What Is All This?: Uncollected Stories

EVENING

It’s been a long time. I don’t know since when. Just a long time. That should be enough to explain it. To say that: a long time. Very long. Since I’ve been here, I mean. How could I forget? In this room. In this house. On this street. In this city. This state, to be sure. This country, of course. Naturally, this hemisphere. On earth, goes without saying. This solar system, what can I add? This universe, I won’t even go into. Wouldn’t try. We all go a long way. Very possibly we all go the same way. Maybe we all add up to the same thing. This time: who can say? Nobody, I think. Maybe some people try. Maybe a lot of people try and some succeed. I don’t know. But what is it I began to say? That I’ve never left this room? No, I’ve gone out. Several to many times. But the number of times isn’t important. Let’s say I’ve only been out of this room once. But stayed away for eighty years only to return and never go out again. It would mean I’ve been out a long time by anybody’s standards but only went out once. But that’s not what I began to say. It was something about myself in this room. But too late, at least for now. Because my next-door neighbor comes in.

“Howdy do?”

“And how are you?” is what I answer.

“Just fine, and having a pleasant day yourself?”

“Pleasant. Couldn’t be better.”

“Enjoying the weather and sights?”

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if I didn’t?”

“Well, please continue to have a pleasant day.”

“It isn’t difficult to try.”

Then I’ll see you then.”

“And a goodbye to you,” I say.

My neighbor leaves. I try to remember what he said. Nothing much. I look at what he left. Enough for a small meal. It takes little to feed me, and I eat. It tastes all right to bad. But a person has to eat. That’s what one of my parents said when he or she spoke to me about needs. That’s something I can remember that brings me way back. And a roof over your head. And clothes, if people where you live wear clothes or the climate you finally settle in gets cold.

The landlady comes in. “Hello.”

“Good morning,” I say.

“But it’s evening.”

Then good morning for this morning and good evening for now. For how are you today?”

“Fine, thanks, and you?”

“What’s to complain about, because really, what could be wrong?”

“I’m happy to hear that, and have a good rest of day.”

“And I’m happy to hear you’re happy to hear that, and to you the same, a very nice rest of day.”

“Goodbye,” she says.

“Goodbye.”

She goes. She left something. A blanket for me to wrap around myself and sleep under tonight. It’s what I needed most. I had my meal. I’ve a roof and these clothes. Last night was cold. This morning, this afternoon, now this evening is cold. In my mind there comes a time in these seasons when it doesn’t seem it can ever get warm again. Somehow she knew. But of course, for she lives in the same building and so must undergo the same cold. God bless her, I would say. Some people might think I should. Others might say or think I shouldn’t. This is a world of many opinions, much diversity and different harmonies and strifes. I could almost say they’re what I’ve come to like most about it, other than for the possibility of the new day.

Someone raps on my window. It’s my super who lives on the other side of me. We share the same fire escape. My window is gated and locked. Bundled up like a bear, he signals me to let him in. I wave for him to come around and enter through the front door. He waves no, it’s easier getting in through the window now that he’s outside. Easier for you, I motion, but for me it’ll take four times the effort to open my window than the door. Come on, he motions, you opening up or not? I unlock and open the window gate and window and close and lock them once he’s inside.

“Nice to see you again,” he says.

“Same here, Mr. Block, and make yourself at home.”

Think by now you ought to be calling me John?”

“John it is then, John.”

“Fine, Harold.”

“Why’d you come through the window, John?”

“Because you opened and unlocked it and the gate.”

“I opened and unlocked them because you waved me to and then continued to wave me to open and unlock them after I motioned you to go around through your apartment to the public hallway and get in my place through the front door there.”

Then because I was out on our fire escape feeding my pigeons and thought it’d be nice visiting you again and, if I did, to get into your place through some other way this time but the front door.”

“A good enough reason I suppose.”

“Really the only truthful one I have.”

“Wasn’t it kind of cold out there?”

“Actually, I could probably think up several other truthful reasons, and almost as cold out there as it is inside our rooms.”

“One day it might not be this cold,” I say.

“Something to look forward to?”

“One day it might even be considerably warm.”

“More to look forward to?”

“And hot. Our rooms, out there on the fire escape, the hallways, the whole building, will be hot.”

“It’s always good speaking to you, Harold. Seems to raise my body temperature by a degree, which these days I don’t mind.”

“Same here, John. And have a very nice day.”

“What’s left of it I will.”

We shake hands. He leaves through the door. He left a pair of woolen gloves. I put them on. He once said he only had two hands but two pairs of gloves and one day would give or loan me one. He didn’t say this time if the gloves were a gift or loan. No note either, which he likes to leave behind. But no matter. They’re on my hands. My fingers are already warm. A person couldn’t have more thoughtful neighbors.

Someone taps to me on the ceiling below. I get on my knees and yell through the floor to the apartment under mine. That you tapping, Miss James?”

Three taps have become understood between us to mean yes, and she taps three times.

“Having a good day?”

One tap means maybe or just so-so.

“Not too cold out for you?”

Two taps mean no.

“Are you saying it’s cold but not too cold for you?”

Three taps.

“Well, one day it should get warm again, but probably not too soon.”

Four taps mean wonderful or great.

“Even hot. Maybe one day even very hot.”

Four taps.

Though let’s hope it doesn’t get so hot where we’ll be as uncomfortable as we are when it’s this cold. But that’s such a long way off as to almost seem unimaginable.”

One tap.

“By the way, I’ve received a number of very nice things today. A meal from Mr. Day, blanket from the landlady and a pair of warm gloves from John.”

Six taps mean an interrogative.

“John…the super…Mr. Block.”

Eight taps for good. Then a long silence.

“If you’re through now, Miss James, I’ll be speaking to you again.”

Three taps for yes.

“You’re through?”

Two taps.

“What else would you like to say?”

She taps for several minutes straight. Hundreds of taps, maybe thousands. I don’t know what she’s saying. A so-so here, a great, yes, no and interrogative, but that’s all I understand. Then she stops.

“Well, that’s something,” I say. “Anything else?”

Two taps.

Then goodnight, Miss James. And stay as well and warm as you can.”

She taps “I hope so” and then “Goodnight.” I go to bed. I put the blanket over me and tuck it in. I wear the gloves and my clothes. It’s cold but not as cold for me as it was. And it could be considered a good day. When it began I had nothing to eat and no prospect of a meal and no blanket or gloves. Probably also been a better day for the rest of them because they gave me these things and for Miss James because she knows it and spoke to me tonight. I turn out the light and wait for what I hope will he beautiful dreams. Really, outside of my friendships and conversations here, dreams are what I live for most.

STORM

Paul walks to the point. When he was here two winters ago he wrote a story about a writer who came to a similar village to get over a woman in New York City who had stopped seeing him.

In the story and real life she was an actress who was portraying an actress on a daytime television soap opera who was in love with a writer of soap operas who couldn’t give up his wife for her.

One night, in the story and real life, she told Paul she couldn’t see him anymore as she was in love with — and thinks she’ll be marrying — the actor who plays the writer on the show.

In the story and real life he had to sit down for fear of falling down and she said he was beginning to look and sound like one of the more unconvincing morose characters on her soap.

The writer you’re in love with?” he asked and she said “Abe would never act so callow or doleful in real life or on the show.” She asked him to leave and he said “Not yet.”

“Do I have to call the police?” and he said, “Please, let’s go to bed one last time and then I swear I’ll go.”

Both in real life and the story she said “You’ve got to be even crazier and wormier than I first thought you were when I met you and then, for some stupid unself-protective reason, changed my mind.”

He slapped her face, pushed her into her bedroom and told her to take off her clothes.

In the story he had to pin her arms down and sit on her while he removed her clothes.

In real life he didn’t pin her arms down and he thinks she took off her clothes while she sat on the edge of the bed.

In the story and real life she said if he was so intent on physically overpowering her, then she wasn’t going to fight back, as she could get hurt even worse that way. “Irreparably, even,” she said in real life.

He doesn’t remember using that last line in the story; he thinks he felt it would have sounded too banal to be believed. Now he’d use it, and he makes a note in his scratch pad to add that line to the story if the line he might have written in place of it isn’t a better one and if this one can seamlessly be worked in.

Both in real life and the story she pleaded again for him to leave, and he said he wouldn’t. When she cried because she was frightened of the harm he might do her in bed and later, out of self-reproach, when he was through, he broke down, in real life, said he must have been temporarily insane to have threatened her like that, and left.

In the story he held her down, got on top of her and tried making love.

She said something like “As I said before, Perry, you don’t have to force me as I’m not about to resist. I don’t want to risk rupturing my vaginal walls and maybe as a result restrict my childbearingness and facility for having sex unrestrainedly with other men.”

The act was physically painful and difficult for them both.

In real life, a month before that night she said “It’s sleeping, Paul; let’s wait.”

In the story she later said that rape or whatever he wanted to call it, it could have been pleasurable for her if he were the man she was in love with but for her own reasons didn’t want to make love with tonight while he most demonstrably did. “But you’re not. In every possible way you’re unattractive and hateful to me, no more now than before.”

He said he could make her attracted to him and she said that was only his insufferable hubris speaking in him again. He said hubris was one of a dozen or more words he’d looked up at least twenty times in the last ten years and would still have to look up again when he got home.

In the story he looked up the word when he got home and gave the definition.

In real life now he doesn’t know what the word means and writes it down in his scratch pad and underlines it.

In the story and real life he made an evening call for her from the phone booth on this point a week after the incident in her apartment.

In the story and real life he said something like I’m calling from this point, which is on an icy peninsula a mile out to sea, and where I can hear the sounds of buoys, gulls, bells, waves, fishing boat motors from nearby and far-off, the clinking and pinging of the halyard against the flagpole at the point’s tip, and somehow it’s the maddest and saddest and happiest and sappiest and sanest phone call I’ve ever made. For you see I’m both speaking to you while at the same time so totally alone and now being covered like everything else out here including the mouthpiece and coin slots and telephone wires and poles with snow.”

In the story she said “I hope you get buried to death and die,” and hung up.

In real life she said he sounds awful and there’s nothing she can do for him, and hung up.

He phones her and says “Storm, hi. I’m calling you from that peninsula point phone I last phoned you from and which I never would have done if it wasn’t around the same time and so soon after seeing some of the same people and the same sea and shore sounds couldn’t be heard and the point wasn’t as deserted as it was when I phoned you in what a few fall months will be two winters ago.”

“If it’s snowing,” she says, “I hope you freeze your balls off and die, goodbye.”

“And if it’s raining or let’s say the meteors are showering as they are now but weren’t then showering? Or the sun’s thundering and mountains are lightninging and stars and moon are closing in and the earth’s fissuring and oceans are tidalwaving and this village and your city and our country and countries and continents are disappearing worldwide? Day the earth ended — a time-torn title for a short story but a workable theme for one I’d work on if I hadn’t used it twice before. Remember the husband and wife archeological team? The last two people on earth who seek shelter in the cave they’ve been exhuming for years? And just as the cave’s crumbling with them in it they discover an intact skull and complete skeleton and enfaced slate and stylus that are probably a million years older than the oldest bones and writing materials ever found of protohuman American, and also the skeleton’s digging and cooking utensils that are very much like our own. And what about old Philly Worstwords, who’s awakened from a series of dreams of the successive loves of his youth and artistic successes of his middle age, to find his top floor apartment walls collapsing and all the surrounding buildings plummeting? And from that hospital bed in his now towering wall-less single room, observing the dissolution of his neighborhood and then the entire city and countryside beyond. ‘Why me?’ he kept asking — remember that, Storm? ‘Why me, why me, why me?’”

AN OUTING

It’s raining. The rain stops. The puddles dry up. The night falls. The day comes. It’s raining. There’s thunder. Lightning can be seen by those who can see or who see it or those who remember it when they saw. Something like that. A master I’m not. I get out of bed. It’s time. The rain stops. I suppose the puddles are beginning to dry up.

I wash and shave. I’ve come a long way. Last night I was asleep. Tonight I’ll most likely be asleep. The night after tonight, or tomorrow night as they say, I’ll probably be asleep too. And maybe one time during the day of these days I’ll be asleep in what’s called a nap. But still asleep. A sleep that might last for about an hour. That’s about the length of my naps. Though some have been as long as two hours. One nap I had lasted three hours I believe. A long time ago. And one lasted so long that it could no longer be called a nap. But I should get going. I’ve come so far this time that I feel I want to continue.

I make myself a breakfast of two eggs and toast. I make a pot of coffee and drink two cups of it. I drink a glass of water. I go to the bathroom. What I do there is my business. I dress. I leave the apartment. On the stairway going downstairs I tell myself now’s not the time to stop. On the ground floor I repeat to myself now’s not the time to stop. In the building’s vestibule where the mailboxes are I tell myself I’ve made it this far this time I might as well try to see it through to the end. On the stoop leading to the sidewalk I say to myself I’ve made it outside at least but now where will I go? On the sidewalk I’m about to say something else to myself or repeat one of the things I just said to myself when a woman approaches. I raise my hat to her. She smiles. I set the hat back on my head. She passes. I look up. The sun’s trying to break through. I look down. Still plenty of puddles on the sidewalk and street. The puddles will dry up faster if the sun does break through. That’s elementary, I think. What’s also elementary, I think, is that the puddles will increase in size and depth and possibly spill over to form secondary puddles if it soon rains as hard as it did the last two times. What isn’t elementary, I think, meaning I’m thinking and have been thinking what is and isn’t elementary to me, is to think about the mathematical proportions of sun and rain in relation to puddles, secondary or otherwise, and how much water would be lost in relation to water gained or something like that if it rains again, though if the sun comes out real strong before it rains. Meaning, if the sun comes out real strong, or is really just a sun of normal intensity and warmth for this time in this area, before it rains as hard as it did the last two times or just rains an average rainfall. Oh, better to forget it than try to explain it. I’m not a scientist, mathematician or meteorologist. A weatherman, let’s say. To me rain is rain, puddles are puddles, the sun’s the sun.

Standing in front of my building I tell myself I can head up or down this street, toward the avenue with buildings and stores on both sides of it or toward the avenue that borders the park. Both avenues are at the end of my sidestreet and have a subway station three blocks south of the corner, though only one has a subway station seven blocks north of the corner, as the station on the park avenue is a terminus. But all that would only be important if I wanted to take a subway, and if I did, if I wanted to go north or south on it, none I want to do.

I walk toward the avenue with buildings on both sides of it rather than the avenue with only luxury apartment houses on one side of it that face the park. The sun’s broken through. Most of the clouds have disappeared. I suppose the puddles have begun to dry up. And now it’s beginning to rain. A sunshower. I used to love them as a boy. And the rainbow that would come soon after the sunshower. Both of which I still love as a man. But quick. Under cover. Before my only street clothes get soaked.

A woman walks by holding an opened umbrella. I raise my hat. She raises the umbrella. I get under it and hold the umbrella rod right above the handle while she holds the crook. She came from the avenue with stores on it. We walk toward the avenue that borders the park. It’s a woman’s umbrella, brightly colored and with a thin leather handle and strap, but the canopy isn’t wide enough to protect two average-sized adults walking a foot apart from each other, so we move closer till our hips touch. Then our arms holding the umbrella and next our elbows touch. Her hand moves a few inches up the rod, folds over mine and brings both our hands back to the crook. I switch hands on the umbrella so my arm closest to her can go around her waist. She takes her hand off the handle so she can curl that arm around my neck, Now almost the entire one sides of our bodies touch. Even the timing of our strides are changed so when we move our inside legs forward our thighs touch.

We stop. Our cheeks touch. We close our eyes. I don’t know if her eyes stay closed but mine do as we kiss. She licks my chin. I suck her lips. She sticks her tongue in my mouth. I press my tongue against hers and then try to reach its roots. We start walking. It’s now pouring. The sun’s out. Our mouths are still joined but our tongues are back in place. We walk into a lamppost. We laugh and shake our hurt toes. One rung of the canopy’s crushed. We’ve reached the avenue, cross it and enter the park.

She leads me to a spot right behind the park’s peripheral stone wall. She takes my hand off her waist and puts it on her breast. My other hand continues to hold the umbrella above our heads. She puts her hands on my back and chest and slides down my body that way without letting go of me till I can no longer reach her breast. Then I can’t even reach the top of her head without crouching over her. She’s taken her slicker off and is sitting on it on the ground. She pulls up her skirt to her waist, points to herself down there and nods her head. I shake my head. She closes her eyes, opens her mouth wide and keeps it open, puts her arms around my ankles and squeezes them tight. I get down on the coat. It lightnings. It thunders. The rain’s coming down harder. I unzip my fly, pull myself out, the way we do it I won’t say, though I never stop holding the umbrella over us and not one part of our bodies gets wet.

The rain stops. The sun never left. I hear cars and buses passing and blaring on the other side of the stone wall. Commercial traffic isn’t allowed on the park avenue but I hear what sounds like a huge trailer truck. A parks department worker appears on a small hill nearby raking leaves. He sees us and leans with his chin on the tip of his rake handle and whistles. I wave him away. She winks and waves at him to come. He walks down the hill, drops the rake with the teeth part sticking up and unbuckles his belt. I’m through anyway. I get up. He gets down and takes my place but in a different way. I close the umbrella and make sure I don’t step on the rake head as I start out of the park.

There are many more puddles on the streets and sidewalks than before. I’m sure the new process of their beginning to dry up has already begun. I cross the avenue. I feel and hear drops on my hat, which I only now realize I never took off. I look up. It’s raining. The sun’s gone. I open the umbrella. It starts teeming. I think about the park couple probably getting wet. I run to my building, but the wind or whatever the air pressure against the inside of an open umbrella is called that keeps one from running as well as he’d run if the umbrella were closed, slows down my running to a walk and then a standstill and then begins pulling me back across the avenue as if I were attached to an opened parachute. I close the umbrella. I run to my building and into the vestibule, and after checking the mailbox for mail, run upstairs. I unlock my front door, go inside, lock it, stand the umbrella against a wall and take off all my clothes and hang them up on the clothesline above the bathtub and put my shoes in the tub. I wash, make a lunch of canned soup and two cheese sandwiches, eat them and drink a glass of milk and get into bed. After all the running about and such just before, I’m sure I’ll have a good nap. The umbrella. It’s probably leaking along the floor and maybe through the floor cracks to the apartment below. I get up. I bring the umbrella to the bathroom, open it and stick it in the tub. I think of taking a hot bath, but there are too many things dripping into or drying off in the tub. I get back in bed. I think of that woman. I’m glad I went out. But I still have her umbrella. Will she be on the street next time I go outside where I can give it back to her? I should have got her name and phone number to return the umbrella, or at least her last name and address so I could send it to her by messenger or mail.

SHOELACES

Herbert bent down to tie his wife’s shoelaces, one hand and knee touching the pavement. A Fifth Avenue bus pulling out of a stop sent exhaust fumes in his direction. He held his breath, finished tying one of the shoes, and looking up saw her large body standing over him like an equestrian statue still draped with its unveiling cloth.

“I’d do it myself if I wasn’t so heavy,” she said.

“You’re not that heavy,” he said, and untied and tied the laces of the other shoe just in case.

“But you shouldn’t be doing that, Herb. It’s not a man’s job. I should lose weight; tie my own shoes.”

“Don’t be silly.” That was it. Both shoes tied neatly and tight. Maybe he should have tied double knots so he’d be sure they wouldn’t come loose. But then later at home, if she didn’t ask him to untie the laces while the shoes were on her feet, she’d make him take out the knots after she’d forced the shoes off her feet, and that always hurt his fingertips. It was a damn nuisance this bending, tying, retying, looking at her ugly scuffed shoes with the stockened big toe sticking out of the opening in front. It was almost the same style his mother and all her illiterate friends wore some fifty years ago. Now maybe if his wife wasn’t so heavy and her feet not so swollen most of the time, she’d be able to wear high heels like other women her age and begin to look like somebody. But what wishful thinking that was, and he stood up, spit into his hanky and rubbed it on his dirty hand, then folded it and carefully stuck it back into his coat’s breast pocket.

“So many people walk on Sunday it’s amazing,” she said.

“Not so amazing. We do it.”

“But on Sunday? I’m saying, everybody?”

“Sunday’s as good as any other day. Less crowded.”

“But so many people walking when no stores are open, I can’t see.”

“So they don’t spend money; that’s bad?”

“And what do you want them to do, die with every cent?” She looked at her shoes. “You know, I think you tied them too tight.”

“Why, it hurts?”

“I wouldn’t ask if they didn’t, Herb.”

“I thought I tied them loose enough. Though you should know what’s wrong with them. You’re wearing the things.”

“I’m not trying to pick an argument. I say they’re tight. I mean — I know, especially the right. Now will you please untie them some?”

He was glad he hadn’t double-knotted the laces. He started to bend down, his wife now breathing more heavily above him, but quickly straightened up and looked around.

Before, when she had asked him, he also looked, but just quick ones so she wouldn’t suspect anything. There were fewer people on the street then and nobody seemed to be looking his way. But now the street was more crowded and people seemed to be looking everywhere. They didn’t see anything interesting in front of them, they looked in the store windows. If nothing interesting was in the windows, they looked around the sidewalk. A man tying his wife’s shoelaces was interesting; untying them, even more so.

“Maybe I should stand here all day and get my feet swelled till they’re limp and blue, is that what you want?”

“No, of course not.”

Then what?”

“Try walking a little more. Maybe they’re not that tight.”

“Walk and get lame? You’d like that better? You got so much money where you can throw it into some doctor’s window?”

“Did I say that?” his voice almost a whisper.

His wife, apparently satisfied with his answer, dropped her scolding finger. A painful expression creased her nose. She looked suspiciously at her shoes and attempted to stand on her left foot. Her fat jiggled and her bosom heaved. She got her foot about three inches off the ground.

“You know, it’s really killing me,” she said to the back of his head.

“You tied them before like a madman.”

“What?” He was watching a group of schoolgirls, dressed nicely in sweaters and kneesocks and skirts, jump out of a cab, laugh and fumble over the change they each contributed to the fare, and cross the street. He still heard them laughing, one exceptionally pretty one with her long red hair like silk bouncing, as his wife pointed to her feet.

“I’m saying it hurts, Herb — do you hear?”

He’d stoop down. After all, she was his wife and he knew he had to get it over with eventually, so get it done now and that’d be that. But squatting down, his thighs spread apart, the first thing he did was feel his crotch. His pants were dry. He glanced at them and saw they weren’t stained with urine either, which was a good sign. Because lately he’d occasionally let himself go: just short spurts and not from any excitement or anything. It was only that something had gotten wrong inside him like so many other men his age got, and he sometimes couldn’t control himself. His wife knew about it, and when she wasn’t shouting at him for staining his pants so much, she’d be urging him to see a doctor who takes care of such things. But he’d hold off that visit a week or two longer to see if his trouble would go away by itself. He heard it sometimes did.

A young couple stopped a few feet away to look at the store window behind him. The Tailored Woman was what the store was called, and some very nice clothes and accessories it had also. He looked up at his wife’s breasts drooped massively over him. They never looked good when she tried stuffing them into one of her baggy dresses. Maybe in her skimpy nightgowns, when they swung back and forth, unstrapped and partly hidden, maybe then they looked best. But she should only have the figure to go into one of those dresses in the window. And he should only have the money to buy it. A real fortune they must cost. But say he did have the money — what good would it do? A laugh, that was the good it’d do, because she’d never lose an ounce. Money she could but weight never. He looked back at the couple. They were now watching a white sports car zoom downtown. Herb, his legs aching, rose and also watched the car as it screeched to a stop at the corner when the traffic light turned red. With that car the driver could have easily made it through the light, he thought. The car, waiting for the light to turn green, revved its motor and exploded two loud pops through its tailpipes. Then it switched gears, retched, bucked like a horse at the starting gate, and took off down the avenue, turning at 55^th Street and disappearing.

“What is it, Herb? You’re interested in everything but me today.”

“I was looking at that white sports car.”

“Car? That was a car? That’s a toy car. It couldn’t fit three.”

“Maybe, but it looked nice and went fast.”

“Fast? Marilyn’s friend’s husband had one, and fast it went into a tree. Lucky he was insured and not hurt.”

“For someone who’s careless, any car could hit a tree.”

“You know him that well to say he’s careless? Anyway, can I change back the subject?”

“Huh?”

The shoes, Herb, the shoes. Because one minute more and I’ll be crippled for life.”

“Walk over to that water thing there.” He pointed to a polished bronze spigot attached to the outside of the store.

“Why?”

“Because you could put you foot up on it, which’d be easier for me.”

“You can do it right here. Come on, Herb — for me.”

What did she say this morning? “It’s a nice day”? “Such a beautiful day”? Some nonsense like that when she said they should take the subway to Columbus Circle, walk along Central Park South on the building side because that’s such a refined area, and then go to Rockefeller Plaza where all the pretty flowers are, and from there they’d maybe stop in for coffee and take the bus home. But once on the train she decided to get off at 59^th and Fifth instead, and now only two blocks they’ve walked and already she’s asked him twice to do her laces. By 55^th Street she’ll say she’s dead tired, stop, complain, make him bend down and feel if one of her ankles is more swollen than the other, then tell him they should take the Fifth Avenue bus downtown now because her legs hurt real bad and they can just as easily see the store window displays and flowers from the bus. But an idea like hers he never should have listened to in the first place. He should really just hail a cab and ride away without her for once, which would serve her a good lesson. Besides, the Fifth Avenue bus doesn’t give free transfers crosstown where they’re going like the Lexington Avenue bus does, but try get her to walk the three short blocks to Lexington and she’d holler like he’s never heard. So today’s the last fall Sunday of the year that’ll be beautiful, as she said. But how did she know? The weatherman’s her uncle?

“Herb?”

“What?”

“Herb!”

She meant business. He squatted down, for all he had to do was give her one more excuse and she’d jump down his throat even worse. People walk past? What did it matter? Yell, she could do better than anyone in the world. And the people? Already they started looking like he thought before. But he had no reason to complain. This wasn’t his avenue. It was stupid even thinking it was for a second.

He looked around to prove his point. A woman walked by with her very proper-looking blond daughter. Both of them had nice clear rich voices and were smartly dressed, their faces and noses handsome and small — but not in the air like some people. Still, some things he could tell: they didn’t want to mingle with you and for your own personal good you shouldn’t try to have anything to do with them. Another woman walked towards him, a small dog trailing at the leash she held. Now she he immediately knew he didn’t like — a real anti-Semite. He could tell just by her cold sour look like she had a stomachache and then traipsing past him like she owned the street. Because why did she look at him like that? Something she didn’t like? His wife? Her beaten-up old shoes? This man on his knee? She didn’t like that? Maybe she didn’t like anything. Whatever the reason, this street was city property, kept up with taxes paid by all of them, so if she thought she had any more rights on it than they, she was crazy. He, he’d tie, untie, retie, untie and tie again if he liked, and she could go and make faces at them all her life and see how much it bothered him.

He switched his weight to his other foot and began tying the shoelaces just as he’d been taught as a boy to tie them. The black laces wrapped easily around one finger, under the loop, under the loop again, and after pulling tight he had a bow — a good one. But as a boy he was always glad to have people watch him tie, especially when he first learned how and his relatives praised him without his mother’s coaxing. But here? Well, for one thing his wife appreciated it, and he guessed that was something. And then it was a good bow as he had said, like one he could hardly make anymore with his rotten fingers, and it was also much neater than when he’d done it as a boy, with the loops of the bow equal on both sides. He undid the laces on the other shoe, even though they seemed loose enough, and retied them also.

