Buddwing

11

The thing that amazed him, of course, was that they had all come to his rescue without even knowing who or what he was. He could have been Edward Voegler or he could have been Sam Buddwing or he could have been Adolf Hitler, for that matter, and none of them would have cared. Standing there arguing with the cop, he had possessed no more identity than he had awakened with this morning, and yet they had rallied to his cause and taken up his banner. So what the hell did it really matter? Whether he was anybody or nobody, who really gave a

“Just a second, young man,” the voice on his left and slightly to his rear said, and he stopped dead in his tracks with a heart-lurching suddenness, and only then realized how frightening his brush with the law had been. He turned swiftly in reflex, expecting to find the chief of police or perhaps the district attorney and finding instead a man of about sixty who was puffing on a pipe and smiling.

“Yes?” Buddwing said.

“Mind if I talk to you?” the man asked.

“Yes, I do,” Buddwing said. He was beginning to get tired of talking to strangers. He wanted to see a face he knew; he wanted to shake a familiar hand.

“Well, that’s all right,” the man said, and he fell into step beside Buddwing.

“Maybe you didn’t understand me,” Buddwing started. “I said—”

“Oh yes, I understood you.”

“Well, if you don’t mind—”

“I saw what happened back there,” the man said.

“Are you a detective?”

“No, no,” the man said, chuckling. “No, what ever gave you that idea?”

“Well, what do you want?”

“I thought the entire thing was very interesting,” the man said. “I was sitting opposite you when you first came into the park. Did you happen to notice me?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Mmm, well, yes, I was.” The old man struck a match and held it to the pipe. “I was there when you jumped to your feet and shouted ‘Grace,’ and I was also there” — he puffed at the pipe, trying to rekindle it — “when you... puff, puff... when you... puff, puff... mmm, there it is.”

“When I what?”

“When you said you were Edward Voegler,” the old man said, and smiled.

He paused.

He kept smiling, silently.

Then he said, “Are you Edward Voegler?”

“Why?” Buddwing said.

“I’m curious.”

“Everybody’s all at once so damn curious about me, aren’t they?”

“Madmen always attract curiosity,” the man said calmly, puffing on his pipe.

“No, I’m not Edward Voegler,” Buddwing said quickly.

“Then why did you say you were?”

“Is there a reward? Is that it?”

“No, not that I’m aware of. The newspapers didn’t say anything about a reward.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Because you said you were Edward Voegler, which is a rather dangerous thing to say in a public place if you aren’t him.” He paused. “I believe you are.”

“Why should you believe that?”

“Because you wouldn’t show that policeman your identification.”

“I don’t have any identification,” Buddwing said.

“Precisely.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m Edward Voegler.”

“Then who are you?”

It always gets back to that, Buddwing thought wearily. It always gets back to the question for which there is only one answer.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Ahhh.”

“Anyway, what the hell is it to you?”

“Let us simply say I’m an interested citizen.”

“Let us simply say goodbye,” Buddwing answered.

“Ah-ah,” the man said, hooking Buddwing’s arm. “No.”

“Look, mister,” Buddwing said warningly, “don’t fool around with me. I’m stretched pretty thin, and I’m just liable to—”

“No,” the man said, shaking his head. “I’m going to help you.”

“How?”

“How would you like to be helped?” the man asked.

“I’d like you to vanish,” Buddwing said.

“That wouldn’t help you.”

“I didn’t ask for you.”

“I know. I appeared of my own volition.”

“Well, disappear of your own volition.”

“No,” the man said, and he shook his head again.

Buddwing, watching him, thought, I suppose I’ll have to hit him. The thought wearied him. He wanted only to be left alone. He wanted only to wander the city nameless and homeless. Why wouldn’t they let him do that in peace?

“Mister,” he said, “you’re an old man. You’re a frail old man. I don’t want to have to break away from you by force, mister, but I’ll do it, I swear to God, unless you take your hand off my arm. Now, will you please do that, mister, and forget you ever saw me? Or do I have to hit you? I don’t want to hit you, mister, believe me, but I don’t want to be bothered by you, either.”

