30 Pieces of a Novel

A Minor Story

HE’S DONE SEVERAL quick versions of this already, none have worked, and he dumps them into the wastebasket by his desk and starts again. He picks up his younger daughter at the camp she goes to every weekday for seven hours and they’re walking home from it. “Do you mind if we walk home?”—this is probably where he should have started it—“Do you mind if we walk home today?” and she says, “How long is it?” and he says, “If we walk at a normal pace—” and she says, “I mean streets,” and he says, “You know, same old route, ten mostly short avenue blocks and then the long side street to our building, which we’d have to walk down anyway if we took the bus. But we can get — you can; I’ll just have a coffee if we stop — a bagel or frozen ice or pizza or anything you want along the way, though what else is there after those three?” “I’m a little tired to walk,” and he says, “But it’ll take two blocks to the bus stop from here, so that means only eight more blocks to walk,” and she says, “How do you know that?” and he says, “Well, two from ten is eight. And it’ll be interesting — things to see, people and such, sudden surprises: you never know what’s going to happen on a walk that long in this city. Not long; just ten short blocks and then the side street to our building, and that one’s all downhill. We’ve done it a few times and you haven’t complained. And if you get tired along the way, we’ll take the bus,” and she says, “Okay, we’ll walk, if you want me to.”

They start walking. They said all that standing in front of the church school the June camp’s in. They’re walking and he takes her hand; his other hand holds her little knapsack and his book. “Was it a long day, sweetheart?” and she says, “Same time as all the days there,” and he says, “I meant was there a lot to do today that tired you out? You go swimming?” and she says, “We always go if there isn’t a trip. Today there was no trip. We even go if it rains, but not hard. We have to walk a long way to the pool. I hate it in the rain when I have to carry my swim things. And then we have to walk back but just as slow because there’s a big group and some of the kids are very little, and that’s harder than going there.” “It didn’t rain today, did it? I mean, maybe it did on your block but not ours, or not when I was looking out the window,” and she says, “How can it rain where I am but not where you are?” and he says, “It’s possible, take my word, we can be on the same street but different sidewalks and on yours it’s raining and mine it’s not. But it didn’t rain while you were on the camp roof or walking to the pool and things like that, right?” and she says, “We didn’t go to the pool. It was closed for cleaning.” “Then did your counselors run you around a lot at camp, to make you tired?” and she says, “How, make us run round and round till we fell?” “No, I’m not being clear, I—”