“How do they feel?” he said, patting the square fronts of both shoes and looking up.

“Eh?”

“I said how do they feel?”

“Fine.”

“Not too tight?”

“No, fine, just fine. Both are perfect, Herb.”

FIRED

“You sonofabitch.”

“Just get the fuck out of here.”

“You’re firing me? Good. Because I can’t stand you and this place.”

“I’m not firing anyone. You’re quitting, and never come back.”

“I’ll come back for my paycheck.”

“Don’t bother. It’ll be in the mail.”

I go downstairs, change into my street clothes, throw my bowtie against the dressing room wall and step on it so the metal clasp breaks, leave the restaurant and head home.

On the next street a man says “Dig it, man, dig it. Right up here, ten bucks, satisfaction guaranteed.” He holds out a flyer.

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, man, dig it, no harm to look. Put it away for later.”

I take the flyer and read it as I walk. $10, it says. Girls, muchaches, girls. Complete private sessions. No extra charges. On it is a photo of a nude woman sitting on a bed. Very young and beautiful, bandanna around her forehead, lots of pubic hair.

I put the flyer into my pocket. I’ve thought about going to one of these places and felt it would either cost much more than the flyer said or I was afraid of getting a disease or mugged or that the women were being exploited and I wanted no part in that. But now I don’t care what happens to me or who’s being exploited; I just want to forget the manager and job and looking for another one and have a good time. I only have about fifteen dollars on me, so what can they take? And for a disease I can always get a free clinic shot.

I go back. Man’s still handing out flyers, smiles and says to me “Go dig it, man,” and I open the door and walk upstairs. Second-floor door’s open and the room I step into is like a small lobby of a cheap hotel.

Woman behind a desk says “Yes?”

“Uh…”

“Want to join the fun? Ten dollars.”

I give it to her.

“And eighty cents tax.”

“Didn’t say anything about tax, not that I won’t pay it.”

“You mean the handouts downstairs? Look again.”

She gives me one. Where it says taxes included, it’s been crossed out. I don’t take out the one in my pocket to see if it’s been crossed out too. I give her a dollar and she gives me twenty cents change. “What do I do now?”

“Give your bag to the attendant there and come back.”

A man’s standing in front of an opened closet. He takes the athletic bag my waiter’s uniform and other things are in and puts it on a shelf.

“No tag?”

“Yours is the only bag like that,” he says. “It’ll be here.”

I go back to the desk and say “Now what?”

“You can’t do anything without a ticket. Here, give it to your girl.” It’s like a movie ticket. “Like to sign our guest register first?”

She turns it around and gives me a pen. Register’s also like a hotel’s. None of the names seem real. Bob Smith. Jack Brown. Joe. Dick D. Pegleg Pete. I sign James George, which is my real name reversed.

“I’ll let you in.” She goes through a curtain behind her and opens a door from the inside about ten feet away. I go in. She returns to her desk. Six women sit around a table in the middle of the room. They’re pretty and fairly young and either in leotards or brief swimsuits. There are benches against all four walls, and I sit on one. An older man is sitting on a bench across the room. He’s wearing a coat on this humid summer day and sunglasses with mirrors for lenses, and seems to be enjoying himself just by looking at the women.

Sit for a while, I tell myself. Don’t be in any rush. There’s just this guy and you, so you got a complete choice. Listen to how they speak and what they say. Make the right decision from it. Pick the one you think has the best combination of looks and personality and even intelligence and doesn’t seem abrasive and will be the most fun. Right after I finish thinking this I choose the youngest-looking woman mostly because she is so young and it seems as if this could almost be her first day here. She’s around eighteen or nineteen, less than half my age. She’s actually beautiful. More beautiful than any woman I’ve ever been with. Perfect features and skin. Long black hair, slim body in black leotards. Long muscular legs, tiny waist and small breasts. She looks like a dancer. She seems bored and isn’t talking with the other women. Radio music’s playing and she seems to be listening to it. I go over to her, tap her shoulder. She looks up. I give her my ticket. She stands, flashes a smile and says “Follow me.”

I follow her through the door to the lobby, past the checkroom and desk to a small room off a hallway. She shuts the door. “What do you want, half and half?”

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t been here before?”

“No.”

She seems disappointed and looks around. A bucket of dirty water’s on the floor. Looks like someone spit several times in it. She feels the water with her finger. “It’s cold. I better get some warmer water to wash you with.”

“Don’t worry, I’m clean.”

“No, I have to. I’ll be back. Sit down. Take off your clothes.”

She goes. I take off my shirt and hang it on a hook. My pants and shorts on a different hook and then my shoes and socks. I look in the mirror. I flatten my hair back, fold my arms, sit on the bed. The room is mostly this single bed against the wall. No window. Bucket of water and a stool with a folded towel on it. She comes back with a basin of water.

“Got some warmer water for you. And soap. They seem to have none here.”

“I don’t see any. By the way, you mentioned half and half. What is it?”

“Half blow job, half screw. You want that?”

“Sure. Is there anything else I can get?”

“Nothing I give. Come here.” I walk over to her “Hold the pan.” I hold the pan. She drops the soap in the water, takes my penis in one hand and starts washing it, “Wait a minute, we got a problem. This thing won’t fit in me. I should’ve asked you to undress before I got the water, but this thing isn’t even semi-erect yet.” She drops my penis.

“What do I do?”

“Whatever you do, you’re not going in me. I’m sorry, but I got some more working to do today and I’m not the biggest girl in the world, know what I mean? You want me to just blow you, that’s something different, but not if it’s going to take too long.”

“I want the other thing too.”

Then pick one of the other girls who looks bigger.” She puts the soap on the stool, takes the basin from me and dumps the water into the bucket. She pulls my ticket out from inside her shoe, where I never saw her put it, and gives me it.

“Listen, how can I tell who’s bigger than who, because I don’t want to run into the same problem?”

“Anyone older than me and with a bigger behind’s usually good. Just any of them then, because you see I’m too slight. Use that towel. Sorry. Bye.” She leaves with the basin.

I dry myself, get dressed and go back to the lobby. “I still have my ticket,” I say to the woman behind the desk, showing it.

“I know. Let me come around.” She lets me in. Most of the women look at me when I walk in and then resume talking.

The man with the sunglasses and coat is still there smiling.

There’s a new woman, in purple shorts and red T-shirt, but I can only see a little of her face. I change benches so I can get a good look at her. She’s cute: small nose, little eyes and pouty lips. She looks at me, smiles nicely, and then looks back at her shoes. Another woman has a gorgeous figure I see when she stands up and looks at me and winks. But her hair’s bleached platinum and looks like it’d feel like straw. And she’s chewing gum very hard and snapping it, and I don’t like hair like that or the sound or smell of chewing gum. Some other time, because of her great body, I might choose her if I ever come back here, which I think I will. It seems fair, reasonably clean, no hustle, and the women are attractive and mostly young. But now I want someone who seems as if she almost doesn’t want to be chosen and who at least has the appearance of being modest, like the one in purple shorts. I go over to her and hold out my ticket.

She looks up. “Oh yeah, I forgot,” she says, and laughs. “My mind was lost somewhere.” She takes my ticket and says “Over here,” and I follow her to a room right off this one. It’s three times as large as the first one and has a dresser, chair, sink, window with drapes over it, bathroom mirror screwed to the wall and the same single bed. “Take off your clothes. Water in the sink takes too long to get warm and I want to wash you, so I’ll be right back.”

“You’re not going to believe this…”

“What?”

“Forget it; it’s ridiculous.”

“No, what? I want to know,”

“I’m already very clean.”

“Everyone’s very clean, honey, but everyone’s got to be washed. Only way I know if you are is when I do it myself, okay?”

“Fine.”

She leaves. I take off my clothes and sit on the bed. There’s stirring behind the wall with the mirror. I stand and look in the mirror and see myself and also some kind of movement behind it. The movement stops but there’s still an outline of a head with lots of hair around it, like the woman has. I sit in the chair and cross my legs and keep my eyes on a different wall than the mirror’s. I don’t want her thinking I’m suspicious in any way she’d think wasn’t normal, as I don’t want to be asked to leave if that’s what they do when they’re suspicious of you.

She comes in with a basin of water with a bar of soap in it. “Sorry I took so long. Could you stand so I can get you washed?”

“Want me to hold the pan?”

“Sure, honey, that’ll be as good as my resting it on the chair.”

I hold the pan and she washes and dries my penis. I put the pan on the chair. She takes off her shoes and shorts and I lie on the bed.

“Make some room for me, honey.”

“Excuse me.” I slide close to the wall. She sits on the edge of the bed.

“What do you want?” she says.

“Is there anything besides half and half?”

“Sure, plenty. Want me to fly you around the world?”

“What’s that?”

“I suck you all the way around, ass and cock. You never had it, it’s great.”

“Do I get to come in you?”

“For ten dollars more. Without coming in me it’s only five dollars more.”

“What else is there besides that?”

“Sixty-nine. That’ll cost you five more. But there you also get to come inside me. If you want to stick it in my ass that’s another ten dollars no matter what else we do or where you come in me, because that one takes a little longer and isn’t the easiest to do.”

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“I can give you a quarter fly around the world for five dollars more where you also come in me.”

Thanks, but I think I’d just like half and half.”

She takes off her shirt, lies across my chest and holds my penis and stares at it. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

This stuff leaking out of you. I don’t like the looks of it. Sure you don’t have something?”

“Positive. It’s probably just come.”

“I hope so.” She wipes the tip with her fingers and puts my penis in her mouth. I play with her nipple. Her eyes are closed while she’s doing it. About two minutes later she sits up, wipes her mouth with her wrist, gets on her back and opens her legs. I get on top of her and only go a little ways in.

“Push in all the way, honey. You’re not doing us any good hanging outside.”

“I thought we’d play with each other a little till we’re both ready.”

“Why do we got to play? You’re ready, I’m ready, come on.” I go all the way in, grab her head, shoulders, back of her neck.

“It’d help if you moved a little too,” I say.

“I will. I just wanted to make sure you were settled.” She moves. I come.

I get out before she gives me any sign I should and roll over on my side.

That was quick,” she says.

“I guess it’s been a long time.”

“Yeah? If you want, for another five, you can do it again if you think you can be quick.”

“I don’t know if I can do it that fast again.”

“How long you think you need?”

“If I take an eight-minute rest or so and then you play with me a little, maybe a total of fifteen minutes.”

That’s too long for another five. For another ten I’ll wait the eight minutes with you here before we start again.”

“I don’t even think I can guarantee anything that fast. I better just forget it.”

“Next time don’t wait so long to come here, okay? Then you won’t have to do it so fast and can get more out of it.” She gets off the bed. I do too. Cleans herself with a washrag and sink water and says “Don’t you want to wash yourself too?”

“I guess so.” I go to the basin and start soaping my penis.

“I’ll help.” She washes it for me over the basin on the chair, gives me a paper towel to dry it with.

Thanks.”

She puts on her shorts and shoes. I put on my undershorts and pants and sit down and take my socks out of my pants pocket.

“My socks were in my pocket—”

“What, honey?” She was putting her shirt over her head and didn’t hear me.

“My socks. I just wanted to explain. They were in my pocket because I already got undressed and dressed here once when another girl right before you — you weren’t in the main room at the time — she said I was too big for her when she was washing me.”

“Which one was she?”

“Girl in black leotards. Very young.”

“Very, very young with her long black hair brushed straight down in back? Very pretty?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know her name. No, you’re big all right, though not where you’re that unusual. Sure that was her real reason for refusing you?”

That’s what she said.”

“She must have never had a baby or be younger than I even thought, though I still don’t see why she should be so smug.”

“You won’t say anything to hurt her job. That she refused someone for what might be a flimsy reason?”

“She’s got no worries. Young and pretty like she is, she can turn away twice as many as anyone and still do better than most. Don’t feel sorry for her.”

I’m all dressed. “By the way, this is for you.” There’s a sign on the wall that says Tips aren’t obligatory but are welcome, and I give her three dollars.

Thank you, that’s very nice.” She puts it in her purse.

I go to the door. “Well, goodbye.”

“Let me leave first, honey.” She runs her hands through her hair, opens the door, says goodbye and goes. I wait a few seconds before opening the door and walking through the main room. The older man’s there smiling at the women. The woman I was just with isn’t around. The young woman in black leotards is sitting and talking with another woman. I smile at her as I pass. She flashes a smile back.

The checkroom man isn’t around. I take my bag off the shelf, wave goodbye to the woman behind the desk and start downstairs. A young man’s running up the stairs. I go outside.

“Dig it, man, dig it,” the man from before says, holding out a flyer.

“You already gave me one. It’s in my pocket.”

“Way to go, man. Best beauties in the West up there, so use it,” and sticks the flyer he was going to give me into another man’s hand. I head home.

When I get there I call the manager of the restaurant I worked in and say “If it’s all right with you, I’m feeling much better now and just think I got unreasonably hot under the collar before and want to come back tomorrow, all right?”

“Let me think about it. Okay. But no more getting so damn temperamental, or you’re through here for good, got that?”

“Right.”

“Same time tomorrow then,” and he hangs up.

THE BUSSED

There were no passengers on the bus when I got on it. “Forty grens,” the driver said, an unreasonably high fare for not a very long ride, I thought, and I grudgingly fingered through my pockets and wallet but all I could come up with was a five-tavo bill.

“Can’t change it,” he said. “And you know the state rules; no free rides unless you’re a bona fide disabled veteran or visibly pregnant, so I’m afraid you’ll have to get off at the next regular stop.”

“Maybe another passenger can change it.”

“Who’s to guarantee there’ll be other passengers? Sorry: no money, no ride.”

“But I have the money. It’s you who haven’t the change.”

The bus stopped at the corner and the driver pointed past the opened door. “See that bench? It’s been systems analyzed to be uniformly comfortable to the average waiting person for a period of up to an hour. Care has gone into the design, development and fabrication of that bench. The next bus is scheduled in thirty-three minutes, which is generosity on the state’s part seeing how around this time we don’t get but an average of one passenger per tour. And extreme generosity, considering how that one passenger hasn’t even the money to pay. The next driver’s name is Robinson, by the way, so if you’re feeling up to it, give him my regards.”

Someone had left the morning newspaper on the bench. “War in Kamansua progresses,” I read. “506 hostiles killed, enemy’s tally of 51 friendlies dead discounted. President Lax says peace is feasible. Senator Merose calls for investigation of existent sans-culottists in war industry. Senator Servin calls for investigation of unproductive visual and audio agipropaganda. Senator Fleetmore calls for investigation of insane asylums. Says all mental health money should be diverted to war interests. ‘Look at us: first in space, first in peace and defense, first in the technological arts, but still with more asylums than any state in the world. I say that if you’re not sane to begin with, then no treatment or institution is going to make you sane. I call for a war against the insane,’ he said to applauding colleagues. ‘Think of the cost, the state danger and disgrace. I say that if one’s emotionally ill — a euphemism for what’s more validly known as state immediocrities — then that’s his problem to deal and live with in another state, because now, as a unified people, in this indeterminable era, with all mankind to consider, we cannot afford to…’”

The next bus came an hour later, this one also empty.

I got on, five-tavo bull in my hand and explanation prepared. The driver called out the fare and said Intercom had warned him about me so I needn’t bother with useless words. “You’ve had time to get it changed.”

“It’s past worktime and nobody’s around. What I suggest is you ride me to my stop, and when I get home I’ll send Intercom a check for the fare plus whatever expense you think the state might entail in handling it.”

“Words, words. Worse, you’re making me run behind schedule and upsetting my disposition for future passengers.” He drove to the next regular stop. “You’re a lucky man to have come even this far. For all I know, it’s a subterfuge to con your way home without paying the fare — stop by stop via bus by bus with the excuse of having no change.” The door opened, I saw there was no chance in arguing with this guy, and I got off.

All the neighborhood shops were closed. There were no lights on in the windows above the stores. I waited for a hitch, none of the passing cars even slowed down for me, and forty minutes later another empty bus came along. It was the same driver who had refused me a ride nearly two hours ago. “Forty grens, please,” he said, giving no sign he recognized me. I began to walk home. The bus remained at the stop, its interior and headlights still on. A man across the street was walking hurriedly, head down as if bucking rain. I ran to him, and seeing me, he ran away. “Stop,” I yelled. “I’m no thief. I just want to change a fiver for the bus fare.”

He kept running, rolled-up newspaper flying out from under his arm. It was the afternoon paper. I picked it up and read the headline: “‘Victory at last,’ President says.” “Our state leader is a modern-day messiah,” the front page editorial said. And then Senator Fleetmore again — my senator, I only now noticed — thanking the Senate for voting overwhelmingly for his bill barring all future aid and development money for the treatment and cure of the emotionally ill. “Because we all know their only problem is being lazy and unwilling to work and thus survive. Since that is so, I propose incarceration rather than hospitalization. Or, to reduce state costs further, revoke their passports, hand them their extra-state traveling papers, and escort them to the exit gates. I fully expect the House to pass the bill, and the president assures me he’ll sign it into law tomorrow evening, as all of us feel the urgency in getting these emotionally ill — a term I use euphemistically, as they’re more scientifically known as—”

I walked back to the bus, door opened, and I stepped inside. “Please.”

“Forty grens,” he said, driving off.

“I beg you to take me to the stop near my home. I’m not well.”

Then you’ve got to get off. Sick people can be infectious and therefore a living threat to all passengers and personnel.”

“But my wife and child have been waiting two hours for me. They usually pick me up at work, but my wife is ill today so I had to return home by bus for the first time. Look, I’ll give you the entire five tavos for the ride.”

“You trying to make me lose my job, besides getting me thrown in jail? Bribing a public officer, the Book of the State says, is a crime punishable by a minimum of three years imprisonment and the subsequent loss of all statesman rights for not less than ten years after release. I’m sorry, but my duty is to report you.”

“I wasn’t bribing you. I was giving you the money to hold, with the provision — which I thought you’d understand intuitively — that you send me the change when you’re able to, though with all expenses deleted.”

The Book of the State takes very seriously such an offense. It says that the giving of any amount excessive of regular fare to state public officers on state public transportation systems should be constituted a bribe.”

I reached for the lever that opened the door, but he swatted my wrist so hard my hand went limp. “Look what you’ve done,” I said, showing him my hand, which was already beginning to swell. “I need that hand for my job.”

“You were trying to escape. You’re really in for it now, brother, so just sit quietly in the back or you’ll be charged with crimes too numerous to memorize. But they’re all here,” and he pulled a leatherbound Book of the State out of his back pocket—“the rules and punishments and all in simple plain language for nobody to misinterpret.”

I sat in back of the bus. We drove for miles and I never saw another car, person or lit store along the road. I saw the first star of the night and made a wish. “Dear God,” I said. “Let me be with my family who need me as I need them. I know I’m not considered a religious person anymore, as I guess most people aren’t. But I do love my family, offend no one intentionally, speak the truth more than most, and up till now have had relatively little to complain about. Grant me this one wish.”

“What are you running on about back there?”

“Quite truthfully, I was wishing.”

The Book of the State,” he said, holding the book up, “—the good book expressly prohibits wishing on public systems if it interferes with the driver’s capability. My advice is to remain silent or your family will only be a pleasant part of your past.”

We approached the corner where I normally would have got off. My wife and child were there, both of them dressed warmly I was glad to see. I’d told Janet not to pick me up at the stop — told her to drink plenty of fluids and I’d see her at home a bit after six. But here she was, puzzled and sad as the bus drove past with me in it. She waved and shook her head to indicate she didn’t know what was going on, and I blew her a kiss which met the one she blew me. “I love you,” I wrote backwards in my condensation on the window. By the time I put the exclamation point on my already runny message, my wife and child were just dots in my sight.

“Nice looking frau,” the driver said. “Some boobs. Things like that really get to me — right here,” and he pointed as he laughed. “And some ass. I’m a big ass man and I saw it as we were driving up and she had her back to the bus. You’re a lucky brother, all right. What does she call herself?”

I was so distraught I began to cry.

“Can’t take a little bugging, eh? Can’t take other men even thinking about your wife, that it? Think she can only be yours, legs and neat ass and those beautiful boobs just waiting for you. You’re an evil man. Selfish, insecure, dissolute. Good things should be shared, the Book of the State says.” He stopped the bus to turn to a page in the book. “Right here it says that, and stop bawling and listen. ‘No person has a permanent right to anything. All things are to be shared by the total state. The total state is defined as “everyone within the state who hasn’t lost his statesmanship on his own or through his associations.”’ The Book also says that ‘family life, if not in the best interests of the state, can be temporarily disjoined or everlastingly dissolved if…’”

I stared out the window at the carless streets and sidewalks without pedestrians. Where was everyone? Home, enjoying dinner, happily by themselves or with one another.

All I could be secure about was that my family was always safe on these streets. Then I saw another bus behind us, filled with passengers. It pulled up alongside our bus and the two drivers saluted. I tapped on the window at the people getting off the bus, but nobody seemed to hear me. I rapped on the window, banged it with my fists, then put my foot through it and screamed through the hole I made “Please, help me get out. I’m being held prisoner by a maniacal driver. My wife and child are sick and need me at home.”

“We’re all getting sick,” a man said, walking away as he spoke. The flu and fallout’s going to get us all.”

Two young men stopped at the broken window. “Nasty mess,” one said, and the other laughed at his friend’s remark.

“Tell the driver to let me off,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You make that mess?” the same young man said. “Nasty, nasty,” and the other laughed again. The Book of the State says explicitly,” and he removed the book from his pocket, thumbed through the index and then turned to the page he wanted while the laughing man said That’s a very nice copy, George; real nice.” The Book says that the state, and I quote, ‘shall not take lightly any indifferent, capricious or premeditated destruction of state property, be it public land, buildings or vehicles.’” And flipping to the index again and then to another section inside the book; “‘A vehicle is considered part of the state, and thus public, if it meets any of the following sixteen criteria. One, if the state had acquired the vehicle since the Five-Seventeen Turnover. Two, if the state acquired and then lost the vehicle during the interim of the Preliminary Advance and the initial Letdown. Three, if the state—’”

“I’m being held prisoner for no possible state reason,” I yelled.

He turned to the index and then to a page in the book. “‘Prisoners, suspect or convicted, who try to cajole or coerce a statesman by looks, words or material enticements, shall have all statesman rights annulled for himself, if not previously done, and his immediate loved ones,’” and the other man kept nodding. “Furthermore, an immediate loved one is defined as…it says here someplace,” and he returned to the index.

“You ought to get a book with a good thumb index like mine,” the other man said, and he showed him his own book.

The first man found the right page and resumed his reading. “‘An immediate loved one is defined as a person who has had a close living association with the offender for two or more months preceding the time of offense, or is a direct genetic offspring of the offender, though not necessarily living with him at the time, or an indirect blood association of the offender, though not necessarily living with him at the time.’ Now, an indirect blood association isn’t easy to define verbatim or otherwise,” and he turned to the index.

I gave them the back of my head and they got the message and walked away. A woman came by. She was young, and by her looks she seemed gentle and understanding. I pleaded with her to speak to the driver to let me off the bus. “I’m innocent,” I said. “And I’ve loved ones who depend on me.”

She pulled out her Book, which like the others had the state seal of a blue circle on the cover, and read from a section called Guileful Innocence, quoting authorities I’d never heard of such as Stormberg and Mauser. “Oh, the hell with you,” I said, and spit through the hole in the window, and the blob landed on the page she was reading from. She became hysterical, and in seconds had a crowd questioning her. A third bus drove by, stopped, backed up, and parked behind the second bus. Most of the passengers got off, and once they got wind of the story, joined the crowd around the woman. “Look,” she said, and showed them the stain my spit had made on the page. The crowd looked angry, even though I swore I was sorry and that I’d only done it to get their attention in some desperate way. “I’m being held for no offense against the state other than what the driver had either lied or misconstrued as one.”

“But no offense, young man,” an elderly woman said kindly, “can be worse than the mistreatment of our good book.” She read from her copy. “‘Crimes considered perfidious in previous eras, such as rape, infanticide, selling or giving of state secrets to state enemies, are still not ranked as base as the purposeful desecration of the Book of the State. Defiling and burning the Book are considered primary crimes. Malicious language about the Book is considered a secondary crime. Permitting the Book to fall into disrepair — a tertiary crime but one not punishable by imprisonment — may be considered a secondary crime if the offender, once admonished, doesn’t repair the Book in the time specified or return the Book to the State Book Depository for a new one.’ Also: ‘Any Book willfully or carelessly allowed to be destroyed, damaged or fallen into a questionable state of disrepair by one’s offspring under the age of sixteen—’”

The crowd got angrier as she read and some called for immediate trial and punishment. The driver, to no effect, told the crowd he was a public servant and thus a state officer and had everything under control. He then called Intercom from the bus and asked what he should do, and they said they’d be right out. Someone asked who I was, and my driver took my passport, recited my name and address and said he’d in fact just seen my loved ones a few miles from here at a bus stop. Then let’s get them before they escape,” one of the other drivers said, and she and about thirty people got in her bus and started out after my wife and child.

I’d never felt such fear for my family. What did the Book say again about punishing an offender’s immediate loved ones — those in close association, the genetic offspring as compared to the adopted children? And was the punishment harsher for the loved ones of a Book of the State desecrator — one who spits on the Book, no less? I’d never read the Book. It had all been such infantile nonsense to me. I’d stuck with the disenfranchised novels and poetry anthologies, books kept in my house illegally and which they’d now find. I had to help my family and didn’t see any other way of doing it except by calculated violence, which had to overcome my growing hysteria. I edged myself nearer to the driver, who along with the crowd was waving at and cheering the bus that had pulled away. I found a wrench under his seat, came down on his head with it and, as he was trying to hold onto my legs from the floor, his head gushing blood, I pulled the door lever and shoved him outside, his body knocking over the people trying to get in.

The key was still in the ignition switch. I started the engine, almost had to run over a group of people to get past them, and drove after the other bus. I began gaining on it, this bus pulsing with excited passengers, and through the rearview mirror I saw the other bus behind me, though its headlights gradually getting smaller. I overtook the bus in front, passed the stop my wife and child had been at, and drove to our home. I left the engine running and ran through the house till I found them in the kitchen, both weeping. “Dearests,” I said, “get into the bus outside — quick. No time for explanations”—when Janet asked me for one—“just move, move.” But she looked even more bewildered, even frightened, and withdrew with Lila behind a chair.

“Goddamnit, do what I say before they get us.”

“Who is they?” she said.

The people: Intercom, psychopaths, latent killers.”

“And why should these people be after us?”

“Because we’ve desecrated the Book of the State — now I said move.”

“I didn’t desecrate anything. And Lila and I can’t be responsible for another one of your dangerous acts.”

“Because I’ve desecrated the Book,” I said, thinking that even though I still loved her I’d never seen her so stupid, “it means all my immediate loved ones who are either living with me or are my genetic offspring, are almost as responsible as I am.”

Then I’ll simply explain that I never loved you and you’re not the father of my child. And that I lived with you only because you were emotionally ill and I was paid to be your nurse and cook.”

They’re after the emotionally ill also. I read it in the papers before. The president’s going to sign the bill into law tomorrow. And one amending provision states that anyone living with the offender for two months or more will also be judged emotionally ill. Now come on, Jan, for your one chance of freedom is with me.”