“I’m not bothering you,” the man said, but he did not remove his hand from Buddwing’s arm.

“Mister, I’m very tired...”

“Yes, I know that...”

“And I don’t know who I am...”

“You’re Edward Voegler...”

“And I don’t want to have to argue with you, and I especially don’t want to have to hit you. Now, please let go of my goddamn arm!”

“No,” the man said. “I want to help you.”

“Who the hell are you?” Buddwing asked.

“God,” the man answered.

They stood on the Greenwich Village sidewalk at five o’clock with the sun hovering in the sky behind the Women’s House of Detention. Around them and behind them and beyond them, in a realistic bas-relief, were the jewelry shops and leather shops, the faggot clothing stores, the bakeries and delicatessens and restaurants and art supply houses. The minuscule sounds of the city, compounded to a steady hum, filled the air with life, and the man puffed on his pipe and looked at Buddwing seriously and seriously told him he was God, and Buddwing wanted to believe him.

He wanted to believe him because he thought again, for the second time since he had awakened, that he was dead. If I’m dead, then she’s alive, he reasoned. What was it she had once said, how had she described Hell? They had been driving through the Holland Tunnel, and she said, “This is what Hell should be, you know. Just driving through a tunnel like this forever, without being allowed to change lanes, and with policemen standing on the ramparts waving you on, and with signs telling you to maintain a uniform speed, eternally.” If I am dead, then she is alive, he thought, and all these people walking in the street are dead, so why can’t this man be God, why the hell not? If he’s God, then everything that’s happened to me since I woke up this morning has only been a preliminary to this confrontation. My soul rose up out of that supine image on the bench, ectoplasmic and double-exposed, just like in the movies, and it’s been wandering in search and now here is God, puffing his pipe and waiting expectantly for me to kneel and kiss his ring, and he will know who I am.

“How do I know you’re God?” Buddwing asked, testing him hopefully.

“How do you know I’m not?” the man answered.

“Well, where are your credentials?”

“Where are yours?”

“You can’t just walk up to someone and expect him to believe you’re God.”

“What do you want me to do?” the old man said, and smiled. “Perform a miracle?”

“Yes,” Buddwing said.

“I don’t do miracles after five o’clock,” the old man said.

“What time is it now?”

The man looked at his watch. “Ten after five.”

“Just a little after closing time,” Buddwing said. “Stretch a company rule. Make that automobile over there fly up over the rooftops.”

“God never stretches company rules,” the man said.

“Superman could send that car up over the rooftops,” Buddwing said tauntingly.

“I am not Superman, I am God,” the man answered.

“You don’t look like God.”

“How do you know what God looks like?”

“He’s a kindly man with eyeglasses and white hair.”

“That’s my father,” the old man said seriously.

“I didn’t know God had a father.”

“Everybody has a father,” the man said.

“Not me.”

“Even you.”

“Anyway,” Buddwing said, “I don’t believe in God.”

“Do you believe in me?”

“Not if you’re God.”

“Well, I am God.”

“Then I don’t believe in you.”

“But you’re talking to me.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Well, who or what are you talking to, if not God?”

“I’m talking to an old nut who followed me from N.Y.U.”

“That is only a symptom of your condition.”

“What condition?”

“Your insanity. It is a well-known fact that crazy people think everyone else is crazy.”

“But you think I’m crazy,” Buddwing said.

“Of course.”

“Then you must be crazy.”

“God can’t be crazy,” the man said.

“You know all the answers, don’t you?”

“Most of them.”

“All right,” Buddwing said, “am I dead?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you dead?”

“God is immortal,” the man answered. “He never dies because he is all-powerful.”

“Then why don’t you do just a little miracle?”

“I don’t choose to,” the man said with dignity. “If you won’t accept me on faith, then you shouldn’t accept me at all.”

“Okay, I don’t,” Buddwing said.

“But you’ll be sorry,” the man added.

“Why?”

