outside. It’s a nice day, sunny and mild, a faint smell of blossoms or orange juice in the air, but I have to get away from here fast as I can. He puts his arms out, flaps them, but can’t get off the ground. The station’s a stone house on an island in the middle of Broadway. Cars, buses and pedestrians go in all directions around it. They’re making me dizzy, and he shuts his eyes and stands still till his head stops spinning. A canoe’s parked at the northern end of the island. “Is this anybody’s?” he asks the people waiting at the curb for the light to change. None of them turn to him, but one woman shakes her head. “Mister,” he says to the man in the newsstand outside the station, “you know if that canoe belongs to anybody? — I don’t want to steal.” “You buy a paper, sonny, I give you change.” He goes to the newsstand on the other side of the subway entrance. A sign on its shutters says Closed because of family. Which end of the canoe is the rear? Both ends have a seat with a paddle underneath and look the same. Get into the end that’s nearest and call that the rear. He gets in. The street turns to water. He looks up: it’s still sunny, hasn’t rained. He starts paddling home. But why go any farther? Nobody’s there — my mother and sister are gone for all time. He starts crying. Stop being a baby; be a young grown-up man. You did what you could for them and now you can’t do anything more. I could’ve gone in after them; you never would’ve got out alive. I could’ve stopped them by force; you might have your sister if she was alone, but your mother’s stronger than you by more than double. He starts crying. Stop crying; get a move on, makes no difference where, before someone claims the canoe. He paddles toward Central Park West. My dentist practices right over…there. He’s paddling so well and enjoying the canoe so much that he paddles into the park and through it to the East Side. There’s the doctor’s office I went to for my prostatitis, there’s the one for my baker’s cyst. He paddles uptown along Madison and at a Hundred-tenth paddles west to Broadway and then to Riverside Drive. I know someone who lives around here but I don’t know who. Heck, I know someone almost everywhere in this city; I’ve been living here long enough. He paddles to Riverside Park and then up to Washington Heights. He stops in front of his aunt’s apartment house on Fort Washington Avenue and yells up “Aunt Goldie, Aunt Goldie — it’s me.” She doesn’t come to the window as she always did when my parents and sister and I used to come up here when I was a boy. He paddles across the Hudson to New Jersey and back to Manhattan and down Broadway. He’s hungry, rests the paddle across his thighs, takes a brown bag off the floor and opens it. There are two waxpaper-wrapped sandwiches and a bottle of soda and paper napkin inside. He unwraps a sandwich and bites into it — liverwurst, lettuce and mustard on fresh packaged white bread; my favorite kind. He snaps the bottle cap off with his thumb and drinks from the bottle as the canoe drifts along Broadway.

“Excuse me — I’m sorry — sleep all right?” He nods. “Well — how can I put this? — but it is getting late and I’d like to get started sometime today, so what would you say to getting up now? We can have that little breakfast and chat, I’ll loan you a muffler and heavy men’s shirt I have, and then you can be on your way back downtown.”