We got on the bus just as the other buses were pulling up, the passengers frustratedly banging their Books on the windows at us — acts of desecration, I thought, tertiary, maybe even secondary crimes that could also penalize their families. I drove on and in a few minutes they were nowhere behind us. Intercom could be close, but I knew these roads well, so I might be able to elude them. Suddenly on the Intercom band a man was speaking to us. “Haven’t a single chance, Mr. Piper. Your lines are tagged, Mrs. Piper. Lila, you awake? Seven minutes to capture, friends. Why resist any further? Stop now. Feel relieved. Better an authorized state Intercom officer than a mad state mob. Press button G to confirm message and detail pickup site.” I pressed G and roared obscenities till my breath gave out, though no doubt swearing on the state radio was another crime, maybe major. Then I told Intercom I was shutting them off because their mechanical dictums were distracting my in-flight skills, and smashed in the radio with the wrench and pulled out the wires.

I drove out of the city, through suburbs and then suburbs of suburbs till we entered that part of the state where there was still some untouched land left. I saw a cow and pointed her out to Lila, who squealed with pleasure. Janet apologized to me, rested her head on my thigh and said she was scared but was glad I’d convinced her to come with me. Lila was on my lap, pretending to be the driver, laughing when I told her to pay more attention to the road.

“Where we going?” she said.

“As far to the state border as we can get.”

“Drive carefully, darlings,” Janet said.

Lila soon fell asleep, her hands still on the wheel. We drove most of the night, over backroads where I hoped Intercom wouldn’t be able to tail us in the dark. When the fuel gauge was nearing empty I turned into a dirt road and drove the bus another twenty miles before we were out of gas. I rested Lila on one of the back benches, covered her with my jacket, and in the middle of the bus we settled down ourselves. “Kiss me,” Janet said. We were in the mountains, close to the border of the adjoining state. This state also had a Book, though I’d been told by ex-lawyer friends that it had a very progressive policy regarding college-educated immigrants, substituting a few years of unpaid military service as punishment for major crimes committed in another state. In a few hours we’d make the journey by foot. We had to start over someplace, no matter how restrictive it might become there. I kissed Janet. We hugged each other and I told her what my driver had said about her ass and boobs, and she seemed pleased, became giddy and playful.

“Touch my neat ass,” she said.

“Don’t know if I can. It might be considered an act of desecration. We have to consult the Book of the State first.” I found the driver’s book, thumbed through the index and located the right passage. “It says here ‘All immediate family personal privileges, such as embraces, hand-locking, body-fondling, lip, nose or any sensory coupling such as flesh-conjoining, may be done solely in the privacy of the couple’s legally designated residence, or if permitted in writing by the state.’ Now, a legally designated residence is defined as—” but her frenzied tongue plugged up my mouth.

GETTING LOST

Couple of minutes after she comes home from work she says “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to go.”

“What?”

“I want you to leave for good.”

“It’s not that I didn’t understand you. Just that you’re not kidding, right? And for good?”

“I know it sounds abrupt. But I didn’t want to talk about it. I only wanted to say ‘please leave’ and hoped you would know what I mean and get your things fast and go. That’s what I hoped.”

“Okay, so I’ll leave.”

“Good.”

“I’m going. Just give me a second to catch my breath,”

“Fine. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait upstairs.”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“I mean, I just don’t want to be around. This is as bad a moment for me as it is for you.”

“I know. Or I think I do. Sure it must be. It has to. After all, we’ve been together a long time. Almost three years.”

That long? I guess so. I’m sorry. Though no hard feelings, all right?”

“Right.”

She goes upstairs. I start getting my things together downstairs. I’ve an apartment in the city but have spent four to five of every seven days here in her house upstate. So I get my things. Books first. Work materials. I put them all in the canvas carryall bag I’ve lugged from house to apartment to house and back again the past three years. My favorite coffee mug? Sure, why not? Why leave anything behind? But why not leave most of it? She’d see the mug and know it’s mine and my favorite and maybe one day return it with all the other things I’d leave behind and that day we might be able to get something going again. No, don’t think like that. It’s over, finished, done. Get lost, she essentially said. All right. What I’m doing. Fast as I can and forever. We’ve tried. We lost. Lot of bull. Then what? What went wrong? Why think about it now? Plenty of time later on. What will happen? I’ll pack, upstairs and down, take the bus home with all my junk. If she was nice she’d drive me, as this stuff’s going to weigh a ton.

“You couldn’t by chance drive me to the city?” I yell upstairs.

“I’d really prefer not to.”

“Okay. I understand.”

Thanks. Especially for being so understanding.”

She’s in her room. Probably lying on the bed. Feeling sad, no doubt. Gets very emotional sometimes. We’ve had these scenes before. They always worked out, though. I’d pack. Ready to go, I’d say goodbye. We’d be sad. Maybe cry. She’d say “I obviously can’t adjust.” I’d say “I of course wouldn’t expect you to do or give up anything you didn’t want to.” We’d kiss goodbye. I’d hold her. We’d hold each other. She’d say “Why are we being so silly?” “I don’t know,” I’d say. “If there’s anything really bothering us,” she’d say, “why can’t we just talk and work it out instead of always taking the worst extreme?” Then we’d make love. Or take a long walk. But be lovey-dovey, though. And later she’d help me unpack and maybe say “How many more times you think we can do this?” But this time it’s not going to be like that. I can see. We gave ourselves one last time. And before that, one last time. We really are two different persons as she’s said. I’m much more sensitive and creative than her. She’s more straightforward and practical than me. Other things. Maybe the way I described us just now isn’t true. But I can see why she wouldn’t want me around very much. I’m not jolly. I get on people’s nerves after a while. Maybe everybody does. But we don’t belong together. Ill-suited, poorly mated, mismatched. I think she’s superficial, really. Deep down I want a woman to really give herself to me. Not all the time. But deeply. As I think I did with her. Not all the time. But much more than her. To stick with me. By me. I need that confidence. I said I was sensitive. I’m also insecure. Maybe we all are. And she’s not superficial. But I have to know she’s there and sexually only for me. But she can’t. She likes to see other men. I get jealous. They like to see her. She says “I can understand your jealousy but it annoys me.” So she resents me for annoying her and I resent her for going out with other men. Those two to three nights a week I’m not here. Not for going out with them but sleeping with them. I had to ask. She said “You know I’m unable to lie to anyone, so I have to say I occasionally do.” But her not lying isn’t altogether the truth. If I didn’t resent her sleeping with other men, we could continue as a couple. Those four to five days. But I do resent it. I’ve tried to sluff it off. Ho-hum. Who cares? What I don’t know doesn’t hurt me. But it does. It comes out. She’s told me to see other women. I can’t. “Sleep with them too.” But one’s enough. She is. I’ve even asked her to marry me. She really laughed when I asked that. Just a few weeks ago. I admitted it was funny. That I was actually proposing. Saying those words and for the first time too. This might sound funny, but will you marry me?” I thought marriage was what we both wanted and needed most. Or at least I did. But don’t go into it anymore. Just go. Get your things. Leave. Get lost. No goodbye. Take the bus. Go to your apartment. Drink a bottle of wine. Get drunk. Pass out. Do that for two days. Plenty of sleep. Then it’ll be over. Simple as that, really. Or I hope so.

I pack all my things downstairs. Only the books I borrowed from her village library are left.

“Could you return my library books here so I won’t have to pay a fine?” I yell upstairs.

“Where are they?”

“In the red bookcase, top shelf. About ten of them.”

“If they’re overdue now, why not run then over yourself?”

I look at the books. They are overdue. Ah, you’re so clever. I’ll take them there now.”

“You’ve time to both pack your things upstairs and catch the next bus?”

“It comes at five.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Library’s just a few doors down the road. Big pillars. Old baby blue colonial courthouse. Sarah the librarian’s there. “Returning these,” I say. I pay the fine.

“I was going to call you. Two of the books you ordered came.”

“Won’t be needing them now as I won’t be here to return.”

Things not right?”

“Right.”

“Too bad. You’re our best customer. Hate to lose one of those. County gives us an additional stipend for each hundred books borrowed over what it’s set as our regular load. Why not take the books anyway and mail them back in a jiffy bag?”

They don’t treat me like this in the city. I’ll miss you and your coffee urn and of course your books.” We shake hands. I kiss her cheek.

“Very sweet,” she says. “Keep in touch.”

I will miss this village. Didn’t think it before, but now do. Ribbon mill right on the river. Many of the villagers skating there in winter. Not swimming there in summer yet, but fishing and picnicking and watching the boats and ships. Lovely old houses. Winding bushy roads. Nice fall foliage. The springs here. Big snowfalls. Crazy Mr. McNally, the accepted peeping snoop. Better than the city. City’s grimy and stinks and rattles my ears. But can’t afford it here on my own. Soes it goes, as Mona and I made up a phrase. Her son. I’ll miss him too. Good kid. Likes me. And smart. Together we were like a family. Most times better than most families it seemed to me. She should have thought of that too. Pleasant Street. Three bars and a barber shop and a thrift and a liquor store and Millionaires Mart. Volunteer firemen’s parade every July 4^th. Village Hall and its slide shows. Even the baying dogs late at night. Raccoons and rabbits and skunks, and a deer once, trying to climb over Mona’s garden fence. I’m no longer the confirmed urbanite. Not really knocking the city. Just had enough. But got to get moving to catch the five after five bus.

I go back to her house. Really got all the things from downstairs? Mug? Take it. What else? Fancy supply of marmalades and jams? Take the unopened ones. Paring knife? Cost a lot and the one in my apartment is only good for buttering bread. Antique colander I bought at a lawn sale? Nah, leave them all. Now upstairs.

She’s on her bed writing. Looks at me questioningly.

The time?” I say; I show her my watch.

“Good.”

“Sure you want me to go?”

“I do. I’m sure.”

“What made you finally decide? Because I thought we were all having a good time.”

“Reasons, reasons.”

“For instance.”

“For instance I already told you I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All I’m asking for is one.”

“Just that. That you won’t just drop it. Don’t persist. One of the reasons is that you persist too much.”

“Oh, I see. Nothing I say now will be right. It’ll all fall under the category of persistence. Okay. I’m going to get my clothes.”

“I’ll go downstairs,” and she gets off the bed.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I told you this isn’t easy for me either.”

That’s right. I remember. Must be tough, my leaving. Oh yes. Very tough. So tough, then why the hell did you ask me to leave?”

“Reason two. Cynicism. You can be very cynical. Believe me, it isn’t easy to take over long periods of time.”

“Better over short periods?”

“Cynicism. Persistence.”

“Any other reasons?”

“What do you want? I already gave you two.”

That’s it? Just two? There’s got to be a third. If not a third, then at least a fourth. Or a sixth. Skip the third, fourth and fifth and just slip me the sixth.”

That too. Reason three, or as you’ll have it, six, is your occasional crazy talk. And sometimes it’s not so occasional and seems truly crazy.”

“Maybe you’re only saying it’s crazy because you can’t understand it. But I don’t know any other halfway intelligent adult who wouldn’t get it and might even think it slightly funny.”

There’s another. Your arrogance. That you think you’re so funny and smart when you’re not.”

“Me smart? Oh no. You’re the smart one. Me, I’m dumb. Dumb because I hung around so long. I thought of getting out a few times, but then thought we could work it out. Well, up yours now. I’m glad we’re through.”

“Two more. That you lie. That you blow up so easily. And other reasons. Plenty. But especially the one I haven’t said yet.”

“What? That I get jealous because you see other men?”

That’s another. A very big one. Jealousy, which I can’t take. But it’s not the one I was going to give.”

“Don’t let me stop you. What is it?”

“Forget it.”

“But I want to know the big reason of them all.”

“Reason one. Persistence. Stop it. Leave me alone.”

She goes downstairs. I follow her.

“Reason ten or eleven. You hound me. Just what you’re doing. Following me, hounding me. Always on my back after I’ve said get off.”

“And one I have against you is repetition. You repeat things too much. You say something and then repeat it till it’s dead.”

“You don’t? You just did. Maybe it’s the one thing we have in common.” She looks around. “Good. You have all your things packed from downstairs. Now please get your clothes and bathroom things and catch the five o’clock bus.”

“Five after five. And reason two for me is your inconsiderateness. For you couldn’t have driven me? The last thing I asked from you and you wouldn’t? Well, thanks.”

“I’ve an appointment around that time, that’s why.”

“You could’ve called to delay it. But that’s only part of your inconsiderateness. And maybe you’re a liar too. Because before you said it would’ve been too sad or disturbing for you to be with me during the trip.”

That too.”

“Bull.”

She leaves the house. I follow her.

“Damn you, will you get your things and leave?”

“Right. One reason in my favor and which should maybe cancel out one of the twelve to fourteen negative ones is that I take orders well. Obedience. Yes, sir. At your command. Goodbye.” I salute her, go into the house, pack my things upstairs, stuff what I can’t get into the carryall into two shopping bags, and leave. She’s nowhere around. I walk up the hill and wait for the bus. It doesn’t come. I walk down the hill and knock on her door. She opens it. She’s been crying.

“Bus never came.”

“Is that true?”

“Swear. Got there before five. Waited for more than a half hour. I didn’t want to come back. Honest. You’ve been crying.”

“So?”

“Not about us, of course.”

“Don’t be reason number whatever it was before.”

“I’ve been crying too. Why are we doing this? Not the crying, but just this.”

“I’m not sure. Anyway, what we’re doing is right.”

“Right. Can I come in and call the bus company to see what’s wrong?”

“But be quick.”

The bus company man says “Because of road construction the route’s been changed from Sunset Drive to River Road on weekdays from seven-thirty to half past six. We posted a notice on the post office and community bulletin boards of all the towns affected.”

“You should’ve posted them at the libraries too, but thanks.” To Mona: “I’ve got to run if I’m to catch the five after six bus.”

She sticks out her hand. We shake. “No goodbye kiss?” I say.

“Wouldn’t do.” She goes upstairs.

“Last chance to keep me?” I yell.

“Bye.”

I go to River Road and wait for the bus. It comes. I don’t wave it down. I go back to Mona’s and knock on the door. Her son opens it.

“Oh, you got home,” I say.

“What are you doing? I thought you were already here.”

“Your mother and I had a little spat.”

“For good this time?”

“I think so.”

Then what are you doing back with your bags?”

“Burleigh, how can you be so insensitive? You’re supposed to feel relatively crumbled that I won’t be around anymore.”

“I’ll miss you, don’t worry, but what can I do? I got to go.”

He runs past me down the stairs. “Hey, what about a little kiss farewell from you, chump?”

“I don’t mean to be mean but I’m in a hurry, Bo.” We wave and he goes.

I call into the house “Mona? That changed schedule made me miss the bus again. Can I stay here till the next one comes?”

“No,” she yells from her room.

I go upstairs. “Just another twenty minutes or so.”

“You didn’t miss the bus. You let it go by.”

“Okay. I let it go by so I could see you once more.”

“Fine. Now that you’ve seen me, get out.”

“Give me a chance to get a good look.”

“Don’t be stupid again.”

“And don’t be so insulting,” I say.

“You’re forcing me to say these things and be this way. I’m getting angry. Frustrated.”

“What does that mean?”

That means don’t get me even angrier and more frustrated by acting even more intentionally stupid. That means leave this house. That means start now. That means go. Get lost. What do I have to do, call the police?”

“Last time I thought you were a little sorry I left and glad I honestly missed that bus.”

“Last time I might have been but I’ve thought it over and now I’m not. I don’t want you around anymore. Never again. Plain and simple — scram, stupid.”

I grab a plant off the washstand and throw it at her.

She ducks and it hits her chin. She screams. Blood comes out. She’s on the bed holding her face and screaming. I get down on the floor on my knees and say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She pushes me away and runs to the bathroom. I run after her. She has a towel to her face and I say “I should’ve done that. Got you that towel. I shouldn’t have thrown that plant. Tell me what I can do for you.”

She goes downstairs with the towel wrapped around her face and goes outside and gets in her car and drives away.

“Where you going?” I yell.

Probably to the hospital. The police she could have called. Or maybe to the police because she thought I’d stop her call. But probably to the hospital or some friend. I got to get out of here. First time I ever hit someone like that as an adult. That finished us, of course. Hitting someone? Worst thing I’ve done in my life. They hate it. Women do. Especially Mona. Said once when I raised my hand to her “Touch me like that and it’ll be the last time I so much as say boo to you. I hate men who knock women around. Hate anyone who abuses with his hands.”

“I got excited,” I write on the blackboard in the kitchen, “Of course: much worse than that. I’m sorry. I love you both. See ya.”

I head down the hill with my bags. No, it’s after six-thirty, the bus is back on Sunset Drive. I go up the hill and wait, put on a different shirt and throw the bloody one into the woods. The bus comes. I should have cleaned up her room. Repotted the plant, scrubbed the bathroom sink and floor. I signal the bus and get on it. Andy Maxwell’s there.

“How’s it going?” he says.

“Don’t ask.”

“Sit next to me,” he says when I sit two rows behind.

“Andy, I’m really feeling lousy right now. Mona and I broke up. Worse. I hit her in the face with a flower pot. She probably went to the hospital for stitches. It’s possible I broke her jaw. Not only did I do that to the person I love most, but the police might be after me now for it.”

“You never should have got so excited.”

“I know. That’s what I just wrote her. But what I really can’t take now is anything like advice after the fact and so on. Commiseration. I’m miserable. I feel as lost as I ever have in my life. Worse.”

He sits next to me.

“Please?”

“Look, whatever you did to Mona, bad as it is, she might have deserved it. She’s a bitch. You’re much better off split up. You’ll feel lousy for a while, but know that she has very few friends here and more than a few who’d like to have thrown a pot at her, though not in her face. She’s a complete fake. Thinks she’s the hottest goods imaginable and lies blue streaks day and night. She’ll do anything to get ahead, and that means buddy-screw her best friends and use them as fools. She’s also a snob. Loves anybody who’s anybody or rich, no matter how rotten that person might be. You did a bad thing in hitting her, granted. But I can well understand how she could push someone to do it. She’s just not nice but pretends to be with that big smile and cheerful disposition and charm of hers, and that kind of twofacedness throws people into a rage.”

“No, no, she’s not like anything you say.”

“You don’t see it. Or you don’t want to admit it. You’re too nice a guy yourself and can’t see’ anything but good in people and cringe at saying anything bad. I’m not saying these things to make you feel better. I’m also not one to repeat gossip, but only what I see myself firsthand. In time you’ll know I’m right.”

“I hope not. And I don’t want to think about it. Excuse me but I really want to close my eyes and maybe sleep.”

We get to the city. Andy takes one subway and I take another to my apartment. I drink a bottle of wine while I listen to sad music and read the papers. Then I call Mona.

Burleigh answers. “Mom’s in bed. She just came back from the hospital and had five stitches put in her chin. Why’d you hit her like that?”

“I feel awful. It was totally my fault. I love your mother, honestly. Please tell her how terrible I feel and that I’ll pay all the medical bills and anything else she asks.”

“Want me to tell her now?”

“Yes.”

He comes back to the phone. “She says to shove it. She told me to say that. And I’ll tell you how I feel, Bo. You did the worst thing.” He hangs up.

I call Sarah. “Sarah, I hit Mona with a flower pot before. We’re really split now, for good. I know I sound a bit drunk, but I wanted to know if you’d go over there now and check in on her. Maybe she needs some help.”

“She has Burleigh, doesn’t she?”

“Sure. He’s home.”

“And other friends, perhaps, so she doesn’t need me. To tell you the truth, Mona and I never got along well. It would have been nice, having a friend living so close, but that’s not the way it is. I’m sorry you hit her. That was wrong. But as far as my feeling for her is concerned, she’s a mite too pushy and self-centered and a stinker of the lowest degree.”

“Really think so?”

“I’m not the only one. Take care.”

I call up the Ludwigs, whom I consider our best friends around where Mona lives. Ben says some of the same awful things about her and says his wife Mary feels the same way. “Besides that, she’s going to get in a lot worse trouble than a flower pot in her face. She goes out with the wrong kind of guys. One’s a pusher. She’s brought a couple of them over here between the times you were in the city and when I thought things were dandy between you two. Who knows what she saw in them.”

They were all very good looking,” Mary says on the extension.

“Nicely built. Big too. She likes men with lots of wild fluffy black hair. I like them also, but not dopes and pigs like these. Like her, they only seemed interested in a good quick time for themselves at the moment and nothing else. Take it from me, Bo, you’re much better off without her.”

“Am I?”

“We both think you were the best chance she had to improve.”

I call up several other people Mona and I know. They all say I should have shown more restraint. Nobody has a nice word for her, though. I begin to feel sorry for her now in a different way. I picture her all alone. Without good friends. Just Burleigh and she. And all these people saying nasty things about her behind her back and even to her face. I see her lying in bed with a bandage on her jaw, planning things, scheming, worried about what the chin scar will do to her beauty, or maybe just sleeping now or in pain. Maybe she did push me too far. Still, I should have held back. Anyway, I don’t feel as bad about myself now and that I won’t be seeing her anymore. Tomorrow I’ll feel better. Days after that, better yet. I’ll send her flowers. Make my apologies more intelligible in a letter or two and wish her a long happy life, and then forget her for good. I drink more wine and get sleepy. “Mona,” I shout, “I love you, what can I say?” I pass out. All night I seem to dream of her making love with other men and enjoying it. I wake up around three and for hours just lie there with the lights on. “Tough days ahead,” I say.

END OF A FRIEND

I bump into him. He says “Excuse me.”

I say The same.”

He passes. I say “Wait up.”

He stops, turns to me. “Yes?”

“You forgot something.”

He looks around. “I don’t see anything. What?”

“To say excuse me.”

“Either you didn’t hear me before or you’re trying to fool me.”

“No other alternative?”

“None I can think of now, but what of it?”

“You’re right. You did say excuse me.”

“Fine, then. I won’t begin to try to understand you.” He walks away.

“One more thing.”

He doesn’t stop. I run after him, tap his shoulder. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you.”

“Good. For a second I was afraid maybe your hearing wasn’t okay.”

“My hearing, my vision, and I’ll tell you, my smelling, are all okay.” He starts off again.

I run after him, grab his arm. “Now listen you,” he says, pushing my hand away. “I don’t quite like this. Not ‘quite.’ I definitely don’t. I don’t know you, yet you stop me and immediately try to fool me. Then you talk some gibberish about my hearing to me. Maybe you even intentionally bumped into me. Now it’s no doubt something else. Well, I’ve someplace to be now. Important work. People are depending on my being there. So if you don’t mind?”

“But one more thing. Only what I wanted to say to you before I got distracted and asked about your hearing.”

“All right. One more thing. What?”

“Your face.”

“Yes, my face.”

“Yes, that you have a face.”

“You’re right. How completely absentminded of me. I have a face. Thanks for reminding me. Goodbye.”

He starts off. I grab his arm. He swivels around hard this time and says “Stop me once more and I’m going to do something you won’t like.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re provoking me. Detaining me for some ulterior or insidious reason of your own which I think I’m finally on to and am a little fearful of. Now, may I go? Not that I have to ask you. But rather, I am going, and stop me once more and it’s the police I talk to next, not you.”

“Go on, go on, I’m not stopping you.”

“You don’t call grabbing my arm a couple of times and saying nonsensical things to stop me, stopping me?”

“To be honest, yes, I’d say I stopped you, but not with nonsensical things.”

“Oh? That I have a face?”

“My point wasn’t just that you have a face. For we all have faces. All except those poor disfigured people who don’t have faces. Not disfigured. People without faces at all, I mean. But that wasn’t my point. My point was that you have something on your face.”

“My nose.”

“Yes, your nose. You see, you knew. I didn’t have to tell you after all.”

“Don’t I know. And excuse me for being so blunt, sir, but you’re mad.”

“No I’m not. I thought you were more observant than that. Can you take a little more honesty for one day? I’m feeling unusually content with myself talking with you here, not at all mad. That’s honesty. That’s an honest statement about my life, is what I’m saying, which you might or might not agree.”

“I mean in the head, which you knew perfectly well. A screw loose. Daft. Disturbed. Your desperate need for attention perhaps. Your…but I’m not going to analyze you. Excuse me for even having said what I did, as your mental and emotional states are none of my business. And now I’m going. Stop me again and I will call the police, and after that, who knows? Maybe the courts will decide you belong in an asylum for a while, which I don’t think you’d like in the least. Now, have I made my point clear?”

“Good and clear. If that was any indication how you make your points, then you make them very well.”

I watch him go. I sit on the curb. I watch the cars and trucks go by. The vehicles. Buses, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters. People go by too. Baby carriages. Not along the street but across it and then on the sidewalk across the street. Lots go by. Dogs with their walkers, dogs without. A battery-powered wheelchair. Two girls on roller skates in the street. Only roller skaters I saw today on the street or off. Day goes by. Night comes and stops. I stay on the curb. I look at the lights of passing planes overhead. I look at the water running along the curb under my legs. A twig floats by. Half a walnut shell empty side up. Piece of paper. I pick it up and read it. It’s the label of a pickle jar. Spices, cucumber slices, vinegar, a preservative, and where it’s made and by which company and the kind of pickle it is. I drop it into the water and it floats away. Someone must have opened a fire hydrant nearby.

A dog off its leash stops and sniffs the parking meter pole I’ve been using as a back rest. I shoo it away. It comes back. I say “Scat.” It sniffs the pole some more and lifts its leg. I say “Get out of here, beat it, scram,” and raise my hand.

“Touch that dog and you’re in trouble,” a man holding a leash says.

“He your dog?”

“Whether he is or isn’t, just say I don’t see anyone beating on dogs.”

“If he’s your dog, tell me, so I can ask you to call him away.”

“Why? The pole’s public. On a public sidewalk alongside a public street. So that dog has as much right to the pole as you.”

“Any sensible person knows people have more rights than dogs. Just the word ‘public,’ for instance, will tell you that. From publicus, pubes, populus, people, people, not that one should expect anyone else to know that.”

“Okay. Maybe some people have more rights than dogs. But for you, I don’t think so.”

“Whatever you say. But I don’t want your dog, if he is your dog — just this dog then — stepping a step nearer to me and lifting his leg again, or I’ll summon the police and have it taken away. There’s the street for what a dog has to do, not the sidewalk or against a building wall or fire hydrant or parking meter pole, and certainly not against me.”

He raises his finger in a curse sign and walks away. The dog follows, does its duty against a parking meter pole a few feet away. Does its other duty on the sidewalk a few feet past that. The man inspects it, hooks the leash on the dog’s collar, and they leave. I continue to sit. Those were the only words I said to anyone or were said to me since I saw that other man on the street and tried to speak to him about his face. Then it begins to rain. Someone dressed for the rain and under an umbrella comes over to me and says “Don’t you think you should come out of the rain?”

That your umbrella?”

“Yes.”

“Can I get under it?”

There’s only room enough for one. You want an umbrella, buy one. If you haven’t the money, work so you can buy one. I don’t think that’s too unreasonable a solution. But if you want a cold and possibly a fatal case of pneumonia, then you’re doing exactly the right thing.”

Thank you for your advice. I think I’ll just continue to sit.”

“If that’s what you really want, I’ve no complaints.”

She goes. I continue to sit in the rain. I begin to catch a cold. Coughs, sneezes, a few feverish chills. The rain turns to sleet and then snow. I continue to sit. I can’t see the sky or the buildings across the street because of the snow and now not even the passing vehicles. The rain soaked me, now the snow covers me. I have no coat or hat on and only half a pair of socks, and the water’s soaked through the holes in my soles and the protective layers of paper inside my shoes to my feet. Several people stop beside me. They’re all dressed for the snow. One of them says “You have to come out of the snow. It’s a blizzard. Twenty inches are expected. It’s going to last till early tomorrow the weather report says. You’ll freeze to death out here.”