“Because I’ll yell at the top of my lungs that you’re Edward Voegler, and they’ll put you in a strait jacket and take you away.”

“That would be very petty of you,” Buddwing said. “If you’re really God—”

“God is very petty,” the old man said calmly.

“Yes, but not in such a petty way.”

“In any way he wants to be.”

“Why’d you let Beethoven die?” Buddwing asked suddenly.

“He was getting old,” the man answered, “and besides I never liked his music.”

“I wasn’t talking about that Beethoven,” Buddwing said. “There!” he added triumphantly. “You don’t even know who the hell I mean!”

“I know exactly who you mean.”

“Yeah, who do I mean?”

“You mean Beethoven.” The man paused. “He died because it was his time.”

“Who decided that?”

“I did.”

“Then you’re a murderer.”

“God cannot be a murderer,” the man said.

“And you killed all the others, too.”

“What others?”

“All of them, all of them! Don’t play dumb with me, you phony bastard.”

“God cannot be a phony bastard,” the old man said.

“No, and you can’t be God, because you don’t even know who the hell Beethoven is or was. You don’t even remember that you killed him on Tarawa! You don’t remember anything, you phony bastard!”

“I remember everything,” the man said.

“Yeah? Well, who am I? Do you happen to remember that?”

“Yes. You are Edward Voegler.”

“Wrong!” Buddwing said. “Ha!”

“God cannot be wrong.”

“God can be wrong and petty and a phony bastard besides,” Buddwing said. “I reject you! I reject you because you’re a murderer and a thief! You stole my identity this morning, and you stole Beethoven’s when you killed him on Tarawa.”

“On the contrary,” the old man said, “I did not steal his identity.”

“No, huh?”

“I gave him one,” the old man said.

“How do you figure—”

“Because you will always remember that he was killed on Tarawa. That is his identity. I have made him immortal in your memory.”

“And what have you done for me lately?”

“You asked me who you were, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and—”

“And I told you. You are Edward Voegler.”

“Convince me.”

“I do not perform miracles after five o’clock.”

“The hell with your miracles, just convince me! I’ll be whoever you want me to be, if you’ll only convince me!”

“You must convince yourself,” the old man said.

“How?”

“You must have faith.”

“In what?”

“In me.”

“Why you? You’re crazier than I am!”

“There,” he old man said softly. “You do know, don’t you?”

“I know nothing.”

“You know you’re crazy. And you also know you are Edward Voegler.”

“I never heard of him.”

“You are a paranoid schizophrenic,” the old man intoned hypnotically. “You belong in Central Islip State Hospital where you stole a director’s suit last night after dinner. You must go back there.”

“I don’t want to go back. Not there, and not anywhere!” Buddwing shouted. “No!”

The old man leaned closer to him. Buddwing saw his eyes for the first time. They were clear and blue and staring at him brightly, reflecting the late afternoon sun. They were the eyes of a lunatic.

The old man’s hand was on his sleeve again, the fingers tightening in the blue cloth like a claw. The old man’s breath was foul, and words tumbled from his mouth in a litany as he leaned closer to Buddwing, his eyes burning intensely. For a moment, Buddwing saw them as a pair, the insane old man who thought he was God, and the paranoid schizophrenic named Edward Voegler, both involved in a lunatic dialogue that had no connection with reality. And then, standing side by side with insanity, his eyes locked with the eyes of insanity, his sleeve gripped in the clutch of insanity, he knew all at once that this man was not his brother, and it was then he decided finally and with complete conviction that he was not Edward Voegler.

The old man was still talking. His speech was pleading and threatening, cajoling and abusive. He conjured images of Heaven and Hell, of sin and redemption, while Buddwing half listened, overwhelmed by an enormous sense of relief: he was not Edward Voegler, he was not insane. And then, because he had lived with the notion since 9:10 this morning when he had first seen the headline outside the candy store on 67th Street, because the notion had grown within him and become an image to fall back upon when all other hope of identity failed him, he stared blankly at the truth and willed it to be untrue. He wanted to be anyone, if only Edward Voegler, a poor confused madman who had stolen a director’s suit and fled. He wanted to be anyone, no, he wanted to be someone.