“Gould,” someone says, and he looks and it’s the same guy he met two Junes ago on Broadway when he was also taking her home from camp, or both kids, or maybe he was alone and it was last year; and she thinks, Oh, no, it always happens, this is awful, he knows so many people around here, where they used to live all the time, before she was born, and now only in the apartment in June and around Christmas for two weeks and lots of long weekends when all of them can take off on Friday or Monday. And he keeps bumping into people when he’s out with her, while she wants to get home fast — though first stopping for a pizza slice or, if it’s hot like today, a frozen ice — and then take a shower and have a snack at home too, but a shower first if she’s already snacked outside, or maybe a bath, whichever she feels like — they let her take both now by herself — and read and watch the hour of TV a day she’s allowed and maybe a nap if she’s tired, which she’s not — where does he get that? — and to be with her sister. To play with Fanny, who doesn’t go to camp every day anymore: too old, she says; twice a week is the most she’ll go for — and her parents let her get away with it because of all the money they save, she bets — but to have fun with her, like go up the block to shop for something or to the library if it’s open, things Fanny’s more willing to do with her than on other days, maybe because she’s mostly alone and done almost nothing that day and so wants her company, and now he’s going to talk. And talk and talk. Talk’s what he loves doing most when he’s in the city, she thinks, and he knows how awful it is for her when he does it on the street or in the building lobby with other people when he’s with her and they’re going someplace. The man says to the man he’s with, “This guy got me my first and only news job at NBC thirty years ago. What am I saying? Closer to forty; so long ago I had hair then, a fantastic mane of it.” A mane? she thinks. Like a lion? He’d look funny. “When he went to Europe to study—” “Just to travel,” her father says. “Gave myself a postgraduation hiatus for two months before I looked for a real nine-to-fiver in New York, though I believe then it was till six.” “Travel, then. And play around, don’t tell me. I used to see you operate in school.” Play around? She thinks. Operate? How? The first, he’d be too old; the other, too young. It must mean something else. “So he got me in as his replacement. Weekends. The Monitor radio show. Copy boy. Paid next to nothing and they worked you to death. We went to City together; that’s how we met. I wanted to be a newsman then, had worked on the school newspaper…. Good grief, I forget its name now, the evening-school one; I was the features editor.” “Observation Post,” her father says. “That’s it. It’s obvious your brains haven’t rotted away from alcohol, not like a lot of our fellow students then. Remember Johnny Welsh? He became an actor.” “No.” “The name’s familiar,” the other man says. “A basket case now. Last time you saw him in a film was ten years ago, and I think he played a drunk. Only thing he could play. They must have pushed him in front of the camera and said, ‘Act natural.’ But working at NBC convinced me news wasn’t my lifetime thing.” Oh, darn it, will they never stop? “Tearing copy off the wires and feebly rewriting it. But was that what those teletype machines were called?” and her father says, “If they weren’t, that’s what we dubbed them. From wire services, I’m sure.” Dubbed? she thinks. Like knights and things? That what he means? “So I began thinking of applying to grad school for something else…. This your little girl? You didn’t introduce, and such a cutie.” “No, it’s some kid who’s been following me the last few blocks.” “I have not.” “I only said it — watch this, she’s going to know the word; we spoke about it this morning — facetiously.” “It didn’t sound like that,” she says, “and you told me the word’s meaning yesterday.” “Oh, boy,” the man says, “not only like a tack but a wit too. I think I saw you the last time I met your father on the street, or was it your sister — you kids grow so fast. Are you Franny?” “No, Josephine. My