“You know or have a better place for me to go? I’ve run out of thinking or looking for them.”

“Under an awning. If all the awnings around here are down because the owners are afraid they’ll be crushed or blown away, then in a lobby or store. And if not there because they’d rather not have you for whatever their reasons, then in a parked car if you can find one unlocked or in one of those shelters downtown, but someplace warmer and more sheltered than here.”

Thank you very much but I don’t think I can do that anymore.”

“If you’re too sick to, I’m sure we can call some service to help.”

“No, I think it’s better I just sit.”

Someone must have called the police. By this time I’m very sick. The police put a coat on me, carry me to a drugstore and sit me beside a warm radiator till an ambulance comes. I’m driven to a city hospital, wheeled into the emergency section, put on an examining table. The curtains are pulled around me. My clothes are scissored off. The doctor who takes care of me is the same man I spoke to earlier today about something regarding his face. He checks my eyes and ears and after taking my pulse and listening to my chest, says “Personally, I knew you’d come to no good.”

I can’t speak. I try to, my mouth opens but I’m physically unable to.

“I mean, up to no good,” he says. “Not just for everyone else, but to yourself too. Am I right? Don’t bother to answer. You’re obviously too weak. But can you take a little honesty now yourself? I’m afraid, my friend, this is the end.”

STARTING AGAIN

“It’s so difficult.” “What is?” “Just dealing with it.” “Dealing with what?” The rejections day after day, day after day.” “Don’t send your work out then.” Then they’ll just pile up.” “Don’t do them then.” Then I’ll have nothing to do.” “Try to do something else then.” “I can’t. I’ve been doing this so long.” “But if you’ve had no luck?” “I didn’t say I haven’t had any luck.” Then little success? Really, what can I say that I haven’t already said?” “Nothing, please say nothing. I know you’re trying to be helpful but I have to work this out on my own.”

I go into the bedroom, shut the door, lie on the bed. She comes in. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I have to work in here.” “You can’t work in the other room?” That’s where you’re working.” “I don’t think I’ll be working there anymore.” “What’ll you do then?” “I’m not sure. I’ve just lain down to think about it.” “You couldn’t lie down on the couch? I’ll tell you why I ask you that. You used to work in this room and I used to work in the other. Then you said this room isn’t the best room for you to work in and you’d like to work in the other, so I got all my things out of that room, brought them into this room and started to work here. Now you say I should go back into the other room, which means carting all my things back to it, and I now have even more things than when I used to work in that room because I’m much further along in the project I’m working on. But you want me back in the other room not because you want to work in this one but because you want to lie on the bed and think about work. Be honest — is that fair?”

“I don’t know if it’s fair or not.” Then what I’m asking of you is to think about whether it’s fair.” “I don’t want to spend my time thinking about that. I just want to think about what I might like to do other than the work I’ve been doing. And I can think better alone, lying on a bed, than alone, lying on a couch.” “You’re not being fair.” “Maybe I’m not, but it is what I want.” “What about what I want?” “If I thought about it I’d consider it, but right now I only want to think about what I’m going to work on from now on or at least for the immediate future.” “Give yourself a minute or less to think about how my moving into the other room again will affect my work, what I want, and so on, besides how difficult it’ll be for me to move all my things back to that room.” “I’ll help you. I’ll even move it all by myself for you.” “Okay, I can see there’s no arguing with you for now, so let’s get it done. But don’t ask to move back into that other room once my move is done if you decide, after all your thinking in here, you could do your work much better alone out there.” “I doubt I could promise you that.” “Excuse me, I’m going for a walk.”

She puts on her sweater, takes her keys and goes. I turn over on my stomach and think about what I’m going to do. I could do this, I could do that, work at this, work at that, try this, try that, this, that, this, that. None seem like the right thing to do. None excite me or seem like anything I could or would want to do. This minute I wish I lived alone so I wouldn’t have to face her when she gets back. So I wouldn’t have to explain anything more to her. So I wouldn’t have to help her move into the next room or tell her I changed my mind about wanting her to move there or about not wanting to do what I’ve been doing the last twenty years. For that’s what I decide on now, this second, or just a few seconds ago. Decided it when I was thinking I didn’t want to help her move into the next room. Decided to go back to doing what I’ve been doing the last twenty years. Decided it because none of the other things I thought of doing seemed right for me or excited me and so on, and not doing anything seemed worse than any of those other things I thought of doing and also worse than not doing what I’ve been doing for twenty years. I fall asleep.

“You haven’t moved my things or even started to.” For a moment I thought she said that in my dream. But she apparently woke me up by poking me or some other way and said that while I was coming out of sleep. “What did you say?” “You didn’t hear me?” “Yes, I heard you, if what I think you said is what you said and not what I thought you said in my dream. You said something about my not having moved your things?” “Yes. Can you tell me why? I’ve lots of work to do today and I want to start doing it right away.” “So do I.” “Fine, do your work, but I can’t do mine out there unless all of my work things are out there, and you promised to move them for me, remember?” “I do, sort of, because it was either me alone or both of us, but I’ve changed my mind. Stay in this room.” “What will you do?” “Same as I’ve always done, and in the old room.” “You decided that?” “Yes.” “Suppose I said I just now decided I want to move back to the other room?” Then I’d say that’s okay, I’ll help you move back there, but not today, or at least not right now, as I want to get back to work right away, and because all my equipment for work is in the other room, I don’t have time to move you there now.” “Suppose I said I don’t care if you want to get right back to work; that I want to move back to the other room right now so I can resume work soon as I can after my things are moved there?” Then I’d say okay, that’s fair. I’ve put you through a lot. I’ve asked you to do plenty of things for me and you’ve never really asked me to do anything like those things for you, so this time I’ll put what you have to do over anything I have to.” “Suppose I said I don’t believe you?” “Try me out.” “All right, I’m trying you out. Help me move my things into the other room.” “Where should we begin? They’re your things, so you know where they should go.” “No, I believe you. Or maybe I don’t, but I don’t want to go into it now because all I want to do is work. I had a terrific idea when I was outside about the work I’m doing and I don’t want to lose it.” “Good, because I also had a terrific idea when I was thinking just before I fell asleep, and I want to get to it right away.” Then I’ll see you.” “Want me to close the door?” Thanks, as I don’t want to be disturbed by anything. Not your talking to yourself while you work or your equipment going like mad. I’ve got to have maximum quiet in here to concentrate, or as much quiet as it’s possible to get.” “I’ll have to make some noise out there, you know.” That’s all right. What I can’t control, I can’t control.” “Same with me, I suppose.”

I kiss her cheek, leave the room and close the door. A few seconds later I hear her working. I sit down at the dining table where my equipment is. I might as well start. I don’t have any idea what I’ll be working on now, but I should try to start something. I’ve sat down before with nothing in my head and almost always started something. I can do it again. If I can’t do it this time, it doesn’t mean I won’t be able to do it again. In fact, I just about know for sure I’ll be able to do it again, now or sometime soon. If not sometime soon, then sometime in the not too distant future, though it’s never taken me that long to start again. So I’m not worried. Start something. Remember that if it doesn’t come now, chances are almost nonexistent it won’t ever come again.

THE ARGUMENT

I enter the room and he leaves. Then he enters the room and I leave. Then I’m about to enter the room as he’s about to leave it, neither of us steps aside so the other can pass, and we stop at the door’s threshold, facing each other. I say “What do you say to enough of this?”

“Enough of what?”

This entering and leaving, reentering and releaving. Let’s have it out completely or make up without having it out completely, but one way or the other or even some other working-out.”

“What other working-out?”

“One not one of the two I just gave you but a new one I haven’t yet worked out. I’ll just say I’m sorry and you also say you’re sorry, and then, all made up, we can both go back to that room or both be outside it, but at least be in the same place together at the same time.”

“I don’t see any need for making up with you.”

Then you don’t see any need for saying you’re sorry for what you did or any need for being in the same place at the same time together when we want to be?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Do you say it now?”

“Yes on the first, maybe only a maybe on the second. I see no reason for saying I’m sorry for what I did, though I do see the advantage, since we both live here, of thinking we can be in the same room together without getting on each other’s nerves. But it was your fault alone, so you’re the one who has to apologize, not me.”

“I don’t see it that way. I say it was as much my fault as yours. And that if we both admit that through a mutual apology, we’ll have made up and then we can stay in the same room together.”

“I can’t admit anything like that because I don’t believe it.”

The heck with you then,” and I try to get by him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he says.

“Around you, where I was heading to before, so I can get into that room.”

“I’d also like to be in that room. So would you please turn around and go into one of the other rooms? Or stay in the hallway here or go outside or do whatever you want to wherever you want to do it? But not in that room till you apologize for starting the argument before, because until then I want to be in that room alone.”

“But that’s the room I want to be in and the only room I can be in to do the things I want to. It has the books and television set and fireplace, and I want to find a book and read it with a fire going and the television on but the sound turned very low. I don’t want to explain why I want the sound turned very low while I read, but I do, it’s my privilege why I do, and also my privilege why I don’t want to tell you.”

“You want to know something?” he says.

“If it’s that you’re going to accept the mutual apology idea I proposed, I do.”

“No. It’s that we’re about to get into a bad argument again.”

“Oh, we’re not in one now?” I say.

“Now we’re still discussing things in a relatively unquarrelsome way. But you want to know why we’re about to get into another bad argument? Because you insist doing something you know is impossible for me to allow you to do, which is the main reason we got into the last bad argument that led up to all this. Now please, for both of us, turn around and go into one of the other rooms or outside or anyplace else, but leave me alone in that room.”

“Why do you say I’m the one responsible for this argument we’re getting into? Because I want to be in a room I pay half the rent on? Because I want to read a book among the many books in that room that are mostly mine? Because I want—”

“Neither of those, nor the third one you were about to give: the television set, which I know you paid for so is all yours. But because you insist on being somewhere that you know will anger another person who also wants to be there. And last time—”

“Don’t give me any last times,” I say.

That too. Last time you also refused to listen to my reasons, which was just another reason we had that bad argument. But the last time I was about to tell you of—”

“I said to stop with those last times.”

“Right,” he says. “Because what you just said is another reason why we had that bad argument the last time, and why we’re starting to have one now, which I’m sure you’ll say we started equally and I’ll say you started alone. Because last time you also told me to shut up about the previous last time and wouldn’t let me go on—”

“I don’t want you to go on now because—”

“—because you didn’t want to hear me explain reasonably and extra rationally, as I’m doing now, that you—”

“I didn’t want you to explain, that last time and the time before that, because you—”

“Because I—”

“Shut up,” I say.

“Because I was making sense, that’s why. I made sense that last time and I’m making sense now. But you can’t stand anyone who makes sense when you’re feeling really argumentative about something.”

“Now I said to shut up. I’m in fact warning you to shut up.”

“Don’t threaten me. That’s what you did the last time, and I won’t be threatened, just as I wouldn’t the last time.”

Then shut up and stay that way. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”

“Sorry about what? That you won’t argue rationally? That you won’t let me speak what you know is the truth about you? That you won’t take responsibility for the bad arguments we have when they’re solely caused by you?”

“I’m warning you.”

That I won’t bow down to your warnings and feel frightened by your threats and shut up when you tell me to, and all that? I’m to be sorry for any of that? That’s ridiculous.”

“I warned you,” I shout, and I hit him in the face with my fist. He goes down. Last time I only pushed him hard and he fell back but didn’t go down. I lean over him. His eyes are closed. I kneel beside him and ask if he’s all right. He says no. I say “Nothing on the outside is bleeding.” He says “Something in my mouth is, but nothing much.” I say “Open your eyes, let me see them.” He says “What do you know about eyes when a man’s hurt, but I think I’ll be okay.” I say “I’ll get you water.” He says “Please do; not too cold.” I get him a glass of water. He sips a little, rinses it around in his mouth, spits it back into the glass with some blood. I say Think you can stand now?” He says “I think so, no thanks to you,” and I help him up. When he’s on his feet he says “What you just did, hitting me, was unforgivable.”

“It was your fault.”

“Again, ridiculous.”

“I hit you, but you provoked me, so it was as much your fault as mine.”

“I didn’t provoke anything, and certainly not a fist to my jaw. All I was doing at the time was talking rationally to you.”

“But you knew that continuing to talk to me at the time, and probably talking rationally was worse than any other way, would only make me madder. You knew I was already mad. You knew I had a temper. I’ve exhibited that temper several times, to you and to others, though never so violently. Anyway, let’s just say it was a little bit more my fault than yours.” He shakes his head and I say Then forty percent your fault and sixty percent mine, but no more than that.”

“A lot more.”

“Eighty percent mine then and twenty percent yours. For you have to accept some responsibility for my having hit you.”

“None. It was a hundred percent your fault, just like the last time. It’s always your fault.”

“Not so.”

“Always. Always.”

“Go to hell.”

“You the same.”

I grab him by the shirt. He says “Let me go this instant.” I let him go, turn around and go into the kitchen and put water on for tea. He goes into the room with the fireplace, television set and books. I go to that room a minute later and when he sees me coming he gets up to leave. I make way for him at the door just as he makes way for me. We pass each other. This time I hear the front door slam, so he must have got his coat and hat and gone outside.

I wait for him for hours. Then I read a book, drink, light a fire, watch television till there are no more programs on, and get in bed and try to fall asleep.

QUESTION

I’m sitting opposite her. I say “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve time. Waiter?”

“Yes?” he says.

“Check, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, what do you say?” I say to her.

“I still don’t know.”

“You going to make your mind up in the next thirty seconds?”

“Don’t be nasty to me.”

“Waiter?”

“It’s coming right up, sir. I have to write it up first.”

“Forget it for now. Or give it when you feel like it, not to mix you up. But I’d like another cup of coffee.”

“Another cup?”

“Another cup. You?” I say to her.

“I don’t know.”

“Have another.”

“I always get a little high and fidgety with two cups.”

“What’ll it be,” waiter says, “another round for you both?”

“Two cups, just to play it safe,” I say.

Waiter goes. She looks at me.

“Well?” I say.

“Well, what?”

“Well, have you made up your mind?”

The place is crowded. People are waiting for tables. We shouldn’t have ordered more coffee.”

“Come on, answer.”

“I told you, I don’t know. It’s not something I can make up about right away — I mean, my mind, your question.”

“I knew what you meant.”

Waiter brings a coffee pot and pours our coffee.

Thanks,” I say.

“You gave me too much,” she says.

“You don’t have to drink it all,” I say.

“I know, but I didn’t want to waste it. Coffee beans have become expensive.”

“Yeah, but still not as expensive as these restaurants want you to believe. I figured it out once. At least not to warrant eighty to ninety cents a cup.”

“Would you like your check now?” waiter says to me.

“If you don’t have it made out yet, don’t worry.”

“I have it right here.”

“Sure, put it on the table.”

He takes it out of his shirt pocket and puts it down.

Thank you,” he says.

“You too. Thanks. Should I pay you or up front?”

“Up front or me.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“Long as I’m here, and it doesn’t take you too long to check it, you can pay me.”

I look it over. “It seems good.” I give him a twenty and ten and he goes to the cashier with the money and check. People waiting at the door are looking at us.

“What do you mean you figured it out about the coffee?” she says.

The coffee wholesalers, they doubled the price of the beans from what it was a year ago, right? You feel the effect of that by the jump in price of coffee at the supermarket, though I don’t think any of them raised it by more than fifty percent. But restaurants, because most of them also doubled the price of their coffee — you know, the excuse that the wholesalers did it to them — are now getting four to five times the profit they used to for a single cup.”

“But you’re not considering their larger overhead in a year and that all kinds of wages and workers’ benefits and such are more. Cleaning bills for this napkin, tablecloth, the waiter’s jacket, for instance.”

“You’re right.”

“I waitressed for a while, so that’s the reason I know.”

“I know. I wasn’t figuring the rest. Cleaning. Overhead.”

“I still don’t understand how you got four to five times the profit for a cup of coffee when the coffee growers only doubled the wholesale price of it and the supermarkets only raised it by half. It could be you didn’t explain it clearly or it just went past me.”

“No, I think it’s my fault. Let me try again.”

“Here you are, sir,” waiter says, “and have a good night.”

“You mean ‘Here you are, ma’am,’” and I put the tray with the change on it in front of her.

“Oh?” he says. “Well, all right.”

“No, I’m only kidding. That was my money. Tonight was my treat, next week’s hers. Thanks. You’ve been very nice, and this is for you.”

Thank you.” He puts the tip in his pocket, takes our glasses, the spoon she didn’t use and the tray. Our table’s clear except for our cups and saucers, pitcher of milk and sugar — pepper and salt dispensers will stay — and my spoon. He knows I drink it with milk. I pour the milk into the cup and stir it. I drink, she sips. She looks at her coffee.

“I wish I had a spoon,” she says.

“You drink it black.”

“To stir like you. I like to do it.”

“Use mine. I’m finished with it.”

“You used it.”

“Only in my cup. I didn’t stick it in my mouth.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you had. But it has milk on it. I know it’s nutty, but I like my coffee absolutely black.”

“Lick it off,” I say.

That would look ridiculous.”

Then I will.”

“But no milk on it. It has to be licked clean.”

I lick it. It still has some milk on it. I lick it all the way in and out of my mouth, and look at it. It’s clean. I give it to her and she stirs her coffee with it.

“Well?” I say.

Just looks at her coffee and stirs.

“Come on. Do you? Don’t you?”

That question from before?”

“What other questions?”

“You could’ve asked other questions before.”

“I did ask other questions. But I’m asking now about this one, that one, the one.”

“I don’t know.”

“When, then?”

“I don’t like to be pushed or rushed.”

“I haven’t. I’ve asked you and you said you don’t know and you don’t know and you don’t know. And now we’re having another coffee and the customers waiting at the front want our table and the waiter wants us out of here and a question like the one I asked is best answered right here when we’re sitting and comfortable rather than when we’re on the street and cold.”

“Give me a little more time.”

“Everything okay?” waiter says.

“Yes, thanks,” I say. He goes. Busboy takes my empty cup away.

“If I had had it black like yours he wouldn’t have taken my cup.”

That’s why I have it black,” she says.

“To give yourself more time?”

“I don’t know if it’s that. More because I like it black.”

Busboy passes our table again, comes back and takes my spoon.

“I don’t think she’s through with the spoon yet,” I say.

“Oh, sorry.” And to her: “You’re not?”

“I don’t think so.”

He puts the spoon down and goes.

“You could have let him take the spoon,” she says. “I’m through with it.”

“I don’t like them shoving us out of here like that.”

They’re busy. It’s Saturday night. Dinner hour, the night and time they make about forty percent of their week’s tips and the restaurant its earnings and which makes up for all the nights they don’t have that many customers. I should be more understanding of them and just drink up and go.”

“First tell me yes or no.”

“Maybe I should just leave the rest of the coffee and go. I didn’t want a full cup anyway.”

“Yes or no?”

“And you didn’t tip him enough.”

“I gave him exactly fifteen percent.”

“You didn’t. I calculated it. You gave him about thirteen percent.”

“You must be figuring thirteen percent of the total bill plus tax. I gave him fifteen percent before tax.”

“Oh, maybe you’re right.”

“Not maybe; I am. And what do I have to do, consult you about everything at a restaurant?”

“Don’t get snappy again.”

“Why not? You’re more worried about the damn waiter, nice as he is, and the restaurant’s overhead and cleaning costs, than about me or us.”

“Not true, and don’t raise your voice to me.”

“Ah, forget it,” and I get up, get my coat off my chair and say to her “If you’re ready, I’ll walk you home or wherever you want to go.”

“You don’t have to walk me anywhere. I’d rather be alone.”

“Good, then,” and I turn to go, turn to her, “Goodnight,” she looks away from me, and I leave.

I go home. Phone’s ringing when I get there. “What is it now?” I say.

“What is what?” Murray says.

“I thought it was Vera. How are you?”

“By the tone of your voice, I’m glad I’m not Vera. What’re you doing tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Want to see Challenges?”

“Sure.”

“I thought Saturday night you’d be out, but then thought maybe this Saturday, miracle of miracles, you’re not. In front of the Laron at nine?”

“Right.”

I hang up. “Right.” I grab a plant Vera gave me and yell “Right, yes, sure I want to go to a movie tonight,” and throw it against the wall. It breaks, earth and planter parts going several different ways, big stain on the wall, mess on the floor. “Sure I do, goddamn you,” and slam my fist through a closet door.

I wash it, iodine and bandage it, dial Murray with my other hand but he doesn’t answer. I go to the Laron and see him out front.

“What happened?” he says.

“I called before but you weren’t in.”

“But what the hell happened? Your hand. It’s bleeding through the bandage.”

“I suppose you already left. I called to say I couldn’t go to the movie after all.”

“You shouldn’t have come. I would’ve known something was wrong or you got a better date. But it must have just happened. You get into a fight? Catch it on a knife at home?”

“I just came here to tell you, didn’t want to stand you up. I’m not feeling well. I’m going home.”

“Okay, I appreciate that. But how bad’s the hand? You can’t answer a little question?”

I shake my head and start home.

“What’s with you? Look, I won’t go to the movie. I’ll take you to the hospital if you want.”

I keep going.

He says “Okay, I’ll drop it. Hell with your hand. Forget I asked.”

I walk back. “I can’t answer because of how I’m feeling, don’t you see? I got crazy with myself over Vera and punched it through a door and mashed it, and it was so stupid to do, I’m ashamed.”

That’s better. Buzz me if you need me,” and he goes into the theater.

I go home. Vera is sitting on my building’s stoop.

There you are,” she says. “I was going to wait five more minutes and then send it by mail.”

“You mean you finally have an answer for me? Hallelu.”

“Answer? To that question in the restaurant? I forgot about that. No. Your set of keys. There was no room to slip them under your door and I didn’t want to just leave them there. Here.”

She holds my keys out. I take my bandaged hand out of my coat pocket and hold it out to her palm up. She says “What’s this, a joke? No, I don’t want to know. I know it’s bad. I’m sorry if your hand hurts you the way your face now tells me it does, but I’ve got to be going, goodnight,” and sticks the keys into my coat pocket.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” I say as she crosses the street.

“I told you. Save it for another time.”

“I’ll still tell you because I believe in answering a question when it’s asked.”

“Good. You got your big dig in. That should be enough.”

“I’ll still tell you, and I wasn’t trying to get a dig in, because I’ve nothing to hide from you and I think you’ll want to know.”

She’s across the street, stops, says “All right — I’m listening. What?”

“I’m not shouting it across the street.”

“You’ve shouted everything else across, why not this?”

“Come here or I’ll go there.”

“I’ll come. You’re hurt. You are hurt? That bandage with blood isn’t a fake?”

The answer is no.”

She waits for a car to pass before she crosses the street. “Now, what? If you’re not going to act like an ass again with that ‘The answer is no.’”

“First, how do you feel about me?”

“About what? Which way? What does that have to do with anything? And when are you talking about?”

This way. About everything. Your feelings to me. Before and now.”

“A week before — we both knew. Now — let’s be honest — neither of us does.”

“Will you come upstairs with me?”

“Have you been to a doctor or hospital?”

“No.”

Then only to look at your hand and wash and dress it if it needs it.”

“I don’t feel too well anyway, so that’s okay with me.”

We go up the stoop and into the vestibule. She gets the keys out of my pocket, unlocks the door, and we start upstairs, she in front.

“What was the question before that you asked me in the restaurant?” she says, without turning around.

“One at the end? You don’t know?”

That’s why I asked. I’m curious because of what maybe it all led to.”

“I forget also.”

“No you didn’t.”

“No I did. It was an important one for us, though. First the argument and my storming away and eventually smashing my hand through a closet door, which is part of what I was going to tell you I did and why.”

“It was much more important to you. But maybe we better forget it because of what it could lead to now. More arguing and bitterness, and that’s the last thing I want to get involved in again.”

“Now I remember,” I say.

“All right. Though I don’t believe you. But what is it? Bad hand, sour feelings, potential explosion, but you want to have it out, let’s.”

“No, I suddenly forget. Tip of the tongue, off it again. Probably because of the damn pain and a headache now. I’ll remember it, though.”

“Hopefully, when I’m not here, if you did forget.”

“Honestly, I did.”

We’d reached the fourth-floor landing. She unlocks my door, puts the keys on top of the refrigerator, looks around and says “My God, what a mess you made. What could have got into you?”

“I don’t know.”

She has me sit on the toilet seat cover, takes my bandage off, says “Look at this; it’s awful,” washes and dresses my hand, makes me take three aspirins. I say “I still don’t feel too well. Could you stay?”

“All right, but on different sides of the bed.”

I go to bed and sometime later she joins me. My hand hurts like hell. I can’t fall asleep. She says “Your jumping around is keeping me up.”

“My hand.”

She turns on the light. There’s a lot of blood on me and my side of the bed. She says “I better get you to a hospital.”

We go to one. They take x-rays and say I broke a couple of fingers and part of the rest of the hand.

After they put in a few stitches and a cast is put on, she says “Whatever it was you asked me in the restaurant that was so important to you then, I would have said yes to if just to avoid all this.”

“Who can predict anything?”

“I know. But I only said that about your restaurant question as an expression of how I now feel.”

“Anyway, it only proves you never know what can sometimes happen.”

“Now I know, and you frighten me and made matters much worse for us, much.”

“Don’t be.”

“I am. You want me to retract it? I can’t.”

“You’ll feel different tomorrow or so.”

“No I won’t. You scared me silly. Break your hand? Next you’re liable to break my fingers and then my face. I feel awful for your hand and your pain and such, but for us you couldn’t have made matters worse. I’ll get us a cab and see you to your building, but that’s all.”

“All I ask is that you sleep on it.”

“No. It’s the wrong time to say this now, but I’ve definitely made up my mind. No more.”

I slam my hand with the cast on it against the hospital wall. She runs away. I’m screaming at her from the floor to never come back, while trying to hold my hand.

OVERTIME

I do everything he told me to. Then there’s nothing more for me to do. I check over what I did and it seems good as I can get it. I wait. I get up, sit down, look at the clock, walk around. Where is he? And she? Where are they? How long do they expect me to sit, stand, look, walk around, wait for them like this with nothing to do? They say they’ll be back in an hour, why does it have to be three? If I could go to sleep or take a walk outside and step in for coffee someplace, it wouldn’t be so bad. But if one of them caught me sleeping or not here when they got back, it would. They’d think I always slept or went out when they weren’t here. Hell, I’ve waited long enough. I’m taking a walk and will live with the consequences if they find out.

Going down the stairs, I see them coming up. “Where you been?” I say.

“And where you going?” he says.

“I waited so long, I decided to take a walk. Waiting tired me out, and I need some exercise like walking to pep me up.”

“Now you don’t have to wait any longer, and you’ll get plenty of exercise working, so come on back up. We still got lots to do, which you could’ve started doing before we got back here.”

“Like what? I finished what you told me to do and checked it to make sure it was done right. And you didn’t leave instructions for anything else to do because you said you’d be back before I was through.”

“You could’ve cleaned up the place.”

“Cleaning’s not what I was hired for. I left that kind of unskilled work for better pay and more demanding work like what you hired me to do.”

“But that’s how you could’ve spent your time. You should’ve thought of that. Anything can be cleaned. Ten minutes after you clean something it can be cleaned. Soap can even be cleaned. And cleaning or anything like that would’ve been more productive than getting bored and irritable waiting for us or going out for a walk.”

