Other people

Nineteen Thomassy

A professional is someone you can count on to deliver. Up in Oswego you don't get to see much in the way of real baseball. When I was growing up, we had radio not television, and baseball is something you have to see. So when I finally emigrated south to the suburbs of New York City, I made up for all those years in Oswego by going to Yankee Stadium two, three times a month. Box seats weren't expensive, and you could bloat yourself and a woman on hot dogs and beer without going broke.

One day — I think the Yanks were up against Minnesota, but I wouldn't swear to it — we sat next to a yeller. You know, one of those guys who screams encouragement and instructions to the side he's rooting for and abuse at the other players and the umpires. The yeller was popping up and down in his seat, "Show 'em, Joe," "We need a hit," "You're blind as a bat!" It was the rookie year of a young slugger who'd just come up from the minors. The Yanks had used him as a pinch hitter and on account of somebody or other's injury this particular game was the first that he was on the starting lineup, in fifth place. The first two batters struck out and then one of those things happened, the third popped one up to center field, an easy one, but the sun must have blinded the center fielder one crucial second because he reached for the ball like a blind man. It actually hit leather, but he couldn't hold on to it, and so with twenty or thirty thousand people watching him, he chased the ball, got it, hobbled it, and by the time he threw it, it had to go to short because the runner was on second. The yeller went crazy, popped a paper bag, screamed as if he'd been knifed. The Yanks had a man on with two out.

For a minute, I thought they were going to walk the fourth batter, which didn't make sense, but it was just the Minnesota pitcher being nervous. The third pitch went right down the middle, no curve, no chance at the corners, and the batter, served up this piece of insurance, put his back and shoulders into his swing and clouted a line drive past the infield that put himself on second and the runner on third. I thought I'd go deaf before the yeller lost his voice.

My heart went out to the rookie as he stepped up to the plate. Men on second and third, two away. He had yet to hit his first home run in the majors. A single would do it. I felt myself inside his head, eyeing the ball as it came in. It cut the outside corner low for a called strike. You could feel the tension in the park. The kid sort of backed out of the batter's box, calling time, and played around with the bat, glanced toward the Yankee dugout as if he expected a miracle in the form of instruction, blew on his left hand, then his right, then stepped back into the box and took his stance.

The second pitch was a change of pace, and the rookie watched it as if he were just hoping it wouldn't cross the plate, which it did for a second called strike. The yeller leaned into my ear and said to me, "That fucker better hit that ball."

The third pitch was wild and I could feel the rookie's relief as the catcher collected it quickly and the runners returned to their bases. I wanted that rookie to hit that ball more than I had wanted anything ever at a ball game.

The fourth pitch was a fast ball, perfect for a slugger, and he stepped into it, swung. Instead of the crack of bat against a ball headed for the outfield, the sound was barely audible, the ball hitting the bat near the handle, rolling just in front of the plate, a perfect bunt — who needed it? — and the catcher was on top of it at once. The rookie, like a trooper, ran like hell for first. The catcher threw the ball to first with disdain, and the side was retired. What an ignominious moment for the rookie! The yeller was joined by half the ball park crying its derision.

"Too bad," I said to no one in particular.

The yeller was trying to say something to me in the midst of the bedlam. There had to be a reason for an important failure, and the yeller had seized on mankind's oldest nightmare. He couldn't get it up was what he was saying.

I knew why I remembered that incident. With two cases coming to trial, I wished I had a law partner I could pass at least one of them to, or that I had a goddamn associate I could rely on for help. My head was not with either trial. It was remembering the baseball game and the yeller's conclusion. It was remembering Francine and the night of Thomassy's floppola.

I tried to get the judge to give me a week's postponement on the Connolly case. When things are bad, they usually get worse. Judge Bracton, who had never refused me before, refused me now the way my own organ had refused me.

Connolly was charged with holding up a gas station at gunpoint. He denied it. He had a record. They picked him up, put him in a lineup, and Wilson, the gas station operator, identified him. Fortunately I had been able to question two of the detectives who had been present at the lineup. I studied up on Wilson. I was ready to pulverize him on cross-examination. Maybe because he was a gas station owner like Koslak. Maybe because Koslak had gotten into Francine and I couldn't.

It was a short trial. The D.A. put Wilson on the stand and had him recite the facts of the robbery, the usual stuff. He had closed up, switched on the night light, locked the door, was getting into his own car when a guy comes out of the shadows, puts something hard in his ribs, and says "Gimme the paper bag." I don't know why gas station owners put their day's cash in paper bags, but a lot of them do.