sister you met is Fanny.” “I stand corrected and censured. Josephine, eh? After the great French emperor? Ah, I’m only kidding too. Your dad and I took a course in kidding at City, just ask him. Lenny Moses,” and puts his hand out to shake and she shakes it. Such a fat wet hand, like a big dog’s paw, and she wipes her hand on her shorts. “So I should have realized,” the man says, “you were a year ahead of me, if you had graduated when you went abroad.” Goodbye, good luck, good wishes, so long, we’ll see you. “And now you’re a professor of something at Princeton,” her father says, and the man says, “Hunter. Urban anthropology. I can never leave this city, in both ways.” What are they talking about? And they won’t ever stop unless she does something, and she folds her arms across her chest and puts on the face; she knows what it looks like and hopes her father sees it because he knows it too. Uh-oh, her father thinks, the pout. Next, she’ll be tugging his arm and then saying angrily they should go, and if that doesn’t work, she’ll storm off. “Excuse me, Lenny, but Josephine’s had a long day at camp—” and the man says, “Oh, yeah? Where? My kids also went to camp when school was out, but in Brooklyn, where we were living and where their mother still does. Now they’re grown, one has her doctorate, other’s writing plays, and I miss that age enormously; I pine for it, in fact. Got divorced three years ago — I told you about it last time — and I have a one-bedroom on a Hundred-twelfth, and I love it. The neighborhood’s fantastic: bookshops, subway stop two blocks away, and all the indigenous cafés. We should meet for coffee or lunch; let me write down my number,” and her father says, “Just tell me, I’ll remember,” and the man does. But he won’t remember, she thinks. He’s pretending, maybe because he saw her look so wants to get them away faster before she gets madder, or else he doesn’t want to meet the man again. Who would? The man never stops talking and won’t let the other man talk and didn’t introduce that man to them, yet scolded her father for not introducing her to him. And his hand is fat and wet and she bets his whole body is but he’s keeping his stomach and chest in so nobody can see it. He also has no hair on his head except the sides and is much taller than almost anybody so is too tall for a man with no hair like that. It makes him look funny and scary, as if the whole top of his head is like a shiny piece of empty skin. And his face is long and full of big holes and with a pointy chin with a deep hole in it, and it isn’t nice when he smiles like her father’s. But the worst thing about him is he sometimes spits when he talks, and he also doesn’t say he’s sorry when it gets on people’s clothes. She’s standing far away from him, but if it got on hers or her hair she’d wipe it off right away because she wouldn’t want it to dry on her, but then wouldn’t know what to do with the spit on her hands. She’d think of it all the time she was walking home, or maybe she’d ask to go to a restaurant for some pizza, but the one that has the bathroom, just so she can wash her hands. She bets he was mean to his children when they were kids, that’s what his smile and everything he does says, mean to his wife, which is why she didn’t want to stay married to him, and is now mean to all his students but his favorite ones. She can see someone like him living alone the rest of his life because no one would want to be with him again, and his children not wanting to visit him much either, and his wife never even to speak to him on the phone once they were no longer married, but also because he would never shut up. “Goodbye, little Josephine,” the man says, and the other man says goodbye to her and shakes her father’s hand and says, “Nice to meet you,” and she says goodbye nicely to them, one goodbye for them both, and smiles nicely at them too. She knows when she’s smiling nicely, she can feel it on her face, and this time it’s because she’s finally going, and Gould thinks, She’s smiling because they’re going, otherwise she would never have given up those angry clenched arms and that pout. Kids can be so transparent.