“Maybe for you it would’ve been more productive, but for me it would’ve been the opposite. It would’ve been going backwards from something I worked myself up to be, which might’ve ended with my being even less productive for you.”

“Look, you’re wasting our time talking. Let’s get to work.”

“I’m still so restless from waiting that I’ve got to take a walk.”

“Walking’s not what I’m paying you for except when you’re doing it for me. You want to keep your job, you come upstairs now and work,” and they go upstairs.

I think it over and go upstairs. They’ve already started working and I join in. Later he tells me what else I should do. Later she does too, tells me, and I do it. At times we’re working on the same thing together. Other times we’re working on separate things or the same thing but in different parts of the room. Sometimes two of us are working on the same thing and one on another thing. Other times one of us is in the restroom or on the phone or making coffee for us all and two are working on the same thing or separate things in the same or different parts of the room, and so on. Then it’s all done. I even worked an hour longer than I’m being paid for and there’s more work to come. We put what we worked on into boxes, tape and address the boxes and bring them to the post office and send them off.

That didn’t take too long,” he says.

“Long enough,” I say.

“About as long as I expected it to,” she says.

“But we did it quicker than I thought we would is what I’m saying,” he says.

“It might not have been quicker but it would’ve been sooner if both of you had come back earlier.”

“Anyway, we got it done and we’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.

“About tomorrow,” I say to him. “If you’re both not there or don’t plan to be by the time I get to work, could you leave instructions for me if you’re going back now or phone them in early tomorrow so I can get right to work rather than waiting around for you?”

“If we’re late,” he says, “and I haven’t left instructions or phoned them in or she hasn’t phoned them in for me, then just clean the floors a little, wash the windows. They’re all dirty, the floors especially. Tidy up the place a little is what I’m suggesting, scrub down the restroom and all its parts. If we’re really late and neither of us has phoned in your instructions and I don’t send them in with somebody else and you’ve cleaned the entire place where it really shines, give a little paint job to the ceiling and walls. The paint, brushes, turpentine and ladder are in the back closet. One coat. If we’re really very late and never got instructions to you and the paint’s dried, give it two coats, but no more than two.”

“I don’t see how I could do more than two coats in one workday. You said turpentine, which means the paint has an oil base. Oil paint takes a long time to dry. I doubt I can even put on a second coat in my scheduled worktime tomorrow if you have me do all those cleaning chores besides.”

“So put in a couple hours extra.”

“For money?”

“Do it because you like the job. Show me that. And that you want to keep it. Because you complain too much. You ever hear her complain?”

“I’ve complained,” she says. “Plenty of times.”

“About me you’ve complained. That I’m not nice enough to you after work. That I don’t take you out enough, show you enough attention and give you enough nice things. About those you complain a lot, but I’m talking about at work.”

“About work you’re right. I have no complaints. Pay’s good and hours aren’t too long and work’s not too hard.”

“So if neither of us is here tomorrow when you get in,” he says to me, “and I haven’t left or I don’t send any instructions to you, clean up the place, scrub everything down, and just don’t sweep the floor but mop and wax it. And the windows and every shelf — really get this place into tiptop shape. Two coats of paint. And if you later have nothing better to do but sit around, put a few extra hours in painting the doors and window frames and all the furniture and shelves.”

“I’ll have to get overtime for that.”

“I don’t pay overtime.”

Then I can’t give you free overtime anymore. I did it today and plenty of other days for months after you promised you wouldn’t keep me beyond my normal workday, but no more.”

“You only worked nine hours today.”

“But I was here for twelve and a half — my half hour for lunch and those three hours waiting around for you.”

“You rest at home, you rest here. No big difference, and for all I know the office might be a nicer place to rest than your home, and it’ll be even more so after you clean and paint it.”

“But it isn’t my home. No overtime pay, no more extra hours after my regular workday.”

Then I’ll have to let you go,” and he asks for my keys to the office, I give them, she waves goodbye and they head toward the park and I go the other way. I turn around when they’re a block away and I yell “You bastard!” Neither of them turn around. People walking past look at me and seem to wonder what I’m yelling about and to whom.

That bastard,” I say to people who pass. That one over there. Well, now he’s gone, went into the park. But he is a bastard. A slave driver. Let him get another sucker to work overtime for nothing, but not me.”

These days you’re lucky to have a steady job,” a woman says. “He fired you?”

“Just now. For what I said. Not giving him hours of free overtime.”

“Can you give me his name and phone? I might like to apply for the job now that it’s open.”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“Why? I like steady work and money coming in. Right now I’m jobless and broke. Let me talk to him and decide, unless you’re planning on getting your job back.”

“Not a chance.”

I give her his name and phone number. She says This is the best hope for a job I’ve had in weeks. Because if you just lost it, I’ll probably be the first one to apply.” She goes to a phone booth a few feet away.

“You calling him now? I’m sure he won’t be at work till tomorrow.”

“What do I have to lose? He’s not in, I’ve lost a quarter. Big deal — I’m not that broke.”

“Nobody will be in, so you won’t lose your quarter.”

“Good, then I’m losing nothing by calling him.”

“Time. You’ll be losing time.”

“What else do I have to lose now?”

“Also your common sense. Because I just said he won’t be in, yet you still want to call him. You’d think you’d take my advice because you’d think I’d know. Besides, even if he was in, I don’t think he’ll hire you. Or maybe he will. Maybe you’re just the person he wants, someone who’ll knuckle under to everything he tells you to and do any number of free hours’ overtime for him.”

“If you’re saying all this to stop me from applying for the job or just to insult me, it didn’t work.”

She puts some coins in the telephone and I go home. By next day I’ve thought about it a lot and call him and keep calling him till I get him at eleven and say “Listen, I lost my head yesterday and I’m sorry. If you give me the job back and if you still want me to, I’ll work a couple of hours overtime for nothing today and with no complaints.”

“I already hired someone you told about the job. She said she wasn’t using you as a reference, though, because you insulted her when she started to call me.”

“All I told her was that she wasn’t showing good common sense in trying to call you minutes after you fired me, since I knew you wouldn’t be back at the office right away and that you were probably gone for the day.”

“I did go back a few minutes after I left you. Went to the park but suddenly remembered I forgot something at the office, and she got me when I was coming in the door. She said you told her you got fired and that she’s exactly the opposite of you in that she’s willing to work overtime for no pay anytime I want.”

“So will I,” I say. “And me you won’t have to teach how to do the job. Think of all the time you’ll be saving — the worker’s when he doesn’t have to be learning what he already knows; and yours, because you won’t have to teach him.”

“What time? A few minutes? Half hour at the most? For what’s so complicated about the job? I’ll miss a lunch, that’s all, and what do I do at lunch but sit around and get fat and maybe take a nap.”

“You sonofabitch.”

“You know, that’s the second time you cursed me in less than a day. Yesterday you called me a bastard. I didn’t answer or turn around, so I don’t know if you knew I heard. I know it wasn’t meant for your coworker, as you’ve no reason for calling her one. How do you expect to be rehired, cursing me like that?”

“You weren’t going to rehire me.”

“You don’t know that for sure, and I won’t tell you. I’ll make you sweat, except to say I told the woman to call me at noon today to see if I still wanted her to start work tomorrow.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel as if I really lost something in not working for you. But I’m telling you I didn’t, because there are always just as good jobs and better bosses around, and for you to go to hell.”

Three times in less than a day,” he says. “I think that’s a record for me. Now I’ll level with you what was in my mind before you cursed me a second time, and still in my mind but only by a little before you told me to go to hell. I was going to ask you to come back.”

“Bull.”

“Nothing you say now will make it any worse or better for you. So if you want to stay tuned only to hear what was in my mind before, I’ll tell you, which I feel free to do now. I was going to rehire you if you agreed to working overtime for no pay whenever I needed you to, but which I wouldn’t be so excessive at, if I have. I thought maybe I’d been unfair to us both in so quickly firing you, since as workers went you were okay, and should I expect anyone better — more reliable or less complaining — in that kind of job for the pay it gets? If you agreed to my terms, then when she called I’d tell her I rehired you but would keep her in mind in case things didn’t work out. But when you called shortly before I was going to call you, I thought I’d let you shoot off your mouth and agree to all my terms without my even asking them, which’d make it easier to ask more things out of you in the future. Though I doubt it, because you’re so pigheaded, I hope you learned something from this,” and he hangs up.

I interview for a number of good jobs after that, but nobody will hire me because of the lousy reference my ex-boss gives me. So I start saying he had something personal against me, which had nothing to do with my job performance or even with reality, but none of the people interviewing me will accept that for not giving them his name and phone number. I finally land a really rotten job that doesn’t ask for any references, where I work about ten more hours a week than the last one and for much less money. I also have to put in a lot of free overtime. I never complain about it and I in fact say I’ll do it gladly, and after a year there, I get a small raise. It takes another two years before I’m making as much as I was paid by my last boss. But the cost of living’s gone way up since then, so in what I can buy with my salary I’m actually earning half what I did at the old job. But like the woman who replaced me there might still say, with so many people being laid off and looking for work for a year or more, I feel lucky to have a job.

CAN’T WIN

My agent calls and says “Meet me at the Triad Perry Publishing Company right away.” I say “What’s up?” and she says “It’s very important. Just be there as soon as you can. I’m already on my way,” and she hangs up.

I think “Oh God, it can’t be anything but good news — the annual Triad Perry three thousand dollar prize and publication of the manuscript in the fall.” I leave the apartment, take a cab to the publishing house and walk into the reception room. Quite a few people are sitting on couches and chairs there and a receptionist is behind a desk, a dog sleeping on the floor near her feet. My agent comes out of an office with a man. She says This is the managing editor, Mr. Whithead,” and to him “You tell him, not me.” I say “It’s bad news, isn’t it?” and she says “Depends how you look at it or take it, but I’m afraid it is.”

He says “Once more you’ve been chosen as one of the runners-up in our annual short fiction award,” and hands me my manuscript, “If this will be any consolation to you, there were again more than four hundred applicants for the award. So take pride in knowing that for the fourth year in a row you were considered good enough to be one of the five finalists, a remarkable achievement, or at least record, I think.”

I shout “Goddamnit,” and slam the manuscript on the receptionist’s desk and keep slamming it and shouting “Goddamnit, goddamnit. For what the hell stopped you from giving me the prize this year? Because who’d you give it to? And who’d you give it to last year and the years before that? Do you remember? Does anyone here remember? What are some of the names of their books then? Why’d I even have to be dragged down here when you could have used your brains for a change and mailed me the news?” and I throw the manuscript across the room, its pages spilling over most of the people sitting on the couches and chairs. Some of them leap up and snap at the pages before they land on the floor. Others grab the pages off the floor and read them, saying “Hey, this is pretty good…. You mean pretty damn awful…. It’s stupid…. Funny…. Makes no sense…. What the heck’s this passage supposed to mean?…He’s got to be kidding himself…. No, he should have won…. You mean never have entered…. Christ, if he had taken first prize and you announced it, your whole company would have been disgraced and laughed out of the publishing business and maybe even financially ruined. Why don’t you look at my manuscript for next year’s contest if you can’t publish it sooner?” and several of them give Whithead their manuscripts.

He piles the manuscripts on the desk and says to me “Listen, don’t get so excited. If this will be any consolation to you, and I should have told you this before I broke the other news to you, you did take first prize in the scarf design award this year, which entitles you to a thirty-dollar check and mention in the Scarf Designers News.” He gives me the check and holds up a six-foot scarf for everyone to see. It’s all stripes, but bright stripes of six different colors and with different-colored fringes at the ends of it — not a bad design but not what I had in mind for a first prize today. I take the scarf, stick the check between my teeth and rip it in two and spit the other piece out, and grab a bud vase off the desk and shout “Idiots. This scarf and check aren’t what I came down here for either,” and throw the vase to the floor. It smashes, pieces going everywhere, one into the dog’s rear leg. It yelps, jumps and limps around the room as it cries.

The receptionist runs over to me and says “Before I could have understood your outbursts and rage, but injuring that defenseless dog has gone too far,” and she shoves me with both hands and I fall over a chair to the floor. She edges back, shouting “Don’t kick me. Don’t beat me. Get him away from me.” The dog’s still limping around the room and crying.

That’ll be about enough of that,” Whitbread says to me. And to the others: “What about this dog? Whose is it?”

“Not mine,” my agent says, leaving.

“Not mine either,” some of the others say.

“Of course,” he says. “Not yours, his, hers, the receptionist’s, or anyone’s. Then what was it doing here in the first place, and what are you going to do about it now?” looking at me.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m the one responsible for the broken glass, so I’ll look after him, even if he isn’t my dog.” I put the scarf around my neck, pick up the dog and carry him out of room, take the elevator down and look on the building’s register for a vet. There is none, so I go outside on Fifth Avenue and stop one of the hundreds of people on the sidewalk and ask if she knows where I can find a vet around here.

“For your dog?” and I say “Yes, for this dog, though he isn’t mine,” and she says “Go east on 53^rd, then second building on your left after you pass the pocket park.”

The vet’s office is on the first floor of a brownstone. I go in, set the dog down and say to the nurse “He has a sliver of glass in his rear right leg. Could you have the doctor remove it? I’m not the owner, but I’ll take care of the cost.” That’ll be sixty dollars,” and I give it, and she says “We’re a little crowded in here, so can you wait outside?” I look around and see all the seats are taken by people with pets on their laps and in carriers, and one guy with a parrot on his shoulder, and I go outside.

The nurse opens the front door an hour later and the dog comes out with a bandage around his leg. He seems to be walking all right. “Good, you’re much better,” I say. I tie the scarf around his collar as a leash, walk him back to the publishing house, take the scarf off and leave him with the receptionist. She doesn’t look up, continues typing. The dog falls asleep beside her on the floor.

I go home. My mother and sister are there, and I tell them what happened to me today. The agent’s call, the publishing house, my letdown and how mad I got, and the dog and bud vase and consolation prize, and I hold up the scarf.

That’s my scarf,” my sister says. The one I designed and knitted myself. I’ve been looking all over for it. How come you took credit for it when I should have been the one who entered that contest and won?”

“What’re you talking about?” I say. “I never entered this scarf in any contest,” but she grabs it from me and calls the publishing house and says “Whithead; give me that chief man Whithead.” When he gets on the phone, she says “Look, my brother before is a cheat, an out-and-out lying fraud. He didn’t design that first-prize scarf or even knit it. I did, and I’m coming right down there now to get all the publicity I can out of winning that contest and also the thirty-dollar check. Some people might think they can’t use the money, but, baby, I sure can.”

LONG MADE SHORT

Mark phones and says The wind is strong, just right for Rain stops but The red rose picked by his wife The rose Marlene cut The little girl comes into the store, At work where I was sorting some I put on my socks He was walking into the elevator He walked into the elevator She lifted herself up, came down hard again He pulled himself out, got to his feet They both felt good because “Bastard,” She started the car To get started they They started to go downstairs, she holding his Starling’s the hardest part, Mark used to say, lots harder than The starter gets his gun The gun gets the starter The cheese got the mouse “Shoot,” the starter said. “Shoot the starter,” Marcos says. “Marko, shoot the starting gun already so we can get started,” she said. We all started out together — Marlene, Bea The road started to slope Just start. Me. Begin. Another way then. Girl phoned Mark’s strong but not so strong where he Mom says Dad whacked his strap Gave her a note which said “What’s Daddy picked up his wife Daddy lifted Mark’s wife above his head Uncle Aunt Bea keeled over, knocking his The teacher had enough, jumped up from her seat behind the desk and screamed “The professor stood out in his yellow When I was a “What the hell,” she said, “you think I care? Do it. Go on and do it.” “How can you be so cavalier about it?” he says to her. “Oops, a cavalier’s a man, and a chivalrous one no less, right? But that’s okay; the word here’s being used Someone through the window Someone threw a bottle through his bedroom window, awakening them. Suddenly, glass smashed. Glass smashed, building collapsed. He was inside it. The building collapsed on the man. Before I knew it, I was buried in rubble and gasping for air. The building didn’t collapse as they all first thought from the noise, but one wall of it did. A wall of the building collapsed on the girl. A part of the apartment building came off, large enough She’s talking to a friend. A young woman’s talking to what seems like a friend. A woman’s talking to a man at the corner as I’m walking up 113th Street to Broadway, when a At first I thought it was a girl talking Because she was short and slight, I at first thought the person talking to a man at the corner was a A piece from the northwest corner building on a Hundred-thirteenth Street and Broadway “A piece from the corner apartment building,” he said, “just when I’m walking up the block, landed on Smashed this young woman’s head. He was there when it happened. This is what Listen to this. I’m It happened right in front of him. I’m walking up the steep hill on a Hundred and Thirteenth, about fifteen feet from a couple talking at the corner, when I see this thing in the air coming down so fast that by the time I could get my first word out By the time he can get his first word By the time he yelled his first word of warning By the time I could yell “Watch—,” He sees this I see this building piece coming down I see this huge chunk from a building coming down fast, start to yell “Watch out” to a couple on the corner standing under it, when it lands on the woman’s head. Blood everywhere, some hitting me and the wall I’m beside. I shout “Oh God no,” and sink my fingers into my cheeks and turn around and people are running past me down the hill I just came up and others are hurrying up the hill, no doubt to the woman who was hit, and I say to myself “I must help her, I have to do what I can, I can’t just turn my back on her,” and I turn around. She’s on the ground, blood around her head and running along the sidewalk and a little of it into the street. People are looking at her, some with their hands over their mouths and chests, gestures like that. One man on his knees beside her is looking away with an expression as if he’s never seen such a horrible sight. A woman standing near her shouts “She’s dead, she’s dead, there’s no way she can’t be dead.” There’s nothing I can do. And there are enough people here to help her if she can be helped. And I’m feeling dizzy and a little sick and I start down the street to my building on Riverside Drive and then think maybe she isn’t dead, maybe that woman was wrong, maybe nobody else will act in a helping way if she is alive, like call 9-1-1 and yell out “Is there a doctor around?” for the avenue’s pretty busy, someone could be a doctor or ex-medic among all the passing people, or someone could know of a doctor in one of these buildings here. Or a nurse. A nurse would know how to stop the bleeding and keep her alive. I run back up the hill, there must be fifty people around her now, and I say “Did someone call 9-1-1 or does anyone know of a doctor near here? We have to get help,” and a man says “She doesn’t need a doctor. She’s as dead, the poor girl, as she’ll ever be,” and I say “Maybe it only looks like that. We can’t be sure, because did anyone check her breathing or pulse?” I’m saying this mostly to the backs of people around her. I can’t see even a single part of her, not even the blood anymore, there are so many people in front of me. A woman says “Believe it, she’s gone. No one could have survived something that big from so high up. She was dead the second that foot-by-two-foot slab of concrete hit her,” and I say “Is that what it was, and so large?” and she points to the top part of the fourteen-or-so-story building and says “Came off there, below the last window on the left; you can see where the piece is missing,” and lots of us look and several people move to the street, no doubt to get out of the way in case another piece falls and I say “I can barely see that far, even with my glasses. But please, someone should yell for a doctor and call for an ambulance, if it hasn’t been done yet just to be absolutely sure,” and a man says “Guy went for a cop; two people, in fact,” and I say “A policeman can’t help her — oh, screw it,” and I push my way through, I’m squeamish and I don’t want to but I feel I have to see for sure for that poor girl’s sake, and it’s an awful sight, couldn’t be worse, her eyes are open but the balls can’t be seen, part of her head gone, a little of her brains spattered about, it’s horrible when something like this happens, nothing like it should, for she was just standing there, talking to a man, if only I had come up the block a few seconds sooner and been looking up and close enough to the building to see the piece falling but not that close to get hit by it, I could have yelled, but in time to warn her, and then maybe she could have jumped away and the piece would have missed her or just hit her leg. Or if I were even closer to the corner, got up the hill even sooner and looked up for some reason and saw the piece breaking off the building, I might have been able to push her and the man she was with out of the way. I cover my eyes with my hands, stay there a few seconds and mutter to myself “Poor girl, poor girl,” and then walk out of the crowd. A policeman’s walking into it, saying “All right, folks, everybody move; this means everyone.” Another policeman comes, an ambulance, police cars and an EMS van. A yellow police strip is set up around the medical team working on her. I cross the street and watch. She’s covered completely with a tarp, people near the area are told by the police to keep walking, people who have walked past the area and crossed the street and walk past me talk as if they think she’s been murdered or she jumped from the building or had been hit by a car and then moved to the sidewalk. The medical team put her on a litter, take the tarp off and cover her with something much lighter, which almost blows off when they slide her into the ambulance. Ambulance stays double-parked awhile, emergency lights flashing and back door open but nobody in there with her. Man she was talking with, who for about half an hour after stood in the street with this paralyzed face of pain and constantly pulling his shirt collar apart with both hands, is escorted to a taxi by a policeman and helped inside and driven away. Ambulance leaves, police strip is torn down by a policeman and crumpled up and dropped into a street trash can, some policemen and women have a smoke and seem to be laughing and joking about other things and then either walk away or get in their cars and leave, storeowner or employee comes out several times to throw a container of water over the place where the woman had lain, and all this time thoughts come to me about life, death, sorrow, chance, that young woman, my daughters when they’ll be her age. I picture them standing under similar buildings on Broadway or even this same building or walking past them. Will I now advise them “If you’re walking outside or stop to talk to someone on the street, do it close to the curb”? I think about the woman’s parents hearing the news, which they might not have yet. Brothers and sisters if she has, close friends, maybe a boyfriend or even a husband, though she seemed too young to be married. Maybe the man she was talking to was her boyfriend, although he seemed a lot older than she, quick glimpses I got of her before she was struck and little I could make out when she was on the ground, so he was more likely a neighbor or one of her teachers she’d bumped into, since this is a university neighborhood. She was talking excitedly, if I recall right, smiling, animated, big hand gestures, had long hair in a ponytail and seemed to have a good figure, which was what first caught my attention when I saw her from further down the block, then suddenly dead, probably not even for a half-second knew something was wrong, and so on, thoughts like that, all very natural after what I’d experienced. I cross the street and look at the spot where the storeperson threw the water. He didn’t seem to like that he was doing it at first, but by the third or fourth time he just poured instead of threw, as if he’d got used to it and wanted to do a good job, or maybe it was because the blood and other things had by now washed into the street. There’s still a little blood stain on the sidewalk. A rain or just people stepping on it will get rid of it. I stare at the stain and think I’ll picture the woman lying there as I last saw her, but I don’t. I think “Does the shape of the stain remind me of anything?” But it’s just a blob. I crouch down and touch the sidewalk, I don’t know why; maybe I’m just being overdramatic or something, but I move my fingers to the stain and say low as I can “I’m very sorry,” then look around to see if anyone’s looking at me. Couple of passersby are but with no more than slightly curious faces, as if thinking something like “Why’s he tying his shoes in the middle of a busy sidewalk instead of by the building or curb?” I get up Sidewalk was still damp from Smells his fingers and they don’t Concrete’s still there but One would think the storeowner Or the police; how come they didn’t Someone could trip over it, even the smaller pieces, and Tries lifting I try to push the biggest piece Kicks the smaller pieces into the street and then against Asks a passing man I ask another man if he’d help me with Together they “By the way,” the man says, “where in hell this big “Up there?” the man says, and he ducks I look up Will more fall Wait a second; how come the police didn’t keep the police strip around this part of the sidewalk, in fact block off with police barricades the whole He goes to the curb In fact, why isn’t there a policeman here directing all the pedestrians around What is it with this city that Runs to the payphone across Broadway I dial Information, gets the phone number of the precinct for this Tells the woman who answers why he’s calling and the location of the The yellow strip, the plastic yellow strip,” I say, “the one that says ‘Don’t cross’ or ‘Do not cross’ and has the word ‘Police’ on it” That is strange,” she says; “very unusual, in fact, that none of the — how many officers did you “‘Some kind of oversight’?” I Goes into the store, asks for the owner or manager The man says “Oh, I don’t think anything else will I stand outside the store warning pedestrians and one couple who stop to talk at the Police car comes and he tells the officers he’s the one who called and points up “Mistakes are made,” one of Same kind of yellow strip is “I’d also,” I say, “because some people who are just talking and not looking could walk right “Don’t worry, they’re coming,” He goes into a liquor I buy a bottle of red wine and a bottle of sake, walk back to the corner entirely cordoned off now except for “It’s far enough away,” the officer Police truck with barricades He walks down the hill with his I think of the young woman and almost feel the impact Shudders, covers I go into my building, take the elevator He opens the door My kids run up to me, shouting “Daddy’s home. Daddy’s home,” pretending it’s been a long time, since I’ve only been gone Sets the bag down on the sofa, gets on one knee and hugs them His kids kiss “Why do you look so sad?” my older “Anything wrong?” his wife says, coming out “Oh gosh,” he says to her, breaking down, “this poor young…I was going up…she was just standing…

ASS

I haven’t had any ass in a month. More. Two months, going on three. A long time, and I wanted some. That was all, animal as that must sound. I was tired of doing it to myself. Tired of thinking and dreaming about it, swiveling around to stare after it on the street, reading fiction about it, looking at nude photos in men’s magazines, lingerie and swimsuit ads in the Sunday Times magazine, going to R-rated movies just to get a glimpse of the pubic area and long looks of bare thighs, breasts and behinds. So I brushed my hair. Shaved. Ten after nine. Little bit late to call but it was worth a shot. And left my apartment.

I made two calls at the corner phone booth. First woman said “Bullshit, man, you only call when you’re horny,” and hung up. The other call was answered by the babysitter: “Ms. Michaelson is out on a date.” I’d check out the bars. Where else could I now hope to find someone to make love with tonight? I looked in the window of the bar nearest my home. It had a tall, beautiful bartender, but all the customers at the bar but two were men like myself: looking for ass; trying to get into bed with the bartender, who, times I was there, I saw was mainly behind the bar to keep their fantasies going about her while selling them twice as many drinks as they’d normally buy. Did any of them eventually end up with her? I doubted it, so to me it was a losing place.

I went into the next bar a block away. It had always been the best place in the neighborhood to meet women. Always crowded, lots of good music playing, and no professional whores. It was much darker now. Just as crowded. Same kind of music it usually played but much louder. All the customers were men, and they were all gay. Several of them gave me friendly looks. I walked right out. “Say, where are you going? — you’re cute,” one of them said. I looked at the bar’s sign and saw the name hadn’t changed. There was a notice taped from the inside on several of the bar’s small French window panes and one pasted to the lamppost out front:

COME TO THE WEST SIDE’S

NEWEST MEAT RACK

Dancing, inexpensive dining

Taped music during the week

Live combo Friday & Saturday nites

Never a cover, minimum, ripoff or

Commercial hustle of any kind at

Our good place

Peace-loving bartenders

Well-meaning bar owners

Sympathetic landlord

We like nice company too

Bring your closest friends

Probably the best bar for me to go to now was one eight blocks from here. I hardly ever went to it because it was so far away. But plenty of single women used to go there, and it was usually crowded at the bar. So if I saw a woman I was attracted to and she seemed unattached, I could go over and stand next to her while ordering a drink or drinking the one I already held. In other words, it wouldn’t seem unusual my just standing there before I spoke to her.

So I walked to it. It was a chilly night and I was glad to get inside. The place was crowded. Lots of smoke, chatter, laughing, huge television set on without the sound: basketball, and a new super-stereo jukebox playing a loud rock number almost in beat to the dribbling, passing and dunking of the ball.