“Listen to God,” the old man was saying. “Listen to the voice of God, for He will lead you into green pastures and—”

“Listen to me,” Buddwing said.

“Listen to God.”

“No! You listen to me. I’m somebody, do you understand that?”

“You are Edward Voegler, and I—”

“No, I’m me, and you’re a crazy son of a bitch who thought you saw yourself in me. Well, I’m not Edward Voegler, I’m not insane. I’m me, you understand? And I’m tired of people looking at me and seeing only themselves! From now on, you look at me and you see me, or you see nothing at all! Nothing! Now, get the hell away from me, before I tell that cop on the corner you’re God. Go on, get out of here!”

“If you tell him I’m God, I’ll tell him you’re Edward Voegler,” the old man said slyly.

“Good. Maybe he’ll believe us both and lock us both up. How would you like that?”

“You are messing around with the Almighty, you little bastard,” the old man said suddenly.

“God shouldn’t curse,” Buddwing said, smiling.

The old man stared at him with insane malice in his eyes, the pipe, dead again, clenched tightly in his fist. Without warning, he turned toward the policeman on the corner and shouted, “Help! This man is Edward Voegler, the escaped maniac!”

For a shocked ten seconds, Buddwing could not believe the old man had really carried out his threat. Then he saw the cop turn slowly toward them, and he heard the old man shouting again, “Help! Help! Escaped maniac! Help!” and for the first time since he had awakened he knew real panic.

Blindly, he ran.

He ran toward the sun, west, fixing it in his mind as a goal, and wanting to reach it before it descended into the river. Behind him, he could hear the old man and the cop shouting after him in unison, but he ran for the sun, thinking if he could only reach the sun before it went out, everything would be all right. Their shouts diminished behind him, or perhaps were overwhelmed by the noise of his own ragged breathing. As he ran, he thought how curious it was that if you sat on a park bench in New York and minded your own damn business, a cop would come over to you and ask to see your identification; but if you raced along the city streets, running like a thief for the sun because you wanted to catch it before it fell, why, no one gave you more than a sideward glance. He smiled as he ran. He could feel his feet thumping against the pavement with good sole-rocking thwacks, could feel each pumping stride jarring his calves and thighs. He sucked in breath after breath; he could feel the hot air in his throat and lungs, could feel his body responding to the pavement and the exertion of his flight. You never run, he thought. You grow up, and you never run any more.

The cop and the old man were lost somewhere behind him now; they were no longer a threat. But he kept running anyway, wanting to reach the river and catch the sun. He ran through a city that had suddenly become one-dimensional, as though viewed from a seat at the extreme side of a motion-picture theater. The people, the buildings, the trucks parked outside the meat market between Ninth and Tenth, the overhead span of the Henry Hudson Parkway flashed past his eyes in flat unreality; only the river and the sun were real, and these only as half-understood goals. You son of a bitch, you gave him identity, did you? he thought. By killing him. You made him immortal, did you? I’ll always remember him as the one who was killed on Tarawa, is that it? And how will I remember the others, you son of a bitch? Have you made them immortal, too? He had to get to the river before the sun went out.

It was not what he had expected. The river’s edge was crowded with buildings and ships. He had wanted a dock he could sit upon; he had wanted to look up at the living sun and find its reflected stain on the water. Where are all the free spaces? he wondered. You’ve cluttered up the whole damn world with your dockside shacks and your cargo ships. Where can I sit to rest? He kept running, turning abruptly upriver, his eyes searching the waterfront, his legs weary now, his heart pumping furiously, his lungs aching. He did not know how long or how far he ran searching for a break in the unyielding barrier that kept him from the river, running against the southbound traffic that roared on the highway overhead. It had not been this way long ago, when he had idly watched a squadron of destroyers midstream, and a friend of his had tried to hit the nearest ship with a stone.