He takes her hand and they walk. He asks her who she plays with at camp; she says, “Avery’s my best friend there, I play with her the same every day.” “Every is your friend Avery day?” and she says, “Are you making fun of her name? That’s not nice, and you and Mommy tell me on things like that not to,” and he says, “No, it’s only I just noticed the closeness of the two words.” “Avery isn’t a word, it’s a name,” and he says, “Right, you win. Listen, the lunch I made you today, was it enough?” and she says, “It was fine.” “Did it taste okay and there was sufficient variety?” and she says, “I said it was fine.” “You got the box of chocolate kisses in the bag, didn’t you?” and she says, “Don’t lie.” “Are you still mad at me for talking so long with those men? You know I couldn’t help it. I haven’t seen Lenny, the tall one, for a while. You heard, we go as far back as college together, when between the two of us we had a full head of hair. No, the truth is he was always balder than I. And you don’t want me to be impolite on the street. He can call the cops and have me arrested. That’s why it’s best not to be stopped by anyone outside with a cellular phone.” “He didn’t have any, and you’re not being funny. And if he’s your friend you shouldn’t talk about his being bald that way.” “Why, he brought it up, and I was referring to my own baldness too. But tell me — this is important for tomorrow — do you want cream cheese on your lunch bagel instead of peanut butter, or peanut butter and jelly? Actually, if it gets too warm out the cream cheese can spoil, while the peanut butter or peanut butter and jelly — oh, my goodness, look who’s there.” A man’s standing at the corner not too far away, smiling and shaking his head and waiting for them, she’s sure. She doesn’t recognize him but she knows he’s going to stop her father and they’re going to waste more time talking of nothing that interests her till she gets mad. “What do you know,” Gould says, “Burton Minowitz. We haven’t run into each other since yesterday,” and they shake hands and the man says, “It’s true, I can’t walk on Broadway three blocks without seeing you. What’re you doing, following me?” and he says, “You got it. A big investigation, Josephine’s really the lead detective, and they only put me on with her to make her cover look visually more realistic, right, sweetheart?” and she thinks, Does he want her to answer that? Well, she won’t; whatever she says it’ll just lead to more silly talk from them. “Look, Burt, I wish I had the time to chat about everything that’s happened to you and me since yesterday, but she’s got to get home.” She does, she thinks, but not like the way he said it. It’s as if she’s sick instead of bored with their talk. “You just pick her up from camp? I can tell by the sack-my boy has the identical one in blue,” and she thinks, Oh, God, no, and her father says, “Yup, a few minutes ago,” and the man says, “Which one you go to, honey?” and she says, “June camp,” and her father says, “The one at St. Matthew’s between West End and Broadway,” and the man says, “We’re sending our boy to Cathedral; it’s where I’m off to right now. St. Matt’s would be a lot closer, but he wanted to be with his friends.” “Our older girl went there two years ago and we found it sort of not together … was it two years ago or three?” he asks her, and she says, “I don’t know. Can we go?” and he says, “In a minute. Anyway, the kids were sort of rough, or unruly, rather, and the counselors somewhat apathetic and negligent, I thought. I was afraid they’d lose her when they went on a trip to Liberty Island,” and the man says, “Haven’t seen anything like that. Aaron loves it, the other boys are friendly, and the counselors are very responsive and conscientious,” and she starts walking; she’s not going to stay for any of this anymore. Are all men her father’s and that man’s age — older fathers, she’s saying — big blabberers? If her father doesn’t chase after her, she’s going to walk the rest of the way to their building; she knows where it is, not the street number so much but the stores on the Broadway corner of the street it’s on, and it’s at the bottom of the hill on the right and faces the river. “Wait, Josephine — listen, Burt, you see what’s happening; some other time,” and runs after her, and Burt says, “But I’m going that way — we should’ve just walked together,” and Gould catches up with her, grabs her hand to stop her, and says, “Just say you want me to take you home, that’s all you have to do,” and she says, “I said so, and I thought you knew it.” “All right, all right, maybe you did. So what do you want? Want a bagel along the way — something else?” and she says, “First let’s cross the street. That man’s behind us, and if he catches us we’ll only go slow,” and they cross Broadway and she wants a bagel, she’s hungry, but doesn’t want to stop anymore. He might see someone he knows in the bagel place or even while he’s looking out the window while they’re waiting in line, and then he could yell out the store to that person if the door’s open or run after them, even, once she got her bagel, and so on. She only wants to go home, even if there are no bagels there. She and Fanny ate the last two this morning unless he bought some since then. “Did you or Fanny buy bagels today for home?” and he says, “Why, should we stop for some? That’ll mean crossing Broadway again if you want to get them hot at Ray’s Bagels,” and she says, “I’d rather go home. Can we take a taxi?” and he says, “For what, seven blocks? Come on, you got strong legs — we’ll be home in twelve minutes if we walk at a fast clip,” and they walk a block and a half, he asks her about camp, same questions he asks every camp day and she answers them the same, but he smiles and says things like “No kidding” and “Wow, that sounds like fun,” as if he’s hearing her answers for the first time, when he says, “Excuse me, sweetie,” and lets go of her hand and goes over to a very old lady who seems to be having trouble stepping off the curb, she keeps raising one foot and then putting it back down on the same place, and he says, “Need any assistance getting across the street, ma’am?” and she says, “No, in getting a cab. If I try waving my cane or hand for one I’ll get all unbalanced and trip,” and he says, “I’ll hail one,” and Josephine thinks, Oh, darn, why can’t others do it? Why’s it always have to be him? More time wasted, and suppose no taxis come? and he says to her, “Stay here while I get a cab for the woman,” and she thinks, Yeah yeah, and he goes into the street and signals for a cab and several pass and he keeps signaling and one stops and he opens the door and helps the woman off the sidewalk and into the cab and she doesn’t say thank you. She speaks to the driver and then sits back and faces front and her father shuts the door and through the window says goodbye. The lady just stares at him — no smile, even — as the taxi pulls away.