I looked around as I unbuttoned my coat. Two middle-aged women sat on the bar stools nearest the door. They looked up, seemed to resent the draft I brought in with me. One flicked cigarette ash to the floor, the other fooled with her false eyelash, and they resumed their conversation. Group of young women at the end of the bar by the dartboard. Two of them playing, other two watching. All four drinking beer from the same pitcher. A pretty woman sitting at the middle of the bar, a man on either side of her leaning on the counter and talking to her at once. Another woman standing not too far from them, looking drunk or stoned. She dropped her cigarette, had a hard time finding it, and when she did, picking it up and then trying to relight it though it was still lit. And several other women, at the bar or seated at the three tables in front, young and not so young, heavy, thin, stacked, flat, pretty, very pretty, short, average and tall, all apparently with men. I went almost to the end of the bar, stepped on a guy’s foot along the way, said “Excuse me, I’m sorry,” and then “But I said I’m sorry,” after he growled.

There was only one bartender, running around like mad and also pouring drinks for the waiters and waitresses for the table customers in the next room. I remember him from the bar that had gone gay. He sort of managed it and never poured a free drink in two years and liked to eighty-six people from that place. One time he told a friend of mine to leave because he thought he was drunk. When Jack refused to go because he said he wasn’t drunk, and he wasn’t, Gil phoned the police. Two cops came in about five minutes. Their patrol car was double-parked outside with the emergency roof light spinning. Gil didn’t have to say a word to them, just pointed at Jack. They went straight to him and said “Okay, wise guy — get.” “But I’m not drunk,” Jack said. “I’ll piss in that ketchup bottle and let you take a urine test of it to prove I’m not drunk. But if I am drunk then I got that way here, so why don’t you pull Gil in for selling a drunk beer?” One cop started to unsnap his holster. “I can’t believe it,” I said. “Come on, Jack.” Gil said to me “Good, you’re his pal, you go too.” I said “Jack, goddamn you, let’s go, before you get shot for being a jerk,” and pushed him out the door. He never really forgave me for butting in. He said later “I wanted them to take me to lockup and then for Gil and those freeloading cops to pay with their jobs for that bum rap.”

“How you doing, Gil?” I said.

“Rick’s it, right?”

“Ray.”

“Ray. Ray. Right. Nice to see you.” He stuck his hand across the bar. He always wore the greatest shirts and belts. My clothes were fairly old and drab and getting threadbare from the wash. We shook hands. “What’ll it be?”

“A dark draft.”

“All out. Only in bottles.”

The bottles of dark were German or Danish and too expensive, and besides, I didn’t want to be carrying one around with the stein. I said “Regular draft, then. You got yourself out of Sweeney’s, I see.”

“Came to where I couldn’t make it there, or they couldn’t make me,” and he laughed. I smiled. So we were old friends. He gave me my beer and I paid and put down a good tip. “Appreciated,” and I said “You’re welcome.” I was going to ask if Sweeney’s had new owners — anything to keep the talk going a while longer — but by now he was holding three order slips a waitress had given him and pouring a bar customer white and red wines, and I turned to my left. Those four young women were right by me as I’d planned. The two dart players had each been trying for the last few minutes to end the game with a bull’s-eye. One of the two watching the game looked at me and then away. It was a hard look, a quick put-down for faking my way over here and staring directly at her, not at all interested, never could be interested, go away. The others seemed just as hard, though none looked at me. I didn’t belong in this place. Didn’t belong in any of these bars. It wasn’t my clothes that were old, it was me. And my aim was all wrong: to come here just for a beer, okay, and preferably with a friend so I wouldn’t have to push myself on someone to talk, but not just to find ass. It had never really worked out for me here or in that bar that was now gay or any of the bars around. In the four years since I’d come back to the city it had never worked out once. Closest I came to meeting a woman in any of these bars was right here about a year ago. I looked at her a long time. She was short, blond, lively, had a nice smile, seemed sexy, homey, thoughtful, uncomplicated, and as if she’d be lots of fun. She was talking to a man and every so often looked at me. Once, she smiled at me and I smiled back. Then she left for the ladies’ room and on her way back I touched her arm and said “Excuse me, I know you’re with someone, but I’m drawn to you, plain as that, silly and rude as that has to sound.” She said “No, I think it’s fine. I just met that guy, so I can talk to you, and thought I was the one bugging you before with my occasional stares. You’ve very wistful eyes, that’s why, which you must have been told before and which has to sound sillier or plainer than anything you said to me.” Two stools opened up and we sat at the bar. Admitted that these opening conversation lines were the worst. Laughed, talked, bought each other drinks, had hamburgers and fries. Then about six women — women I didn’t know she’d come in with — came over and one said “Have to be skedaddling now, Lail.” I whispered to her “Stay the night with me — we got something going.” She said she knows, and she would, and she told me before she was a singer and accordionist? Well, it’s with an all-women band and singing group in Florida and they had performed in Brooklyn that afternoon and were on their way to Pittsburgh in half an hour to give a concert tomorrow. We exchanged addresses. I kissed her fingers at the door, in jest and for real. We wrote each other and sometimes I called. Each letter and phone call became more affectionate. Then she didn’t write back. I wrote again and she didn’t answer. I called a few times. The woman who answered always said she’d give Lail my message. Finally I got her on the phone and she said she couldn’t come to New York as I’d been asking her to and I shouldn’t come to Florida to see her as I then said I wanted to, as there was lately another man in her life and marriage seemed a definite possibility. I said “Hell, I’ll marry you,” and she said “Sorry, but with this one I know I’m safe.”

I said to the woman who gave me the hard look before “Come in here often?”

“What?”

“Do you come to this bar often?”

“What if I do?”

“I don’t mean to sound forward.”

“Anyway, I don’t.”

“You don’t mean to sound forward?”

“Funny, funny, funny.”

“Bull’s-eye,” one of the players said.

“She got a bull’s-eye,” I said. “Like to play?”

“No.”

“Any of you other ladies care to take me up on my challenge?”

“Got a bad arm,” the other woman who’d watched the game said.

“Had enough…. Game’s too slow,” the two players said.

“Might go faster if we teamed up and just one person watched,” I said.

“I think we’ve all had it,” the hard one said. “As spectators and playing.”

“Terrible drudge, darts,” I said.

Then why’d you want to play?”

“I’m very lousy at this talk.”

“What talk?”

This talk. Bar talk. This bullcrap bar talk. This get-together-and-say-something-to-meet-one-another and introductory-interrogatory male-female what-I’m-not-talking-to-you talk.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t try it then,” one of the others said.

“Shh,” the hard one said. They all looked at one another, were holding their laughs in. Screw it: they thought I was foolish or smashed or insane.

“Nothing,” I said. “Zero. Zip. Goose eggs. Blah. What am I doing in here? Excuse me.”

“You’re excused,” she said.

They all laughed.

“Oh, you’re all so dear,” I said.

“You’re right; we are, we are.”

“I know. It’s what I said. You’re all very dear. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye…Goodbye…Goodbye,” her three friends said.

I left. Went home and lay down on my bed with my shoes and clothes on and read, listened to the radio — a talk show, then music — drank, read, drank. I still wanted some ass. I didn’t know any women to fool around with except the two I called. Both I hadn’t spoken to in months. Where were the other women I once knew? Where were all my men friends? Married. With women. Gone. drunks. Fathers. Abroad. Big successes. A suicide. Turned bisexual. One put away. Another put himself away. Not friends. I didn’t know or want to continue to know just about anyone. Ass. That’s what I still wanted. There were other bars. Two others around here and both had prostitutes. So I’d pay. A prostitute cost more money than I could afford, but tonight I’d pay. I could get the clap. I didn’t care. I cared, but I’d take the chance. I never got it yet. I’d be very careful. The thought of getting it never stopped me before, and I could always get a shot. I put on my coat and left the apartment. “Nah,” I said when I reached the street, “I could also get arrested as a john or robbed and mugged.”

THE CHOCOLATE SAMPLER

“I’m telling you,” Mr. Hyman said, “the baby’s beautiful. Just beautiful.”

“You really like him, Dad?” Sylvia said.

“Like him? My God, what do you think?”

“I mean, he’s really funny looking in his way, isn’t he?”

“He’s wonderful. A grandson like that is just wonderful.”

“Who do you think he looks like?”

“Well,” he said, glancing coyly at his son-in-law, “and remember, I only saw it from behind the nursery window, he looks like none of you. Tell me, Sylvia, who was the other guy?”

That’s a nice joke to make the day your only child has a baby.”

“Don’t get touchy. I was only kidding.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You want my seat, Hank? You must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine, Dad, thanks.”

“You think they’d give more than one chair in the room,” Mr. Hyman said, “even if nobody’s in the other bed.”

“I’m sure there was another and they took it out for some reason. I’ll just lean against this.”

“And you, my darling,” he said to Sylvia. “You look tired and pale. Place quiet enough to get a nap in?”

The hospital’s great, Dad — really. Good service and everything.”

“Food’s good?”

“It’s better than that. You get choices like I’ve never seen in a hospital. This afternoon, for instance, they let me have things my doctor ordered me to stay away from during my pregnancy. The aide comes in and says ‘Want this?’ and I tell her ‘Are you for real?’ Here — chocolates like this box you brought me? Well, before, never, because of some diabetic thing, but now I can eat them till I get sick. Take one, Dad.”

“No, thanks.”

“Go on. They’re just going to be eaten by the nurses and me if you don’t.”

“Okay, so you broke my arm.”

He picked out a round chocolate with a little loop on top, removed the paper holder and dropped the candy into his mouth, Splitting it in two with his back teeth and drawing out the juices with his tongue, he saw Sylvia and Hank looking at him, so he smiled, chewed more ambitiously than he normally would, and said “It’s good. Very good.”

“Whitman’s makes some of the best chocolates around,” she said.

This I didn’t know when I bought it. I just bought, that’s all.”

“So what time you think you’ll be heading back?” Hank said, placing the wrapper Mr. Hyman had put on the side table into the waste basket.

“I just came,” he said, laughing. “Let me at least look at my grandson again.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant — well, you know: tonight. Later. When we go.”

“Ohhh — twelve o’clock, maybe. Tomorrow’s no work, so it makes no difference when I get back.”

“Was it a good trip coming here?”

“It’s amazing, Hank. Four hours or a little more than that by bus, and that’s it. Red Carpet Service, Trailways calls it, with a real red carpet running down the middle of the aisle. Give you a mealy pillow, a real hostess to assist you, she said. I never knew such a bargain existed till a friend told me last week.”

“What’d you eat?” Sylvia said.

“Well, they don’t give you a real meal, but for eighty-nine cents more a ticket than regular fare, you can’t expect one.”

“But what was it you had?”

“A choice of deviled egg or ham sandwich. I had deviled egg plus some orange juice in the beginning and tea later.”

“But you never liked deviled egg that I can remember.”

This was pretty good, though, and I was hungry. Look, I was thinking I should see the baby again before they close the nursery.”

“Anything you want, Dad.”

“Like to come too, Hank?”

“I saw the kid plenty today. Thanks.”

He waved at them as he left the room, went down the corridor and stopped before a window with six babies behind it. Two of the babies were crying, one with a tag above its head labeled: C-25, Riner Baby — Male. He pointed at him and tapped the window and said “Hello. Hello, beautiful one. There, already with a mouth like your little mother, am I right? That’s the way she was then, crying, crying. But you’ll wake up everyone around you and they won’t like you, you know. Shh, shh. Go to sleep like something good. Everybody will love you if you do.” He made a few funny faces at his grandson and then waved and smiled at the other crying baby.

“So?” Hank said in the hospital room. “Do you have any idea what I’m supposed to do with him?”

“Something, I guess,” Sylvia said.

“What do you mean ‘Something, I guess’? Is that supposed to be an answer?”

“Just something, something. Anyway, he’ll be gone tonight, so what’s the big deal?”

“But it’s almost nine now, and I got to walk out of here when they close this place and think of something to do about him.”

Then take him to Lucine and Dave’s for dinner.”

“You know they invited me and not him. And I’ve already imposed on them by getting there so late.”

They wouldn’t mind that much.”

“I’d mind. They didn’t know your old man was coming down. No, it wouldn’t be right.”

“So who knew?” She pointed to her chest. “I knew?”

“Okay, so nobody knew, but must everybody suffer? Why did he even come down so quickly in the first place?”

“Maybe because you sent him a telegram of the birth.”

“But I didn’t know he’d rush right down. And you told me to telegram him.”

“I think he had a right to know — don’t you?”

“Of course. I didn’t say no.”

“So think, then. Think of something.”

“I’m thinking,” he said. “I’m thinking.”

He sat in the chair facing her and put his hand on his forehead. Sylvia lay on her back, her belly, knees and feet making large bumps in the sheet, her head propped up on two pillows. Think of anything yet?”

“I’m still thinking.” His eyes followed the second hand on his watch.

“Maybe you can get him to go back earlier. Tell him you got something important to do. You know: something involving business and that the dinner you’re going to is part of it. He knows business and respects it.”

“Oh yeah. Your dad really knows business.”

“Just tell him that!”

“I can’t think of anything better, so I guess I’ll have to.” He looked at her. “You know, you really look like you’re struggling. You need anything to help?”

When Mr. Hyman returned, his hand on his cheek and his head shaking back and forth and smiling, Hank offered him the chair.

“Don’t need it,” he said. “After seeing that boy I could stand and dance all night. I’ll tell you, he’s something. A knockout.”

“I’m glad you like him, Dad,” Sylvia said.

“Like him? Out of all the kids there, and I studied each of them, he was the nicest looking of all. I don’t want to start anything again, but where he got that nose from, I’ll never know. A small one like that you don’t often get in my family. And when Sylvia married you, Hank, nice a nose as you got, I thought a very small nose your kids will never get. But you got. And two gorgeous blue eyes also.”

The doctor doesn’t think they’ll stay that way,” Sylvia said. “Probably get darker the next few months.”

“Maybe it’s for the better. Because what would my neighbors think if I brought around a grandson like that with blue eyes and such a small nose. ‘So Sylvia married a Gentile?’ they’d say.”

“Tell them not to worry,” Hank said.

“Worries like that I should have all my life. But let me tell you, worries about Sylvia’s birth I had plenty. Did I worry.” He looked around, tried sitting on the arm of the chair Hank was in, then stood and said “You know, it’s really beyond me why they don’t have more than one chair in the room.”

“Take mine,” Hank said, getting up.

“No, sit, sit.”

Then I’ll call someone here and get you one.”

“Don’t bother. A big hospital chair like this one is too heavy for someone to lug in. But tell me. What are you paying for all this, if it’s all right to ask?”

“Too much,” Hank said. “But thanks to your gift, we’ll be able to squeak through just fine.”

“I wish I could’ve given more. Sylvia tells me your folks gave a real nice little something also. That’s very kind of them, tell them from me. In fact, when I get back I was thinking I’d phone them and say everything here is just dandy.”

“I called and told them,” Hank said, “and they’ll be here in a couple of days.”

“So I’ll call them also and tell them. No harm in that. But let me tell you how surprised I was when I got your wire. I nearly fell off the chair I read it in — that’s the truth. ‘A boy,’ I said. ‘My first grandchild and it’s a boy, and weeks early, no less.’ Her mother in Boston should only feel as happy as I did. And that little weasel she married also.”

“You should have heard her,” Hank said, laughing. “She called before you got here and first thing she says is all this psychological stuff she’s always reading about and spouting, and what’s good for the newborn infant and so on — things like that.”

“I hope you took it all with a grain of salt.”

“Mom only meant well,” Sylvia said. The baby was a little premature, so she was naturally worried.”

“Of course she meant well,” Hank said. “And she’s been all right. Helped us out plenty when we needed it, plenty, so I’m not about to gripe. But when she gets into that psychiatric and Freudian and Dr. Spock bushwah, well, let me out — know what I mean, Dad?”

Mr. Hyman nodded, took a candy from the box, peeled off the gold wrapping, and stuck it into his mouth. “It’s cream filled. I thought it was a cherry.”

“You want one with a cherry?” Sylvia said.

“Sure, if nobody else does. They have them in the box? Didn’t know. Just bought it without asking.”

They do, and a whole set of instructions also. That’s why it’s called a Whitman’s Sampler — so you can sample any of their assortment. Here,” and she pointed to the chart on the inside cover of the box.

“Chocolate Butter Cream — third square in, second row from the top; that’s what you just got.” She dug into the box where the chart said Liquid Cherry would be, removed the wrapping and gave the candy to her father. He bit the top half off, held the bottom half, which still had white liquid in it, and said “You know, you’re right. It’s a cherry. I got it in my mouth right now.”

“Told you. You can get whatever you want just by looking at the squares here, and it has an identical layer underneath.”

“It’s really something,” he said. “Anyway, Hank’s telegram was a terrific surprise. I thought three weeks from now, a month. I immediately dropped what I was doing, called you — you weren’t home, of course, or at work — and took the bus to Washington, though when I got off I realized I didn’t even know what hospital Sylvia was in. Hank didn’t say so in the telegram — just his congratulations. So I called a couple of hospitals I found in the phonebook and they didn’t know, till I asked one operator what’s the biggest hospital in Washington, because I remember you once said that’s where you’d be. She said ‘Washington Hospital Center you must mean,’ so I called and they said you were here. You should’ve told me what hospital, Hank, but doesn’t matter. And it’s some place, eh? Biggest and nicest for its size I ever saw.”

“Dad,” Sylvia said. “What are your plans for later tonight?”

“I thought I’d take the proud papa out for dinner before leaving.”

“I can’t,” Hank said. “I already got some place to go to. A sort of dinner-business engagement, you might say. Something I couldn’t put off even if Sylvia were having the baby tonight, and I’ve already delayed it a couple of hours.”

“So you go even an hour later. For coffee and cake — around then. Business deals always work out best around that time.”

“You got a good point, Dad, but I can’t. Let’s face it — the kid’s here now and I can’t afford to pass up any chance for a sure buck.”

“So you can’t, then.”

“But what are you going to do?” Sylvia said. “I don’t want you walking around alone and maybe getting mugged. This can be a dangerous city.”

“I’ll go home by bus like I planned.”

“Why not take an earlier one?”

“Because I want to take it at eleven or twelve. I’ll have dinner in some nice place near the station and then sleep on the bus. It sort of rolls you, you know?”

“But you won’t be getting in till four or five in the morning,” she said. That’s why I’m concerned.”

That’s not so late for me. Sometimes when I get through cleaning and setting up at the deli and then having breakfast someplace with the other waiters, I also don’t get home till four or five. By the way, you must be tired, sweetheart, so I think we better go before they kick us out.” He opened the closet door to get his coat. Sylvia, with one eye on her father, mouthed to Hank that the least he could do was have a celebration drink with him before going to dinner, but Hank pointed to his watch, flapped his hand to tell her to forget the matter, then sliced the hand sideways through the air to say the incident was closed.

When Mr. Hyman had put on his heavy overcoat, he said “You know, I didn’t sleep coming here on the bus I was so excited, but going back? Like a log I’ll sleep.”

“You’re lucky,” Hank said. “I could never do that.”

“It’s something you almost got to be born with, I think. He kissed Sylvia’s forehead, patted her hand as he told her how happy she had made him today, and said to Hank “I’ll go downstairs and wait for you in the coffee shop, okay?”

“I won’t have time for a coffee, Dad — I’m sorry. I’m much too late as it is.”

“One coffee, what’s that? It’s the least I can do for you.”

“Have a good trip back,” Sylvia said. “And remember. Soon as we set things up in the apartment with the baby, we’ll have you down for a weekend, all right?”

“And I’ll bring him a little something that’ll knock your eyes out when I come. Something just beautiful,” and he blew a kiss to her and left the room. He walked down the corridor, feeling tired for the first time since he got to Washington, and stopped at the nursery. All the shades were down. Without bending down, he tried looking under the shade of the window his grandson was behind, but couldn’t see anything but a small section of the floor. Then he saw a woman’s white shoes, another pair of shoes and white stockings, and for a moment the bottom of a white uniform when the first woman came nearer. He tapped the window, thinking maybe they’d raise the shade so he could have a last quick look at his grandson, but neither of them did.

“For a moment there I really thought I was lost,” Hank said.

The least you could’ve agreed to was a coffee with him,” Sylvia said. “After all.”

“He’s down there now waiting for me, so I still have that problem to contend with.”

“But coffee, Hank. Because how long would that take?”

“Too long. You know your old man’s not one to let go with just one coffee. But that’s still not my reason. If I had the time, I’d do it.”

“Oh, well,” she said, brightening up. “Tell Lucille all about everything, and that tomorrow’s my last full day here and I’ll be able to get calls and have as many visitors as I want. Did she say what she’s serving tonight?”

“Whatever it is, you can be sure it’ll be cold.”

“Not Lucille.” She took a candy out of the box. “You know,” waving it in front of her, “you really get to miss these things when you know you can’t have them.”

“Candy never made that much difference to me.”

“Me, neither. That’s what I mean.”

He motioned with his head to the other bed, which had a rolled-up mattress on it. “When they going to fill up that thing?”

“Tomorrow, they tell me.”

“It’s nice here like it is. Like a private room, almost, though without paying for one.”

“But there’s enough noise on this floor for an entire girls’ dorm. I think I’m going to hate it here by tomorrow.”

“You’ll be home in two days, so don’t worry.” He leaned over and kissed her lips. When he started to raise his head, her arm, still wrapped around his neck, drew him down again.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said, pecking his mouth.

“It sure is.”

“I mean, the whole thing, Hank. Everything.”

“I’m telling you, honey, if you were a man I’d give you a cigar. And the best too — not those cheap things other new fathers give out — because that’s how happy I feel. Practically every guy I met got one. Gave out almost a box today.”

“Do you like the name Gavin?”

“We picked it out, didn’t we? Goes well: Gavin Riner.”

“Have you thought more about a middle name?”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have one — not every kid does. Maybe we should just give him a middle initial and leave it at that.”

Then everybody would ask what it stood for. No. Besides which, I never heard it done that way.”

“I was only kidding, Syl. Just a joke.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “But think of a few tonight, okay? And I will too.”

“Right — and now I think I better go.” He reached for his coat in the closet. “Christ, I bet Lucille and Dave will be fuming.”

“Not on your life, they won’t.” When he looked as if he didn’t understand her, she pointed to her belly: The baby, dummy, the baby.”

He leaned across the bed while inserting his arms in the coat sleeves and kissed her on the lips with a sticky smack. Then he drum-tapped his fingers along the table till they reached the candy box, and moved his index finger across and down the chart. Finding what he wanted, he pulled out a chocolate and bit into it. She nudged him to show it to her, and he held up the part he hadn’t eaten. It was coconut filled.

REINSERTION

“Dad?” Andy said. “Dad, you asleep?”

His father’s eyes opened. He weakly shook his head that he wasn’t asleep.

“How do you feel tonight? — Dad, you hear me? I’m asking how you feel.”

His father was on his side, cheek pressed against his shiny hands, which were clasped together on the pillow. Three other Parkinson’s patients shared the room. The one next to his father was completely bald and bony and looked cadaverous, his mouth hanging wide open and his hands grasping for imaginary hornets and other wasps above his head and on his face and pillow. “Get that one,” the man said. “Get that yellow jacket or I can’t sleep, I won’t.” Then he was quiet, his mouth — a hole — still open, eyes shut tight, his teeth in an uncapped paper coffee container on the side table.

“You shouldn’t be in this room,” Andy said to his father.

His father’s frozen stare moved slowly to a glass of flowers on his side table, which the hospital’s women volunteer group had brought over during the day with a get-well card.

They’re pretty, aren’t they,” Andy said.

His father nodded.

“I would’ve brought some myself, and much bigger ones also. But remember last time when they couldn’t find a vase in time and the damn things just died?”

His father tried to smile but gave up and shut his eyes.

“You want to sleep some more? That it? Well, you just sleep, go ahead, and I’ll get a chair here and relax a little while you’re napping. I don’t mind.”

“Every time…every time…every time…”

“Every time what?”

“My mind…my mind…my mind every time…every time…”

“I still don’t get it, Pop. You’ll have to make more sense.”

His father shook his head in disgust.

“Something about how you feel?”

He continued to shake his head.

“Maybe you want the nurse. Do you want the nurse? If you do, just say so and I’ll run straight out of here and get her for you.”

He shook his head, his expression even more disgusted.

“You don’t? Well, then maybe—”

“My mind…my mind…goddamnit, I’m incomprehensible, Andy.”

“Don’t worry about it. Because look at you, with your sudden rage and articulateness. You’re getting better, can’t you see? You’ll be back to your old grouchy self in no time. And ‘incomprehensible’? A word I never heard you use before, except to repeat it mockingly whenever I used it.”

The nurse said…”

“Yes?”

The nurse said…the nurse said every time my mind…my mind every time…”

“Dad, come on, give it a rest.” He took his hand. It was cold, just as before the operation, so what good had it done? The first one turned out to be a failure. And when he and his sister brought him back to be examined the doctors said that, as they had previously warned, it was necessary to reoperate on about ten percent of the cases; drilling deeper and reinserting the tube into the patient’s skull and freezing that part of the thalamus they had missed. But they had never mentioned the possibility of reinsertion. All they said was that three to four percent of the patients never fully recover from the operation and another one percent die on the table, almost always because of a previous cardiac condition the desperate patient and family hadn’t disclosed. Andy and his sister hadn’t wanted him to go through it again, but he insisted. “For what good am I the way I am? A burden, a good-for-nothing burden on everyone if I don’t get myself fixed up quick and back to work. And you want to see all my money disappear and then yours too?”

“Dad?” Andy said. “Your hand feels wonderful…it really does.”

“Every time…every time…”

“Dad, let me see you give me one of your real good handshakes.”

“Someone,” the patient in the next bed said, “someone get that yellow jacket…that hornet on the lamp. Now get that one. I said get that one.”

That poor man,” Andy said. “Does he bother you much?”

But he was still trying to squeeze Andy’s hand.

“Say, now that’s what I call a grip. You’re getting much stronger. Why, I bet in a few days—”

“In a few days…”

“In a few days you’ll be able to pull out teeth just as you used to. I’m not kidding. The surgeon said they got it all this operation. That you’re really going to be able to walk by yourself this time.”

This time…this time…”

“Don’t repeat everything I say, Dad.”

“Every time my mind…my mind…it’s my godawful mind, Andy,” and he shut his eyes and seemed to be dozing off.

That’s fine, Dad — you sleep. I’ll just sit here — till closing, even. I promise.”

“Yellow jackets…wasps…hornets,” the other patient said. “Huge hornets and flying stinging ants. Iowa’s full of them, all trying to keep a working man from his sleep.”

He snapped his hands in the air at the insects. Then his feet began tremoring and his legs jerked up and down under the covers and his hands thumped the mattress. “Yellow jackets and hornets and flying stinging ants…”

“Flying stinging ants,” Andy’s father said, his eyes still closed.

That’s right. Huge stinging ants. Iowa’s full of them, the rotten pests. They’ll kill you.” Then the two men were quiet, their sleeps seemingly untroubled. Andy waited a few minutes, felt his father was really asleep this time, and left the room.

He took the elevator to the cafeteria on the fifth floor, got a cruller and coffee, looked around for a place to sit and saw, seated at the rear of the room, the surgeon who’d operated on his father. He went over to him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I wonder if I could talk to you for a moment.” The young doctor peered up from the coffee he’d been sipping. The nurse beside him whom he’d been talking to, cut his jelly doughnut in half with a fork.

“Pardon me?” the doctor said.