To elicit sympathy for Wilson, the D.A. tried to get in testimony from him to the effect that he had been robbed twice before in the same year, but I objected, and the objection was sustained. Then I had my go at him.

"Mr. Wilson," I asked, "how tall are you?"

Up popped the D.A. muttering "irrelevant" and Judge Bracton told him to sit down. I said I would show it was a material line of questioning.

Wilson said he was six feet tall.

"Is that the height given on your driver's license?"

"Yes, it is."

"Mr. Wilson," I said, my eyes checking the judge to make sure he'd go along, "would you mind stepping off the stand and coming over here." I motioned him over to where I'd had a doctor's scale brought in, the kind that has an L-shaped measuring rod for height, too. Wilson was reluctant. He looked at the D.A., the D.A. looked at the judge, the judge nodded. Wilson stepped on the scale as if it was covered with broken glass and he had bare feet. I lowered the measuring rod till it brushed his skull.

"According to this," I said, "you're five feet ten inches. Does that mean your license application was false?"

Well, there was a flurry at the bench, but I had gotten my point across.

"Mr. Wilson," I said when he had returned to the stand, "you testified that the person who robbed you came out of the shadows near where your car was parked. Could you tell whether the robber had a moustache?"

"He didn't have no moustache."

"I see. Was he close enough for you to tell whether he was clean shaven, whether he had shaved that day or had a few days' growth?"

"I didn't notice that close."

"Could you tell if he had pimples or not?"

The judge had to quiet a titter among the spectators.

"I don't know. I didn't notice."

"What did you notice?"

"You know, a general impression of what he looked like."

"In the dark?" I shot a disbelieving look at the spectators. "Did you notice his height?"

"He was the same height as me."

"Is that six feet or five feet ten?"

I had gone for the laugh and gotten it.

"Mr. Wilson," I continued, "when you were taken to the lineup, how many men were in it?"

"Seven or eight."

"You sure it was seven or eight?"

Wilson was getting nervous. Actually, there were six people in the lineup, but I was saving that piece of information.

"Mr. Wilson, is it true that when you were asked if you saw the man who robbed you in the lineup, you said and I quote 'It was either him or him' and when a second later you learned that one of the hims was a police officer you settled for the other one, namely the defendant?"

Wilson looked at the D.A.

The judge told him to answer.

"That's the way it was," he said.

"No more questions."

They don't teach it to you in law school, but you'd damn well better latch on quick to the Rules of Human Tolerance. If someone exaggerates his height by a quarter or half an inch, people think what the hell. But two inches, that's more than vanity, it's perverse. And if you say you recognize somebody, you have to notice not Just the general configuration of a face, but some specific details.

My summation was brief. Wilson was held up in relative darkness, he hadn't really gotten a good look at the robber. In the station house, he hadn't been sure, he had guessed. You don't guess when people are accused of serious crimes. Wilson filled out a license application not erroneously, he had been willfully false. He was an unreliable witness, and there were no other witnesses. Connolly had been picked up not because there was anything linking him to this crime but because he'd been in trouble in the past. When arrested he had no paper bag full of money, no gun. I didn't blame the arresting officer for his zeal, I just pointed out that you can't go picking up suspects willy-nilly on the street. I said there were more reasonable doubts in this case than there were hard facts, the only hard fact was the one we stipulated, that Wilson had been robbed and hadn't merely hidden it somewhere to collect on the insurance. The jury was back in fifteen minutes with a not guilty verdict, which was no surprise to me or Wilson or the D.A. Only Connolly breathed a sigh of relief, probably because he did it.

At least I could still get it up in the courtroom.

I was standing at the urinal shaking the last drops out and thinking You bastard, you let me down, you ought to be cut off, when a voice from the next urinal says to me, "That was an easy one."

"Yeah," I said to the D.A., "that was an easy one."

Widmer bills his clients. You think I'd collect from guys like Connolly if I billed them?

"I'm very grateful to you," he said when I came out of the John.

His wife, a mouse he probably beat up on regularly, said, "I can't tell you how grateful we all are, Mr. Thomassy. It would be awful for the children if Charles went to jail again."

Charles. The formality was for my sake.

"What do I owe you?" he asked.

Your freedom, you jerk.