“That lady was rude,” she says, walking, and he says, “Why, what’d she do to you?” and she says, “Not me; she didn’t thank you for what you did,” and he says, “Listen, you just want to do good, don’t ask or expect anything in return, and you and the rest of the world will be much better off, not only because of what you’ve done, but—” and she says, “That’s not how you tell me to act when someone helps. And it’s so easy — it’s just the lips you have to move,” and he says, “You’ve young lips; even mine are young, in comparison. Hers are much older and something might be hurting them or some other place in her or she could be partly demented, which one can become at that age,” and she thinks, What’s demented? No, it’ll take him a long time to tell her, and if it’s complicated he’ll slow down or even stand still to make sure she gets it, so she doesn’t ask, and he thinks, She doesn’t know what that word means; she can’t, and he Says, “By demented, I meant-” and she says, “I Know, I Know,” and he says, “What?” and she says, “You don’t have to tell me, I’m not in school,” and walks faster, and he has to run to catch up with her and takes her hand and they walk.

Three blocks later there’s a man sitting on the ground in front of the Korean restaurant Gould’s said a few times he wants to take the family to or order in from — and the kids always say if he does they won’t eat — with his arms out and pants legs rolled up and saying loudly, to no one in particular, it seems, “Don’t walk by me like that. People, you see the condition I’m in. You’re not blind and me neither. I’m destitute and crippled and I wouldn’t be lying here if I didn’t have to, but I have no home. Please, people, help a poor cripple with a family dying for food,” and her father stops, and she says, “You think he’s really poor and hurt and his family?” and he says, “Maybe you’re right; it is quite a story”—he’d just started searching through his pants pockets for change—“but then again, what’s a quarter?” and holds one up and says, “Want to put it in his paper cup?” “I don’t like him. Even if he’s telling the truth, he shouldn’t be scaring children with his begging and screaming for help and showing the ugly sores on his legs,” and he says, “Okay, you don’t have to,” and goes over and drops the quarter into the cup, and the man says, “God bless you, sir,” but doesn’t smile — he looks at her father as if he wants to spit on him; that’s what it seems like to her — and her father says, “Thank you,” and comes back and takes her hand and they walk and she doesn’t want to talk anymore, just stares straight ahead, and he thinks, What’s she moody about now? What’d he do? The man? What was so bad about that? and it only took a few seconds; and she thinks, If they don’t talk they’ll walk faster and get home sooner. If he does talk to her she’ll first pretend not to hear and if he says it again she’ll answer with a yes or no but something quick and then pretend she’s thinking to herself again, and maybe he’ll stop talking or at least asking her questions, when she sees coming toward them and walking her dog a woman from their building, someone her father always stops to talk with, either in the lobby or street or anyplace they meet, even in the elevator. She’s a college teacher of a subject he’s interested in, she doesn’t remember exactly what but it has to do with books they both read, and he says, “Hey, how you doing?” and stops, and then, “Josephine, don’t go away, I only want to say hello — a second, sweetie, I promise,” but she keeps going, faster, starts running, and he says to the woman, “See what I’m up against sometimes? She’s just come from camp, probably got overtired there — talk to you soon and best to Alan”—and runs after her, but she’s nowhere around. The Drive maybe, and he runs to the corner but doesn’t see her going down the hill on either side street. She’s small, and he runs across the street to make sure she’s not walking or hiding behind a parked car. So where the hell is she? Hates it when she does this. She’s pulled it on him a few times — his other daughter used to wander off, still does, but not because she was angry at anything he did; she’d get interested in some store window or store and would forget she was with him — and he’s told Josephine — told them both — how he feels about it. It’s not because he then has to look for her. Someone could snatch her, especially on the side streets between Riverside and Broadway where there are fewer people around. Is that overdoing it? No, it’s being realistic. A couple of these side streets — not this one — have SRO hotels and a lot of seedy characters in them — you can sometimes see them hanging out the windows and on the stoops — and there’s a church two blocks away that feeds lunch to the homeless and some of those guys hang around after and he’s sure are responsible for a lot of the cars being busted into in the neighborhood and who knows what else?

She’s in a store, watching him through the window. A drugstore, the only one of the nearby stores she quickly looked at that she thought she could go in without them asking where were her parents or babysitter. He’s always teaching her a lesson, so here’s one for him: when she wants to go home, he should take her, because he can’t pretend this time she didn’t tell him. If he wants to talk to people so much when he’s walking with her, let him arrange to talk with them on the phone or meet them for coffee later.

He goes inside a store: women’s shoes. She wouldn’t come in here, her sister would, so why’d he? “Excuse me,” when a saleswoman gets up from a chair and starts over, about to ask what can she do for him, “but I’m looking for my daughter. Young, small, dark hair, in shorts?” and she says, “How recent?” and he says, “At the most, minute and a half ago,” and she says no but the look says she doesn’t believe him. Why else she think he’d come in here? Maybe it’s just that she had to get out of the chair, but can’t she see he’s worried? “Thank you,” and goes to a bookstore two stores away — store between is a tiny chocolate shop with only a few feet of space for customers, and he saw through its window she wasn’t there — looks up the five or so aisles and goes back outside and looks around. She’s never gone off for so long on their walks home. Chances are slim anything can happen to her, but they still exist and does he really know how slim the chances are? Slim for what age, hers, or for kids younger and older? She could be home now, if she ran all the way. There’s a phone on the next corner, and he should call from it to see if she’s there. But if she is looking at him from a hiding place now she’ll see how worried he looks and will probably show herself soon. Maybe he should put it on a bit, look even more worried, till she thinks she’s gone far enough in this trick or in getting even with him or whatever she’s doing it for, and that if she doesn’t he could get so worried that when he does finally see her, since she has to come out sometime, he might explode. The drugstore, he just notices; that should have been the first place he checked. His girls love looking at the makeup and hair stuff and the new things they have for kids their age — though he’s almost sure she’s just hiding somewhere, not looking at store shelves, though there’s also that chance she’s already home. Just go in, nothing to lose, quick peek — and heads for the store. She sees him coming and thinks, Better leave before he gets here so he won’t be even madder that he had to go in to find her and she didn’t come out on her own.