“I’m Herman Waxman’s son — Mr. Waxman on the seventh floor?”

“Oh, sure. Nice to meet you. I’ll be on that floor in fifteen minutes, so why don’t I speak to you then?”

“I might not see you. You fellows seem to come through the floor so rapidly that I’ve missed you each time. And I work late and can’t get here every night.”

“Tonight I promise I’ll be there at eight sharp. I’ll be making my rounds of all the Parkinsonians then, and I’ll make a point of looking for you.”

“Your coffee’s getting cold, Dr. Gershgorn,” the nurse said.

“Would you mind very much if I had my coffee with you?” Andy said to him. “I’ve some important questions to ask about my father’s operation.”

“Mr. Waxman,” the doctor said. “I appreciate and understand your interest and concern and all, but this is my one breaking during an uninterrupted five-hour stretch.”

“Just tell me if his operation was a success or not.”

“If I can remember correctly, your dad’s coming along nicely.”

“But his hands are still cold, and almost rigid. And when you saw him in that preoperative exam two weeks ago you said his hands would become warmer and have more movement after the operation. And there seems to be some damage to his speech and mind — even worse than before the first operation.”

“I don’t recall getting any reports on that. Maybe your dad is still drowsy.”

“But it was like that last night. And the nights and days before that, my sister said.”

“Well, so soon after an operation—”

The operation was a week ago, if you’d really like to know.”

“Now listen, Mr. Waxman. It’s impossible for me to talk accurately about this without his charts and records, so what do you say I see you upstairs?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m saying…well, I’m not trying to be evasive or anything, but this is a cafeteria.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. My apologies to you both,” and still holding his tray, he excused himself and made his way to a table across the room. A woman, whom he’d seen in his father’s room but mostly in the visitors’ lounge down the corridor, where she was always smoking, got up from another table and sat opposite him.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she said. “It’s only you’re the one person, other than staff, I recognize here, and I hate having coffee alone.”

“It’s fine; sit.” He reached for the sugar dispenser.

“I see you also like your coffee sweet,” she said.

“I usually drink it with nothing, but this hospital coffee’s such vile stuff that I—”

That Mr. Waxman — he’s your father, isn’t he?”

That’s right.”

“A sweet old man — just wonderful. Everyone on the floor loves him. He’s a lucky man also, having a son who lives close by, coming to see him so much. Don’t worry, your lovely sister told me all about you and your important TV news work. It sounds very interesting. And it’s nice that he also has a daughter who takes care of him the way she does.”

“Sheila’s devoted to him. She and Dad have always been close.”

That’s wonderful. Now the two boys of my poor husband — you can have as a gift. I’m not even sure they remember he’s alive.”

“Did your husband go through a similar operation?”

“Similar? The same. There’s only one way to cure them so far, and that’s the one they both went through. And now reinsertion also, drilling away like they were oilmen digging for riches, instead of well-paid surgeons. But he wanted it. Oh, we couldn’t talk him out of it for the world. But it won’t do him any good. And for this factory here to go ahead with it and take the last of our savings, was like taking candy from a baby — literally. Have you noticed him grabbing for hornets and such?”

That’s your husband?”

“Myron Dodd, bed number B. He did the same thing after the first operation for a week, and also repeating everything he heard, exactly like your dad does. And last time they also discharged him, saying he was in terrific shape — you should have seen how convinced the doctors were. And in a way he was, walking and speaking fairly well and gaining weight and using his hands as he hadn’t done in years. But three weeks after we got him home he collapsed in his chair as he was trying to push a hole through his baked potato, so you can see why I say it’ll happen again.”

“I’m sure it won’t. Just by the statistics they give, the second operation has a much greater chance of success.”

“Oh, no. I hate to admit it. What I’m saying is I hate to be the prophet of doom or callous or a person like that, because I know your family is no better off financially or any other way with your problems. But I have a vegetable on my hands for the rest of my life, and so do you. I don’t know where we’re ever going to get the money.”

His father was the only patient awake when they entered the room.

“Andy? That you?”

“He’s here, Mr. W.,” Mrs. Dodd said, stroking his cheek, “so don’t be worrying none. You’ve a very nice boy here. And we’ve just had a pleasant chat and I assured him everything’s going to be all right with you. You’re a lucky man, Mr. W., a very lucky man.” Then she went over to the other patients in the room, made sure they were covered, and sat on her husband’s bed.

“Andy — where are you?”

“Right beside you, Dad. Anything wrong?”

“You’re here? Good.” He moved his hand through the bed rail.

“You want to take my hand?”

He nodded and Andy held his father’s hand and kissed his forehead. Then his father said “Lila? Your mother, Lila…I mean…”

“She’s home.”

“Home?”

“Her home. You’ve been divorced close to ten years, don’t you remember? You live alone with Sheila now.”

“And you?”

“You know I live alone too.”

“You come and live with us too — understand?”

“You’re speaking much better now, Dad.”

“Nice girl, nice woman, your mother.” The thought seemed to please him. “We never should’ve split up. It was bad for you kids.”

“I don’t know. It was good for you two, so I guess good for us.”

“No, no. Never should’ve split up.”

“Okay, if you say so. And you really are speaking much better. Keep it up and you’ll be out of this place in a week.”

“Nice woman, very pretty. Came from a good family, true class. Why isn’t she with us, Andy? I mean, I mean, you think after marriage to one woman for twenty years…thirty years…”

“Mom told me she wants to come. I spoke to her yesterday and she was very eager to know everything about you. But coming here means leaving her job early. Also, the long subway ride at night, and this dangerous neighborhood. It’s too much for any woman, Dad.”

The daytime. The daytime every time the daytime, Andy.”

“Try and go back to sleep, Dad. Just rest.”

“But the daytime, Andy. She has a day off Wednesday in the daytime — I know. And Sunday all day.”

“You mean you think she ought to come during the day? I’ll suggest that to her. She wants to come badly. She told me so just yesterday.”

“Today. She’ll come today and I’ll be better, Andy.”

“I’ll tell her. She’s very concerned about you — as much as Sheila and I are.”

“I know. A lovely woman. If we would’ve stayed together this wouldn’t have happened. She knew how to take care of me best. Call her again. Tell her to come. Do me a favor.”

“Right after closing tonight I’ll call her. I’m sure she’ll be here in the next few days.”

“Few days?” He looked puzzled. “Few days? Few days?”

“Don’t be repeating everything I say. It’s not good for you.”

“You and Sheila and she come next few days, Andy, and I’ll be better.”

“I know you’ll be better also.”

“Also, Andy…”

“Also what, Dad?”

“Also what, Dad?”

“Dad, please. Now I already asked you not to repeat everything I say. Just please.”

“Please,” he said, shutting his eyes. “Please, Andy…please, just please.” Then he seemed to be asleep. Andy, still holding his father’s fingers through the bed rail, opened a newspaper in his lap with his free hand. When he raised his wrist to look at his watch, Mrs. Dodd, sitting beside her sleeping husband with her arm around his shoulders, called out from across the beds “We got more than half an hour yet. I checked. I check every five minutes, in fact. It’s some ordeal, isn’t it?”

ONE THING

I said I only have one thing on my mind to tell her. She didn’t ask what. Sat there, reading, looking over her shoulder out the window. Then at her hand. Way she was holding it, in what I’d call a relaxed fist, probably her nails. Shut her eyes, seemed to be drifting into thought. Then, when her face tightened, into deep thought. Opened her eyes — popped them open, is more like it, and still without looking at me. She was looking to the side at the coat rack filled and covered with our sweaters, hats, coats and scarves. Seemed about to say something, to me without looking at me or to herself aloud. But she closed her mouth, shook her head, began blinking rapidly as if she had a tic, which she never had before that I was aware of, so I didn’t know what to make of it. Blinking stopped, and her irises rose till they were partly hidden by her eyelids. I’d seen her do that before. Put her finger to the inner corner of her right eye as if she was trying to take something out of it. That speck, if that was it, could have been what caused the blinking before, or the blinking might have been her way to get rid of it. Wiped the finger on the back of her other hand. Looked at where she’d wiped. From where I was sitting opposite her — about ten feet away — I couldn’t see anything there. Then the book slid off her lap and the bookmark fell out. Could be she forgot she was holding it. Could even be that for the last half minute or so she’d intentionally let it rest on her lap without holding it. Book made a noise when it hit the floor and the sound startled her. Leaned over, picked the book and bookmark up, slipped the bookmark into the book and seemed to look for the page she’d left off at. Seemed to find it, because she held the book in front of her and resumed reading. After that: little motions of her face, eyes and hands, though none to me. And her foot tapping intermittently, not because of a tic but out of impatience it seemed. All while she was reading or pretending to read, because in more than five minutes — and she was a fast reader — she still hadn’t turned the page. I wanted to say “As I was saying before, I only have one thing, or you could even say ‘one point’ on my mind to tell you,” but didn’t think she’d respond in any way no matter what I said or how urgently or emphatically I said it. By taking her eyes off the book, for instance. By looking at me. By saying she heard me the first time. By saying something like “I know what you’re going to say, knew what you were going to say the first time, didn’t think much of it then and don’t think much of it now, so don’t bother saying it.”

She seemed completely removed from me, and not because she was too absorbed in the book to look up or say anything. She knew as well as I that it was a dull and almost unreadable book. Unreadable meaning a chore to read because it was so dully and unimaginatively written and had so little to say. That there was nothing new or intriguing about it. Nothing about it in subject, style, structure or whatever else there is that makes a book interesting and rewarding and grabs your attention from the start and holds it, or the kind of attention she was pretending to give it. When she suddenly looked up. Not at me but at everything else in the room: coat rack, window, wall art we’d collected individually, before we knew each other, and together; her book again, which was back in her lap, or maybe, she was just looking at her lap. Who knows with her, but that’s it, I thought, and I stood up and went to the kitchen. Thought I’d make myself coffee or tea. Even a hot chocolate, which I hadn’t had in years and didn’t even know if we had any hot chocolate mix, or mug of vegetable broth made from a cube. Then got so angry right after I grabbed the kettle to put water in that I slammed it down. At her for ignoring me. For using the book as an excuse not to look at or listen or talk to me. And everything else in the room and on her person like that as a device against me. Ran back to the living room. Didn’t actually run but sort of walked quickly, still angry and pumped up to say what I thought of her treatment of me. All the improvisations and stratagems or just tricks, I’ll call them. Her nails, which didn’t seem in need of any further trimming or cleaning. Coat rack — maybe something to do with it being so filled it might topple over, but it had to be looked at three to four times? And what could be out the window that wasn’t there when she looked a minute before? Same tree with the same bloom. Same back fence in no need of repair. Same redwood picnic table and four plastic chairs. Patch of grass I mowed a few days ago and bushes I recently clipped. Maybe a bird standing on one of those or fluttering in place in the air before flying off. That would be something worth looking at if it was that, for a short time at least. But she still, if just for a few seconds, could have given some sign she was prepared to listen to me. All to most of which I was about to tell her, when she started smiling. Not to me but the book on her lap. Something in it was making her smile, it seemed. Or maybe she was just looking at the book but smiling at what she sensed I was about to say because of the way I’d stormed in here and possibly over that one-thing-on-my-mind I’d never got to say. If it was the book, then something in it that reminded her of something else that was funny. Or a passage or line in the book that was so bad she had to smile. Or she recalled something that made her smile that had nothing to do with the book or me. Or maybe something to do with me but not part of my storming in or that one-thing-on-my-mind-to-say. Something we once did together that was pleasant or funny or both. Something either of us had said to the other or our child had said or done to one of us or both. Or anything. But she’d smiled and was still smiling, so how could I go up to her angrily and berate her about something when she was like that? It’d seem awful or just not the right moment or totally out of sync or whack. Anyway, it’d be a lot more difficult to do than when she wasn’t smiling disparagingly or cynically or any other way like that at me. And her smile was real. I know her too long not to know that a smile like that can’t be faked. So I turned around, thought of going back to the kitchen to make coffee or one of those other drinks. Thought also of turning back to her and saying there was still one thing on my mind I wanted to tell her, since what was on my mind then and was still on it now had nothing to do with any criticism or dissatisfaction with her. Thought to ask if she had any idea what that one thing on my mind was that I’d wanted to tell her, for I now forget what it specifically was. Thought also of asking what she was still smiling at. But she looked so content smiling that I didn’t want to distract her from whatever was causing it. I just wanted to sit down opposite her and look at her face made even lovelier by her smile. And then perhaps, when she was finished smiling, ask if she had any idea what I’d started out to say before about that one thing. It was something concerning the two of us, I remember, and as a result, our child. That’s right: that it was silly to continue fighting when we know we always eventually work it out. And work it out to such a degree that we always feel good about each other after, and as a result, our child feels better. So why don’t we take a shortcut this time and forget what’s eating us about the other and sit together and talk about things the way we do when we’re feeling good with each other? She stopped smiling and looked up from her book at me. I smiled, was about to sit in the chair opposite her. She looked down at the book in her lap without smiling. I thought “Give it time,” and went into the kitchen to get away from her and not — at least it wasn’t in my mind at the moment — for anything to drink.

DAWN

Lately she’s been giving me signs. We were to meet at an art gallery opening and before she got there a woman said of the two paintings I was standing in front of “Look at that. ‘January 75. January 75.’ How can the painter do even one complicated work like that in a month with so many perfect squiggly lines on top of lines when today’s the 23^rd and they had to have been here by the 22^nd and then before that taken a few days to dry?” I said “I’m not a painter. But you can get that effect by painting one layer of acrylic over a lighter colored layer after the first one’s dried, which only takes an hour or two.” She said “Acrylic, what’s that?” and I told her and she thanked me and walked away and a few minutes later Dawn came. We kissed hello and drank some champagne and talked to a few people she knew and looked at the paintings and got our coats and were about to leave when she said “Let me go to the ladies’ room first.” While she was gone that woman of before came over and said “Oh, you’re leaving? Tell me, what do you do if you’re not an artist?” and I said “I write.” She said “And I play the piano. What do you write, journalism?” and I said “Fiction.” “And I’m a concert pianist. You’ve been published?” and I said “A couple of books,” and she said “Well, good for you. You like Mozart?” “Yes.” “Scriabin?” “Sure. Scriabin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky why not?” “You should feel very at home here — this is a Russian gallery. Tell you what. I love to read. So send me your books and in return I’ll send you tickets to my next recital.” “All right.” “Better yet, drop them off at my apartment and we’ll have coffee and talk some more and then when I get the tickets I’ll send them to you. I live in the Osborne — one block west on 57^th here. I’m always practicing between ten and three every day of the week, though I don’t mind being interrupted for a short while. My name’s Sue Heissmatt — with an e, I and double-s. Yours is what?” “Vic White.” “Okay, Vic. I haven’t read you but I’m looking forward to it. You have my name and where I live and hours I’m sure to be in, without writing it down?” “It’s in my head.” “Good. Then hope to see you soon,” and we shook hands and she went to the drink table. Dawn returned, and on the street I said “I met a woman there and we got to talking about the paintings we both knew little about and then she started with what we each do. ‘Oh, I’m a writer,’ and ‘I’m a pianist,’ and after a minute’s total conversation she said why don’t I come to her apartment at the Osborne over there one day soon and bring some of my published work along, and in exchange she’ll give me tickets to her next recital.” “You should do that,” and I said “But I’m not interested in her and I don’t want to just screw around.” “Why not? Every now and then you ought to give things a chance rather than only imagining in your head or on paper how they’ll turn out. She might be fun, but do what you want.”

A few days later Dawn drove into the city for dinner with me. She yawned at the restaurant a lot and didn’t talk much or seem interested in anything I said or our food. And whatever touching was done on or under the table she did reluctantly, it seemed, and as briefly as she could without trying to make me wonder about it or upset me. When we were walking back to her car, she said “If you had a phone I would have called to say I was too tired to come tonight, and I can’t stay either. Now I hate even thinking how I’m going to make it home.” “I’ll drive you,” and she said “You don’t have to, I’ll make it some way.” “But if you’re so sleepy, what could be better than not driving off the road, and later being carried from car to soft bed? Just let me stop off for my typewriter and writing work,” and she said “Really, I appreciate your offer, and any other time you know I’d accept. But I’m going to be extremely busy grading exam papers the next three nights, and I can always get it done much faster when you’re not around, all right?” “Of course,” and she said “Great, because I’m too bushed to even think about it anymore, and didn’t want it turning into another big thing.” I said “Another? When was the last other? I’m sorry, excuse me, forget it,” and she said Thanks, lovie.” We kissed goodnight and she got into her car. I blew her a kiss and started back to my building, and a few seconds later she passed me without tapping the horn and waving or even looking at me as she usually did.

I called two nights later and said “How you feeling?” and she said “Tired, bored, overworked, hassled, crotchety, queasy and very unrested, but once I get these exams done and grades in, I’ll perk up,” and I said “I miss sleeping with you, and I’m speaking about just sleeping,” and she said “Sleeping alone was never nearly as good as with a warm partner, but waking up alone can usually be.” I said “Did I tell you about the ad in Coda I answered a couple of months ago?” and she said “What’s Coda, an international spy trade journal?” The poet’s newsletter that’s sent to me every three months or so courtesy of CCLM or CAPS,” and she said “I don’t have the time to ask what those letters or acronyms stand for, and you’re not a poet.” They now let fiction writers in, and I didn’t tell you about the ad?” “You might have, and I forgot.” “It was for a creative writing position, and I answered it—” and she said “If this is going to be one of your long short stories, I still have hours of work to do.” “Five minutes more shouldn’t matter that much — consider it your work break.” “I took my break five minutes ago.” “Okay, I’ll be quick. I got an answer back today from the English Department chairperson, a Ms. Liz Silverstone, was how she letterheaded it, and chairperson with a capital C. She said, and I quote, ‘While you do not have the MFA we advertised for, still, your list of publications leads us to pursue your application further. I’ll add to that: with very strong interest indeed.’ That’s Ms. Chairperson’s adscript in pen, as if the typewritten part wasn’t hers.” “Hurray, you finally might be paid for your fiction,” and I said “Well, I did sell those two books — small press, no advance, and no royalties yet, but they still might come. Anyway, it’s only for a year. And I know no long-range plans between us. But if I do get it, and prospects look good, you and Paula might think about coming to live with me there, all living expenses on me.” “Where is it?” and I said “Southwest Indiana.” “Maybe you better just fly home every now and then,” and I said “I of course wouldn’t expect you to come. Though you did say you wanted to take a leave from high school for a year to have the time to make a film,” and she said “If I make one it’ll only be through a Film Institute grant I applied for, which could mean that same time you’re in Indiana, I’ll be taking courses and shooting and cutting my film in L.A.” “You mean you’d go there without me?” and she said “Without Paula too. She’d stay with her father. But listen, yours is the best offer I got all day. Though don’t write that woman to say you’re no longer interested in the position, just because we wouldn’t be tagging along. Get the job first; then decide.”

I called at the end of the week and said “I know I’m seeing you tomorrow, but I have to tell someone about the ultimate book rejection I got. It came from a Seattle publisher of up till now only Urgo-Slavonic and Altaic translations but who I’d heard four months ago was looking for an original story collection in English. So I sent off a load then, and today, after a couple of queries from me asking about the status of my collection, I got a jiffy bag with half my stories missing and my novella just sort of tossed in there and paginated like so: 5, 14, 78, 24, 2, though six of its pages also missing and the ones that were there either mangled, minced or decapitated. Thinking this peculiar, though also relieved they didn’t accept my work but having anxieties they may have kept the rest to publish as a chapbook, I searched for a note and found at the bottom of the bag not only a standard rejection slip with, you know, ‘Thank you for the opportunity to read this,’ but also burnt matches, cigarette butts, wilted lettuce leaves and pieces of a Vienna roll.” “Maybe they were trying to tell you that you send too much of your work at one time,” and I said “But they did everything but vomit into the bag before stapling it up.” Then I don’t know. But maybe they were also saying ‘We’re a small house new in this particular line. So next time give us a while longer to consider your manuscript without besieging us with queries a month after it’s arrived.’”

I took a bus up to see her the next day. We went to dinner at some friends of mine she’d never met and when we were driving back I said “So what do you think of them?”

They certainly are a couple, with that always working things out to perfection and complete integration and staying two feet away from each other so they don’t step on the other’s toes. It all reminds me too much of my own marriage and which I never want to go through again.” Later, when she was undressing in her bedroom, she said “I feel uncomfortable now because I don’t feel anything like having sex tonight, and with all your hints hidden in suggestions before, I think it might tick you off.” I said “No, it’s fine. We’ll just go to bed. Or I’ll read downstairs and for now just you go to bed.” “My uncomfortableness comes only because the last time you got angry when I didn’t feel like making love,” and I said That last time was after a couple of weeks when I was sort of expecting it or wanting it very much but didn’t think, or only thought of myself, and reverted again to being the same old schmuck.” We went to bed, read awhile and shut the lights. She started crying about fifteen minutes later. I was holding her from behind, thought she was already asleep. I asked what was wrong. She said “I’m feeling a bit skittish, hopeless, edgy, skew jawed, doldrums. Maybe it’s my mother, or my period about to pop. But she was so strange on the phone today that it scared me, and I’m also beginning to dread more and more facing a hundred-thirty kids every school day.” This will seem hackneyed,” I said, “but I promise you’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep. If you want I’ll massage your neck and back till you feel more relaxed.” “No, thanks.” “Come on, I’ll do it just the way you like. Turn over.” “I’m too sleepy, so don’t waste it. And I’ll be okay. You’re a love. What’s the time? But why should I care? Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

Next morning she went to the bathroom, shut the door, came back with her hair brushed, face scrubbed, got back into bed, chin up close to nine, smiled, teeth had been cleaned too, sucked my thumbs, twiddled my nipples till they got hard, moved in her front, positioned me. Later we took a long walk and talked and laughed a lot and, preparing and eating lunch, had fun impersonating various musical instruments in solos and duets to Paula’s frenzied conductor’s hands. All right. Now we’re tight. Nothing seemed wrong. In and out, that’s how we sometimes go. Does she notice how Paula adores me? Does it make a difference that I feel like Paula’s father too? What do her friends say? Do they like me? Does she notice when I anonymously clean her toilet bowls and sweep all her rooms? “Make you tea?” I said “No, thank you. I mean, you bet. For you often bemoan I never need or take anything from you but some of your better spontaneous lines, but from now on I’m going to say yes, yes’m, yes.” “Good,” and later: “Let’s visit the Whipples without calling them,” and I said “You two go; I’d just like to read.” “Reading, reading. It won’t be as much fun if you don’t come along, and remember what you resolved?” We drove across Tappan Zee Bridge and she said “Look!” “What?” “Balloon moon over Tarrytown and it’s not even dark yet,” and I said “Okay, but never surprise me like that while I’m driving.” We burst in on the Whipples and their two kids and four hounds, who never stopped licking and sniffing us, and I said “Someone, throw them a couple ducks, will ya?” We all went to their Pizza and Brew. Rip Whipple winking back and forth at me and the miniskirted legs of our waitress, and I said “Uh-huh,” but thought “Who cares? I got Dawn,” and held her around the waist while we ate. Driving home, I got lost, just as I got lost driving out there. Paula said “Darn, he got us lost again, Mom,” and Dawn said “Vic’s a good loser, you have to admit that. And now we can see what these Scarsdale dudes and dudettes do in their rooms late at night besides watch their tubes.” When we got home Paula went right to her room to make pompoms for her class, and Dawn said to me “I have to be up early tomorrow. Deep dreams,” and kissed me and went upstairs. The phone rang. I was reading downstairs and started for the kitchen, but Paula ran to Dawn’s study upstairs and said “Mom, it’s a man who said in a kind of deep rough voice ‘Dawn Bodein in?’ but refused to give his name. Dawn got out of bed. I moved to the bottom of the stairs to listen. It was Peter, though she didn’t say his name, but it had to be him because he’d been calling once a month for months, and last month I answered the phone and he said in a kind of deep rough voice “Hi, Dawn Bodein in?” and I said “Who is it?” and he said “Just tell her a friend,” and I said “Well, I hate to tell you, but she left for Toulouse for two years,” and he said “Could you let me speak to Dawn, please?” and I said “Dawn Please or Dawn Bodein? We’re rather unique in having two Dawns here,” and he said “Either, and I don’t mean Dawn Either,” and I yelled “Dawn — Friend’s on the phone,” and she got on and I left the kitchen, and later she said “What did you say to Peter? He thought you were insane.” “Who’s Peter?” I asked, and she said “Just what you described him: a friend.” She was speaking on the phone in a normal tone and with the door open, so she probably didn’t think I’d be listening downstairs. It also had to be Peter because one of the first things she said was “But it isn’t for Friday — sure you can make it?” and laughed, and I’d seen Peter’s name on her wall calendar every three weeks for several months under Friday. Also, because she said “Works out perfectly. Sunday I’d have to be in Brooklyn Heights anyway to fetch Paula at her cousin’s where her father’s dropping her off,” and I knew Peter lived in Brooklyn because of a number of things I’d picked up: a letter envelope from a Brooklyn Peter, and so forth. I went away from the stairs while she was still on the phone. I didn’t like hearing her joking and teasing and laughing with a guy I knew she was sleeping with. At a restaurant dinner in my neighborhood a few weeks ago she said, after we’d talked about lovers and serious relationships we’d had before we met each other, “I think it’s only fair to tell you something, even if you won’t like it. I guess I’m having what one could call a relationship with another man. But it’s really nothing much and isn’t going to go anywhere, and is the only one I’ve had since I’ve known you.” I said, mainly because saying what I really felt — that I hated she was screwing someone else, even if only once every three weeks — would damage our own fragile relationship even further and where she’d probably drive home after dinner rather than spending the night with me, “It’s not important. You see who you want and I’ll do the same. And also, when we want, we’ll see each other, like tonight, but slow, we have to go slow as you’ve said,” and she said “Boy, is that a relief that we can both finally say that.” So I went back to the rocking chair in her living room. Drank another glass of wine while I read. Then Dawn got back in bed — her bed squeaks — and I turned down the heat and shut the lights downstairs and opened the front door and said “Here, Snuggy Snuggy; here, Snuggy Snuggy,” and got the cat back in the house and locked up and went upstairs. Dawn was reading in bed. “I thought I wanted to sleep, but got the urge to read. Let me read you a poem by Anne Sexton. It’s about a witch.” I listened to it lying on my back in bed while she was sitting up. I kissed her waist while she rubbed my hair and read, and then her navel and legs and then her vagina, and she said “No, I can’t do it while I’m reading a poem. I mean, you can’t do it. I mean, I just can’t read a poem while you’re doing that.” “So stop reading,” and she said “But I want to read, and if you want me to do it silently, I will. She committed suicide, did you know?” and I said yes and she finished reading the poem. “What do you think of it?” and I said “I liked it,” and she started reading another about snow. I rested my head on her chest and hand on her thigh, and listened. While she read she took my hand off her thigh and pressed two of my fingers into her clitoris and read a few more lines while she continued to press my fingers down and rub them around. She said “She’s too much. I can hardly ever get through more than two of hers at a time,” and dropped the magazine to the floor and kissed me. Later, she said “How come we never encourage each other verbally when we make love? People have told me it really gets them off.” “I prefer being quiet except for the normal sounds.” Later, she said That was great. I don’t know why I felt so much like it tonight, but I obviously did,” and I said “Me the same on both,” but thought “You felt like it because Peter probably oozed on about it over the phone and how you both hadn’t done it together for more than two months. So you thought of him and your upcoming weekend, and maybe he’s very good in bed, and also of me, no doubt, and it was enough to get you hot, dear Dawn, eh not? and also the poems.” “Goodnight,” I said. “Goodnight, love,” she said. She cuddled up to me. We went to sleep.