When he saw the activity up ahead, he knew he had come uptown at least as far as the forties, and he knew if he ran a step farther he would collapse and die without ever seeing the sun. He did not want more confusion and noise. He almost turned and began running downriver again, but something drew him toward the huge black-and-white hull of the ocean liner poised against the sky; something drew him toward the sound of disembarking passengers, the honking of taxicab horns, the shouts of porters and customs officials. As though this were the sun itself, he moved toward the throng of people fluttering about the dock, and then he stopped running.

He stood with his arms hanging and his shoulders loose, sucking in great gulps of air. There was sound everywhere around him, voices in English and in Italian, a poodle barking from the open window of a parked black Cadillac, squealing children, the gunning roar of engines. He saw a woman coming through the dock gate, and a man ran to embrace her, and he suddenly felt more alone than he ever had in his life. The passengers were all pouring into the street now, all being embraced and kissed and greeted, and he stood on the edges of the throng, breathing raggedly and watching the exchange of love, and all at once he began weeping.

He wept bitterly. He was still struggling for breath, and each swallow he took ended in a convulsive sob that almost choked him. He stood unseen and unheard on the edge of the boisterous crowd, weeping. A ship’s porter shouted, “Presto! Le valige della signor!” and a cab driver yelled, “Anybody for Idlewild? Idlewild here, who’s going to Idlewild?” A baby suddenly began crying in its mother’s arms, and a man testily snarled, “I thought you arranged for transportation.” A fat woman in a mink stole erupted with a cheery “Yoo-hoo! Arthur! Yoo-hoo! Here we are!” Here we are, he thought, and the tears streamed down his cheeks.

He wept for himself, he supposed, and he wept for all the dead people in the world who would never again know the warmth of human arms around them, never again feel the brush of welcoming lips against their cheeks, never again hear a fat woman in a mink stole yelling “Yoo-hoo! Here we are!” He came very close to recognizing the truth about himself in that moment. As he sucked air into his lungs and into his body — perfume, oxygen, carbon monoxide, fumes of Diesel, body odors, river smell, a trace of whiskey — and heard the sounds of life around him, standing on the edges of life, the rim of the sun, he suddenly wished to re-enter it and hold it close, and this was when the masquerade almost collapsed. His name almost materialized in his head and on his tongue; he almost knew exactly who he was and how he had happened to awaken in the park this morning. In another moment perhaps, in another five seconds, the knowledge would have rushed free and clear, erupting from where it was hidden. He would have known.

A look of frozen expectation must have covered his face. He stopped breathing abruptly, as though afraid this truth balanced precariously on the edge of his consciousness could be toppled into the abyss by the smallest breath. He hung poised, waiting, dreading the knowledge, but ready to welcome it the way these returning passengers were being welcomed everywhere around him, longing to be a part of them again, desperately wishing for re-entry; it would come, it would come at any moment, he knew, he knew; he waited with his teeth clenched and the tears running down his face.

He saw Grace.

For a moment, he thought, No, I am not really seeing her, I am only afraid of the truth. But then his heart leaped in recognition, and he began moving toward her quickly. She is not Grace, he thought, don’t you remember, won’t you remember? He was moving toward her rapidly as she stepped through the crowd and around it, walking with a group of people who were laughing and pounding a young man on the back as he struggled toward a taxi with his luggage. Buddwing almost cried out to her. Wait, he told himself. Listen. You’d better face this. You’d better face it now. He hesitated.

They had put the boy into the taxi, and two girls and another boy climbed into it beside him. The cab pulled away, leaving Grace and five other people on the dock. He noticed that she stood slightly apart from the group, as though not really a member of it. Another cab pulled up. Buddwing expected all of them to get into it, expected Grace to drive away leaving him only with this insistent, clamoring, edge-of-mind knowledge that threatened to crack his skull wide open, that and thirty lousy cents, not enough to follow.

The cab moved away. Grace was still on the dock, standing alongside a young man in a tweed jacket. The young man took her arm. Together, they began walking east.

Who else can she be? he thought, and he began following them.

Behind him, he heard a little girl say, “Daddy, that man is crying.”