He reaches for the door handle; she’s pushing the door open. “There you are,” he says; “Jesus, was I worried. What’ve you been up to?” and she says, “What do you mean? I’ve been here,” and he says, “I know, I can see that, you’re not a ghost, you didn’t just fly in, but what were you doing in there?” and she says, “I came in to see if they had something,” and he says, “What?” and she says, “Are you getting mad? I can hear it in your voice. If you are, you should stop now, Daddy; that’s what Mommy says, stop it when it starts,” and he says, “Just answer me normally: what were you looking for that was so important?” and she says, “A shampoo conditioner Fanny and I like, but they didn’t have it,” and he says, “You were going to buy it?” and she says, “No, I was going to ask you for the money,” and he says, “Come on, what’re you handing me? Listen, I don’t like it, your running away and hiding from me,” and she says, “I didn’t, I told you. I came in here and I thought you knew,” and he says, “All right, you want to lie to me? You think I’m not smart enough to see through your actions and fibs both? We’ll call it a big fib, to be generous and not carry this to where we’re really angry at each other—” and she says, “You’re the one who’s angry, I’m not,” and he says, “Fine, have it your own way, but you know how I feel and that I’d also like you to be more honest,” and she says, “Okay. I ran away and inside here, but I had to. If I didn’t, you’d take forever to get home. If I frightened you—” and he says, “Who said you did? I was worried, like any father would be when his little girl suddenly disappears on the street, but I knew you’d turn up. And now you’re here, we’re together again, I don’t have to look for you anymore, so good, I’m glad, but please don’t do it again. Never, you hear? It’s wrong to treat me like that,” and she says, “And it’s wrong too for you to treat me the way you do on the street. Talking to everyone,” and he says, “So your father knows a lot of people; what’s he supposed to be, if they want to talk to him, rude?” and she says, “Yes,” and he says, “You can’t be, it isn’t right. And if someone old needs a cab or to get across the street, you help them, or if just a quarter to give a guy, that too. That’s what people should do: learn that,” and she says, “Not when their daughter has to get home,” and he says, “All right, right now you’ll never quit, so let’s go home and we’ll talk about it some more there. And we’re even: my stopping to talk with people and your worrying me,” and she says, “You won’t get more angry over it with me at home?” and he says, “No, you proved your little point pretty well,” and she says, “It isn’t so little,” and he says, “Fine, it isn’t, I’ll agree on that if you’ll agree that I had good reason to be somewhat worried about you and that it’s something you shouldn’t do again,” and she looks away, and he says, “You’re not answering?” and she continues to look in the direction she wants to walk, maybe he’ll get the hint, she thinks, though she’s not going to start walking to really make it obvious, that’d make him mad, and he says, “We’ll settle that later too, but calmly, don’t worry; I intend to be extra calm and reasonable with you,” and takes her hand and she pulls it back, and he says, “Come on, Josephine, give me your beautiful hand,” and takes it and they head home along Broadway.

A block later she sees someone else he knows and who he likes talking to and says, “Don’t talk to that man, please?” and he says, “Who?” and she says, “The one coming,” and he says, “I can’t just walk by without saying anything,” and she says, “You can wave, he’ll understand,” and the man says, “Hiya, Gould,” and he says, “Hey, how are ya, can’t stop, much as I want to, something at home,” and waves, and when they pass the man she says, “Let’s walk down to Riverside Drive here, even if it’s not our regular street; that way we won’t meet anyone else,” and he says, “Good idea, and it’s also probably cooler on the drive,” and still holding hands, they walk down the hill.