"The retainer covered all but five hundred," I said. The five thousand retainer was intended to cover all of it in case he got socked away. The five hundred extra was my tip for getting him off.

"I have it right here," he said. He peeled off ten fifties. I wondered if it was gas station money.

"You shouldn't carry that much cash with you," I said. "You might get robbed."

His wife laughed, but he shut her up with one look.

"Connolly," I said, motioning him away so his wife wouldn't hear. "You better stick to your job, period. Know what I mean?"

He nodded.

"I won't take you on for another armed robbery, understand."

"You won't have to. I'm staying clean. You were terrific."

That's my consolation. The threat of not defending him again might be more effective than any jail term. He'd have to make an honest living. Like me.

I wasn't used to self-hatred. I had my pecker to blame.

Can you imagine yourself famished, looking at a table laden with ripe fruit, and you can't get your mouth to work. I mean you actually bring a peach up to your mouth and it won't open, won't move, won't cooperate. You can't eat a peach intravenously, you need your mouth. I mean there's no other part of the body that behaves like a pecker with a mind of its own, an uncooperative, stubborn, unpersuadable prick. What is it telling me?

In high school and college I thought the trouble with men was that they were an army of erect penises marching around all day long looking for a home. You danced with a fellow and soon there was that stiffening coming between you and the idiot would look at you with a kind of how-can-I-help-it expression. They perform on signal like jumping dogs, touch it with a hand and it curves up like a banana head ready to take a bow. But when you need one, when you want one, not for its own sake but as the best last step in bringing you together with someone you want to be together with, and what do you get, a pathetic lump of overcooked pasta looking like it's ready to fall off its owner's body.

Now I appreciate the great advantage of a really skilled performance, the faked orgasm done so perfectly even you begin to believe it was more than an act. God was extra good to women, if it isn't working, you don't have to advertise failure, you just make believe, hypocrisy to the rescue, like in every other avenue of life a bit of fraud will see you through. I remember once I was faking it, and suddenly the real thing caught me by surprise. Poor men, an inborn lie detector hanging off each of them, ready to rat. To be betrayed by a friend is terrible, but to be betrayed by the organ you feel most protective about, treason!

The truth is: some part of him doesn't want me. Not that part of him, some other part. That part is just the message carrier. Jane yes. Rosemary yes. Edna yes. Francine no.

I stared at the telephone. Then I dialed Jane.

"Hello, stranger," she said.

"Don't be coy, Jane. It's only been a few days."

"You left me something to think about."

"Your husband on the road tonight?"

"Wait, I'll ask him."

"Don't be stu-…" I heard her laughing.

Then she said, "What time?"

"Seven all right?"

"See you at seven."

It was damn near seven-thirty when I got to Jane's. Oh I had left my office on time all right, it's just that I found every nondirect street in that part of the county to keep me from getting there. I built up a head of steam that should have warned me to call her and call it off.

"Sorry, I'm late," I said.

She made drinks. Not a word.

"I'm sorry about the way that other evening worked out," I said.

"Did you see her again?"

"Yes."

"How did it work out?"

"Well, as a matter of fact not too good."

"Oh?"

"Would you believe old Thomassy just couldn't get it up?"

She put her drink down.

"You never had that kind of trouble with me."

"No I haven't."

"And you're here to try it out again to see if it's a permanent malfunction or just the other broad who puts you off."

I like directness in women only to a degree.

Affecting calm, I said in my best judicial voice, "Now Jane, your relationship, I mean yours with me, preceded my knowing the other lady by—"

"Francine, in case you've forgotten her name."

"You sound angry."

"Me? Angry?"

"Well, bitter?"

"Me? Bitter? I've just been waiting here for my favorite lawyer, knowing he would turn up sooner or later for a quick bang. I just hadn't expected it to be a litmus paper test to find if the fire'd gone out."

"You keeping talking that way," I said, "and it will stay out."

"That'd be an interesting revenge. For me. And for several others."

"I thought you liked my company."

"I did. But I felt like a Martian when that other woman was here. You had special all over your face. You falling in love, George, at your age?"

"Don't be silly."

"If falling in love is silly, I'm not silly. I haven't been in love in twenty-two years. It doesn't interfere."

"Jane, you're a smart woman."

"I thought I was a good lay."

"A good lay and a smart woman. Can I move over to where you are?"

"You never asked for permission before. That's a bad sign."