Next morning, her alarm clock rang. It was still dark out. She had to get up for school and Paula to wash her hair before going to school. I did my morning exercises in the bedroom and went downstairs and sat at the table with my coffee while they finished their pancakes and juice and milk. Dawn wiggled her fingers at me to get my attention, and said “I’m going to the city Tuesday night for my dance class. I’ll drive you back, okay?” and I said “Sure.” “Also, I’ve been thinking we need a little vacation from each other,” and I raised my eyebrows, and she said “I’m saying that I’d like it if we didn’t see each other this weekend — that’s all right, isn’t it?” “What’s the real reason?” and she said “I already told you the real reason.” Paula got up, and Dawn said “If you’re through, bring in your dishes, please?” Paula went into the kitchen with her dishes and started washing them, and I said “What I mean is what’s behind the face of what you said?” “Face? What face? I don’t understand, I just want to do some things by myself this weekend, okay?” “By yourself? Does that mean alone or without me?” and she said “Whatever I want to do — what’s so wrong with that?” “You’ve a date — for all I know, you’ve two — so why didn’t you just say it and that you’ve probably had your share of me for the time being, and what’s troubling you is that I haven’t had my share yet of you.” “I don’t know about you, but I can’t go through these things so early,” and I said “I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. That’s how I immediately felt. Maybe it’s your fault for bringing this on too suddenly for me.” I went into the living room with my coffee and sat in the rocking chair. The cat jumped onto my lap and stayed there. Dawn came in and got down on her knees beside me and stroked the cat and rested her arm on my legs and said “I shouldn’t have said anything before I left. That’s what you used to do before I’d leave for school when you had something I didn’t want to hear or wasn’t ready or sufficiently awake for just then, and it would mess up my whole day.” “Forget it, it’s all right,” and she said Though it does make me a little fearful for us again, but no big deal.” I said “No, it’s had its effect,” and a couple of tears were coming out and she saw them and I thought “Goddamn fucking tears,” and got rid of them. “Oh crap,” she said, “I should have just stuck to ending it between us when I got back from Turkey,” and I said “What a thing to say. Turkey was a summer and a half ago.” “But I’m no good at periodically readjusting the relationship with the same man.” “Look, I’ll never be able to work here today. If you don’t mind I’m going to start the vacation a day earlier and take the express bus in.” I set the cat on the floor and went into the dining room to put my typewriter, which was on the table, back in its case. She came into the room and said “Maybe vacation was the wrong word to use. I meant by it that we could both use a short break from each other — for a couple of weeks or so.” Paula yelled goodbye from the kitchen. We yelled goodbye, and she left through the back door, probably because she didn’t want to pass us to get to the front. “I’ve got to go too,” Dawn said. “I don’t like leaving it like this, but I can’t be late for homeroom.” She put on her coat and got her briefcase and books, I got my typewriter and canvas totebag, and we left the house and walked up the hill behind it to where her car was. She said “Listen, either be here or you’re not here, but that’s okay, right?” and I said “Right, and have a good week.” “Okay. You too. A great creative one,” and kissed me and got in her car and started it up and smiled and waved at me. She was trying to placate me with that smile and wave and those last remarks because she knew I was feeling hurt as I’d been again and again the past two years when she decided to break us up for two weeks, a month, her vacations, her separations, no doubt her other men besides Peter, her other times with other people, when she was feeling claustrophobic with me, as she’d said, and maybe when she gets too close to a man she always has to draw back, as she’d said, and so on. But I don’t want to go into it again. Then why am I going into it again? But anyway, anyway, she was there on the flat part of the little hill, warming up the car not fifteen feet away from me, and when she drove off she probably thought “Who the hell needs the aggravation? I should be asking myself. Let him get used to me and my ways and what I can and can’t do now, or let him go screw himself. No, that’s too hard. Just let him go and maybe for good.” And I was standing there a few feet away from where I said goodbye to her, thinking “God, I love her so much I don’t know why I hate her.” I don’t know what I’m saying. I know it’s going to be a lousy day. I should take the bus. I must take the bus. Just get the hell down there and take the bus already, stupid, and I start down to the stop.

THE WILD BIRD RESERVE

We’re walking through the park when we hear a groan from behind the bushes.

“What was that?” Jane says.

“Sounded like it was from in there.”

“I know, but who is it?”

“Want me to take a look?”

“No. Let’s keep walking. I’m afraid.”

“Why? It could be a harmless drunk or sober man having a heart attack. You push on a ways and I’ll check it out.”

“I said don’t. It’s no joke. We shouldn’t have come this way. The path’s too narrow. The bushes and boulders are too big.”

“We’re in the heart of the wild bird reserve, that’s why the denseness. Part of the eastern flyway in fall and spring.”

Then let’s fly away.” Our boy in the stroller throws his bottle to the ground. “Don’t, Jim. Stop throwing things.” She gives the bottle back to him. “I think he’s made.” She leans over his back and sniffs.

“He’s made. Please?”

“I’m still concerned about that groan.”

“What for? Nobody in his right mind should’ve been in there.”

“But say we read tomorrow it was someone who got killed. Worse than the heart attack. Someone who bled to death because nobody came in time. We could read that.”

“We won’t.”

“We could.”

“I’m going and so are you. Now let’s go.” She pushes the stroller. Jim throws his bottle out. She picks it up and offers him it.

“I wouldn’t give it back.”

She drops it into the stroller bag. Jim tries sliding out of the stroller frontways.

“You’ll break your feet, Jim,” she says. “Now in. I said in.”

“We’ll move quicker if I carry him. Because it’s going to start pouring again.”

“It wasn’t a good idea cutting through the park.”

“Too late. And there’s better tree shelter along the way.”

“Maybe that’s what that groaning man was trying to do — save time. I hate this city.”

“One incident. That’s all it ever takes you.”

“You’re right. I like this city. But I hate people getting beaten up on and robbed and raped.”

It starts to rain. “Want to keep going or duck under this tree?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. You’re in a rush to get out, aren’t you?”

“It’s tough knowing what to do. Get drenched and give Jim a worse cold. Or stand under here and risk getting hit by lightning or mugged.”

“Let’s ask Jim then. Jim? Should we stay or go?”

“Shou,” Jim says. “Ba-ba, ba-ba.”

“He wants his bottle,” she says.

“No chance.”

“Did he at least make up our minds about staying or going?”

“Would you stay here for a second while I go back?”

“Me? Here? Without you? You’ll loan me a gun? And put him down till we decide.”

“I like holding him.”

“If we suddenly have to run you’ll be too tired from holding him by then.”

“But say we do read or see on the TV tomorrow—”

“Oh, sure. Drop by drop. His last words to the police were ‘I heard a couple and their son Jim pass by. They debated helping me. She convinced him not to. He convinced her he was crazy enough to. Jim wanted to crawl back and throw his bottle at the mugger. The one thing they agreed on was they were tired of picking up his bottle.’”

“Ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba.”

“Okay, let’s go,” I say.

“Now? When it’s a waterfall?”

Then we’ll stay here.”

“You didn’t get the word from Jim yet.”

“Okay, Jim? You don’t want to go under a waterfall and get a worse cold or even worse.”

“Ba-ba, ba-ba.”

“He’s really hot for his bottle. Maybe if we had some milk in it.”

“Don’t start,” she says. “He drank it all. What we should have in it is water from one of the fountains we passed, but they all had to be torn loose from the ground. This city.”

There she goes again, folks.”

“Well, this city, this city. Where I can’t even get water for my son because of the creeps who like kicking fountains down?”

“Whenever we can’t get water for him he’s your son.”

“Our son. But those creeps. I think it’s stopped.”

I stick my hand out. “Still coming down pretty hard.”

“I like it under here. I can say that. Like our own arbor. Or whatever it’s called. A private retreat in the storm.”

I put my arm around her shoulder and hold Jim up to us tight. “If that—”

“You’re getting his neck wet from my hair.”

“If that man was mugged, I hope he was at least also under a shelter.”

“Oh, thanks. But if he was, then I’d wonder what he was doing there. Looking to meet men, probably.”

“Or he loves nature and wanted to step further into it. A bird watcher, maybe. Someone might have jumped him from behind just to get his binoculars.”

“Why from behind? Those guys will attack you right from up front.”

“You’re so sure his attacker was a man?”

“I don’t even think anyone was attacked. But it’s not something a woman would do.”

They would. They have. Girls too, in groups and gangs. Certainly some of the girls I’ve taught. And starting at age eleven and twelve.”

“Something would have to be wrong with them then.”

“Ba-ba, ba-ba.”

“You think ba-ba means something other than bottle?” I say. “Like weh with him means wet and tub water and puddles and numbers one and two and maybe also rain.”

“Weh, weh, weh.”

“I at least got his mind off the ba-ba.”

“I’m going. I don’t care if it’s buckets. Now put him down.”

I put him in the stroller and push it downhill. “Weh, weh, weh,” Jim says. We reach the park drive and I pull under the eaves of the Swedish Cottage.

“We’re soaked through as it is,” she says, “so don’t stop now.”

“Still afraid? We’re away from it, and maybe we can call the police from here.”

“Sure. See anybody inside? Nothing but the puppets. Hello, puppets. Which’d almost be nice for Jim to look at some other day. But you weren’t afraid? That groan before was one spooky scene.”

“I wasn’t for me, though I was a little for you two.”

That’s why I want us to get on.”

“But we’re safe now. And Jim shouldn’t get any wetter.

Stay here. Dry him off. The towel in the bag’s still dry, and I’ll be right back.”

“Why? Let the police go snooping around. There’s an emergency box over there. Not around — to your left. On the traffic light pole. Call them and you’ll have done more than most anyone would.”

The box is in the rain. Its cover is hanging off. Above it, the glass police sign two lightbulbs were once in has been smashed out. “I don’t think it’s working,” I yell.

“Try it.”

I pick up the receiver. “Officer Tanner,” a voice says.

“I’m speaking from near the Swedish Cottage. I want to report that I heard about ten minutes ago what seemed like a male groan in the general vicinity of the bird refuge woods up from Eagle Hill.”

“A groan? Wasn’t a tree swaying? Did you look?”

“I tried to. My wife got scared. We’ve our kid with us.”

“No personal threats against you, though? Or a description of anyone you saw there?”

“No. Only it did seem very ominous to us.”

“All right. I’ll have a car make a check.”

“I didn’t give you the exact location of the spot.”

“You said the Cottage callbox. If there’s anything wrong around there, we’ll find it.”

“But up the hill from it, up the hill. Hello?” No answer.

I run back to the cottage. “No?” she says. “Well, if they won’t do anything, it must be nothing.”

“But at least if I go and find nothing, I’ll know there was nothing.”

“It could also mean the man with the groan is dying behind a bush you didn’t look behind. And suppose in your great search the mugger tries to get at Jim and I here?”

“You’re by the road. There are cars.”

“Where? You see one?”

They’ll be by. And right up the road’s the path to the park exit and buildings and lots of traffic.”

Then walk me there.”

“It’s pouring.”

“I don’t care. He’s already soaked. He’s probably got pneumonia, so what do you want for him next — to get cut up and thrown into the underpass? And me too. I’ve got pneumonia too. We all do. Now walk me out. Oh, I’m going.”

I grab her arm. “Use your sense.”

“And you stop the crap. I’m going home. You go where you want. Call me if you’re killed.”

“Okay. But hustle, though.” She goes. “And put the towel around his head.” I run up the hill to where I heard the groan. But Jane and Jim. I run back down and catch up with them as they’re leaving the park. “You all right?”

“Can I even talk? I’ll choke on a mouthful of rain. Find anything?”

“Only got halfway. Then I thought someone might pop out at you.” We cross the street. “You can make it home now?”

“I can, but I’d like help.”

“I’ll get you a cab.”

“If you’re lucky. They’re all filled.”‘

Then hurry home. But I only came back to check on you.”

“Please don’t go back. If anyone’s been mugged, he’s crawled away by now or been found, I’ll start a fire. I’ll put on hot soup and make us toddies. I have to get Jim changed and fed and down for a nap. You can start the fire. But help me, Sol.”

“Get under.” We get under the canopy of a building facing the park. “Sir,” I say to the doorman, “could you loan me your umbrella so they can get home? We’re on this sidestreet two blocks down, and I’ll bring it right back.”

“I need it to get my own people to the street,” he says.

“I’ll give you a dollar to loan it.”

That has nothing to do with it. Even if in two minutes I can make that much in tips with it.”

Then I’ll give you two dollars.”

“Weh, weh, weh.”

“Listen, if I had another umbrella…”

“Frank,” a woman coming out of the building says. “A cab?”

He opens the umbrella and goes into the street and blows his whistle.

“If a second cab comes along can you hail it for us?” I say.

“If another of my tenants doesn’t want it.”

“Please, Sol. Let’s just run home.”

“She’s a little frightened,” I say to the woman. “We were in the park and thought we heard someone being mugged.”‘

That’s nothing unusual,” the woman says.

“At least we’re safe here. From the rain and muggers.”

“You’d be surprised. Only last week my purse was snatched on these steps. Fortunately, I don’t carry anything but duplicate cards anymore and a ten-dollar bill if they demand money. But right here. I yelled for Frank. But he was working the elevator because our regular man was in the men’s room.”

“One of those coincidences.”

That my purse was snatched and not some other tenant’s?”

That the elevator man was away and Frank wasn’t here to protect you.”

“My next-door neighbor, Mrs. Reeves, was threatened with a broken bottle right in front of Frank’s eyes.”

“No,” Jane says.

“She says no. A few months ago. He was on duty then. But this young girl slipped around him while he was tying his shoelaces and threatened her in the lobby.”

“A young girl?”

“No more than twelve, Mrs. Reeves said.”

“Twelve is the age I told her it can start,” I say.

“Twelve? Dr. Melnick — the professional office off the lobby? Three boys of about ten or so rang his bell and walked in and terrorized everyone in the waiting room and the doctor himself. They got in through the service entrance when no one was looking and snuck upstairs. Ten-year-olds. Kids.”

“Ten sounds pretty young for it,” I say. They were probably older.”

“Nobody bothered to ask them for their birth certificates. But the doctor’s an obstetrician, and he said one of them could even have been eight.”

“Not eight,” Jane says.

“Got your cab, Mrs. Fain,” Frank yells from the street. “Son of a B,” when it’s grabbed by someone else.

“You’re not fast enough,” she says. “But that was Dr. Melnick. They took a satchel of drugs, which turned out to be emetics. Much as I pity and think I understand the poor thieves, I hope they swallowed them all. And of course everyone’s money and wallets when they announced they had guns. Even a little girl’s purse with only buttons inside. And then raced past the doorman. But those are the youngest I know.”

“I thought around eleven would be the youngest,” I say.

“And remember, this is only in one building. And we usually have a doorman on duty. And the elevator man, porters, the super, the handyman — all kinds.”

“We only have two locks and a front door into the brownstone almost anyone can get in,” Jane says.

“That’s all? But there’s my cab. Nice talking.” She gets under Frank’s umbrella and he takes her to the cab.

“It’s let up a little,” I say. “Want to make a run for it?” I fold up the stroller, lift Jim, hold the stroller in my other hand, and we run home.

“It’s terrible,” Jane says, putting dry clothes on Jim. “But now that I’m here I can’t get that groan in the park out of my mind.”

“Well, stop about it. Because you were the one—”

“I know. And I know I stopped you from looking into it. I only hope that if a man really did groan, he’s safe in his home now and all right.”

I get her umbrella and put on my raincoat. “Don’t forget the water’s on.”

“Where are you going?”

“Ba-ba, da, ow?”

“You won’t forget the water? I don’t want it boiling over with the gas still on.”

The window’s open. You going to the park?”

“For a quick look. I’ll be very careful. I’ll take a hammer with me.”

“Fine. Show it to the mugger and he’ll be sure to use his own hammer or rock on you. That happens. Weapons are supposed to touch off corresponding weapons. That’s why the London bobbies — don’t go.”

Coat buttoned to the top. Galoshes, rainhat. “Have a hot toddy waiting for me.”

“You stupido.”

This may be the last time you’ll see me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means do you want those last words of yours to be your last to me?”

“Now you’re really talking stupid.”

“Right. Bye, sweethearts.” I kiss her cheek and feel Jim’s forehead.

“His cough’s worse but his nose is dry now.” She carries him into the kitchen. “Goodbye.” She doesn’t answer. I leave the apartment and walk to the park. I close the umbrella when I get to the park entrance, as it’s keeping me from walking fast. But why walk fast and lose my breath, if there is someone to run from? I open the umbrella.

I reach the part of the path where I heard the groan. Nobody’s around. It’s still pouring. “Hey, anybody in there who needs help? We were by here before and heard some noises. Hello?”

I close the umbrella and hold it by the spike. But if I have to swing it, it’ll probably open and throw me around, and it hasn’t the weight to come down hard. I leave it by the path and pick up a stick. It’s so rotted that half of it stays on the ground. A rock, then. But if I throw it I’ll miss, and carrying it I’m more likely to get a stick over my own head before I get close enough. I need something to knock something out of someone’s hand. If he’s got a gun, forget it. I’ll just drop what I have and run. A stick, a stick, but would I use it if forced? I’d have to, even if my built-in drawback is I’m not a natural attacker and never whacked any adult’s head with even an open hand. I find one. Two inches across. I break it with my foot to about three feet long, peel off the twigs and swing it around. Good size, right weight. I walk through the bushes. No one. I’ll check behind the bigger bushes and rocks. Only then I’ll be satisfied.

A man. Face down on the ground and hat flattened over his head. Pants pockets hanging out. Shoe off and sock rolled down that foot. I touch him, listen to his back. No sound or response. I don’t want to turn him over and possibly see his face smashed, body or face knifed. But how else will I know if he’s alive? And if he is? First yell for the police or help, and if nobody, then over-the-shoulder fireman’s carry, best way I know how. I shake his foot. “Hey, you, can you hear? I’m here to help.” I take his hat off. Left side’s okay. Eye is closed and lips are warm, but I can’t feel or hear his breath. “Listen. We’ll both take it slow. But I want you to know I’m not the person who did this to you, if that’s what’s keeping you so quiet.”

I’m trying to turn him over when I hear a noise behind me. It’s a man, leaning against a rock, opening an umbrella, foot on my stick. “You do that?”

“Him? I heard his groan before and came back. That’s my umbrella. What do you want?”

“Why do you say what do I want?”

“Because you’re just standing there. And this man could be dead. So if you’re fixed on robbing me as you might have done him, fine. I’d give what I have except I left my wallet home.”

“I didn’t rob him. Never saw him before. For all you know, he could be the one who did the man you heard groan.”

Then where’s the man who groaned?”

“Maybe in the lake. You look all over? The big tree over there? But enough. Give it here.”

“What?”

“‘What? What?’ Yours and the man’s wallet. Quick.”

“I told you.”

He flips the umbrella behind him and from somewhere produces a knife.

That’s great. For something I don’t have?”

“Quit stalling.”

He’s waving at me to give. I’ll jump backwards and run. I jump backwards and trip. He moves for me. I throw a rock at him and miss. Stupid thing to do.

A boulder’s behind my back. He lunges at me as I stand up. I feint right and he slits my coat and I think nicks my arm. I grab the hand holding the knife and wrestle with it. We kick, claw, knee, elbow and hook a foot around each other’s leg and fall over the man, who says “Huh?” On the ground I bite the guy’s ear but don’t want to bite through it as I should, when the lobe pops and he’s screaming and the knife drops. I’m spitting out his blood when I kick the knife away and go for the stick. He goes for the knife. I say “Don’t move.” “Eat it,” he says, and moves and sees my stick coming down and swats at it, and the stick breaks his wrist, or something breaks. He howls but still reaches for the knife. I swing at his head, but at the last instant, his shoulder or neck. He falls on his back and is moaning. I pick up the knife, try closing it, but there must be some trick to it, and I throw it into the woods. “Move once more and I’ll break your head in.”

He’s biting his lips and trying to keep his eyes on me while feeling around his wrist. I think I also broke his shoulder or some part of his neck. That top left side of him seems misshapen when before it didn’t. And he’s bleeding a little from it and from the lobe very badly. My own blood’s coming out from under my coat sleeve, but not much and mostly mixed with rain.

I turn over the older man. He’s been knifed in the stomach and chest, judging by the holes there and the blood on his clothes. “Sir?” He’s breathing and seems to be looking without seeing. I say to the other man “Stay where you are till we’re out of here, and then you better get out fast because I’m calling the cops.” He’s squeezing his eyes tight but nods. I fit the stick in my belt, put the older man’s hat in my pocket, sit him up, stick gets in the way so I toss it over the boulder, lift him over my shoulder and grab his legs in front and go through the bushes and start down the hill.

I set him against the cottage door and put his hat on his head. My own hat’s been lost somewhere and the top three buttons of my coat’s been ripped off. He’s a little guy, with his pants and hat way too big for him and his jacket sleeves coming down over his hands. Maybe I’ve been carrying him wrong and making him bleed more and damaging his insides worse with his belly and chest banging against my back as we walked. “Listen, don’t move. I’m calling the police from the phone here and will be right back.”

I run to the call box and pick up the receiver. No officer answers, so I say “Hello, is there a policeman there?” I do this several times, then say “Hey, where the hell are you? This is an emergency. Oh, damn,” and slam the receiver down. I run back, pick the man up and hold him in my arms and carry him toward the park entrance that way, stopping every hundred feet or so to sit on a bench with him in my lap. I look for a police car when I reach the street. A regular car stops and the driver says “Anything wrong?”

“He got knifed in the park. We better take him straight to a hospital.”

“Who knifed him?”

“Not me. Some man, I think. And if it was him — look, will you open your back door?”

“Not in my car. I’m sorry. It’s not the stains. I no longer trust anyone in this city.”

Then you shouldn’t have stopped.”

“I thought it was something else. A man carrying his son.” He drives off. I rest on the curb with the man in my lap.

“You both going to get wet that way,” a truckman yells, driving past and blowing his air horn.

I carry the man to the apartment building a block away.

“What are you bringing me?” Frank says.

That Dr. Melnick.” I go into the lobby and reach under the man’s knees and ring the bell and try to walk in as the sign says, but the door’s locked.

“Since he had the robbery,” Frank says.

The peephole opens. “Yes?” a woman says. This man’s been knifed,” I say, raising him in my arms a little so she can see his face. “In the park. He needs help fast.”

“Call Roosevelt Emergency and say you want an ambulance immediately.”

“I thought the doctor could help till they come.”

The doctor doesn’t handle emergencies except for his own patients. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

“Could you call Emergency for me? He’s been knifed in a few places and it’s been a long time.”

The peephole opens. “If I do, they’ll ask me to identify myself and think the man’s one of the doctor’s patients, and he’d be responsible. It’s best you call. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

“I’ll call,” Frank says. “Stay here, sit on the bench, even, but just see no delivery men or strange types sneak by. They’re all to go through the delivery entrance around the side.” He goes through another door in the lobby.

I lie the man down on the bench. “Just take it easy,” I say. “We’ve an ambulance coming.”

The elevator door opens. “What’s this?” the elevator man says.

“Frank went to call for an ambulance. This guy’s been knifed.”

“I better get a mop.” The elevator rings. He gets in and takes it up.

A delivery boy chains his bike to the canopy pole and comes in with a box of groceries.

“All deliveries are supposed to be made through the side entrance,” I say.

“You work here?”

The doorman Frank told me to tell you.”

Then mind your own business. It’s raining outside, can’t you see? What he do, pass out?”

The elevator door opens and two women walk out.

“Will you go around the service entrance with that?” the elevator man says. “You’ve been told before. I’ve told you myself.”

The service door’s locked.”

“Bull, it is. Around. Around.”

The boy puts the box into the bike basket, covers it, unlocks the bike and rides off.

“Is he a tenant?” the older woman says.

“Person from outside who had an accident,” the elevator man says.

“Frank’s phoning for an ambulance.”

“If he was hit by a car, you could have broken his bones even more by carrying him in here.”

“I didn’t. He and Frank must have.”

“He was robbed and knifed in the park,” I say.

That’s terrible. And he’s bleeding. But Frank’s taking care of it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the elevator man says.

Then could you see about my car? It’s a long gray one and should be around now.”

He goes under the canopy and says “It’s pulling up, Mrs. Phelps.”

“I hope he recovers,” she says to me. She opens her umbrella, the other woman gets under it with her, and they go to her car.

They’re on the way,” Frank says, coming into the lobby. The police, too, when I said it was a knifing.”

“Is your phone a pay one?” I say.

“Go through there and ring the elevator bell. Say you want to use the house phone and I’ve given you permission to.”

I ring for the service elevator. It comes, the delivery boy and another elevator man inside. I go to the basement with them and dial my home.

“Where’ve you been?” Jane says. “I think Jim’s really got pneumonia. His temperature’s not too high, but he’s coughing much harder and having trouble breathing. The reception said Dr. Blum will call back in a few minutes and might come over. You shouldn’t have gone.”

“It’s just a bad cold or virus. They’ll give him something in the office, and by tomorrow it’ll be over like the last times. Be more independent, will you? And listen. I found that man. He’d been knifed and is in real bad shape. The guy who did it, or another one, got me in the arm too.”

“Oh, my God. Bad?”

“I haven’t had time to look. Can’t be much if the bleeding’s stopped. An ambulance and police are coming. We’re in the lobby of the same apartment building you and I were in before.”

Then the doorman’s there. You’ve helped enough. You belong here with the baby, and if Dr. Blum comes he can look at your arm.”

“My arm’s nothing. And there’s that doctor on the same floor here if I need one, remember? Also the ambulance doctor. If they want me to go to the hospital with the man, I’ll call you from there. If not, I’ll run home. Keep Jim warm. Put the vaporizer on if you have to. I’ve got to go now, Jane.”

“It’s always everybody over us.”

“Not true.”

The ambulance people and police are in the lobby. A police-woman asks me several questions. The man’s wrapped in a blanket and wheeled outside.

“Can I go with him?” I ask her.

“What for — he your friend?”

“No, I told you. Just that I’ve been with him so long I want to see how he turns out.”

“You come with us and we’ll write up a detailed report with the detective, and then you can go anywhere you like.”

She drives me to the police station. I tell a detective the park story and give a description of the guy who attacked me.

“He sounds like everyone else,” he says. “Why didn’t you call the park precinct when you first heard the man groaning?”

“I did. The officer said he’d send someone.”

“Maybe he did — I don’t see anything on it yet — and they didn’t find anything or went to the wrong spot. Those bushes can be thick.”

I call Jane. She doesn’t answer. I call Dr. Blum’s office and a nurse there says the doctor told Jane to take Jim to Emergency at Roosevelt.

I cab to Roosevelt. Jane’s in the waiting room. They’re working on him now. He’s going to be all right, but they asked me to get out because I was so distraught I was upsetting him. Croup. Your son has croup. They say I’m lucky I brought him in when I did. His larynx. If it wasn’t for your floundering back and forth about the man we would’ve been home long before and gotten Jim out of his wet clothes and spared him all this.”

“He had a cough when we started out today. It could have been the early stages of croup and we didn’t realize it.”

“You wouldn’t believe it, Sol. He was like strangling on his own breath. He suddenly had so much trouble breathing that I thought he’d die. I started giving him mouth to mouth, when Blum called and right away he said croup and rush him here. I got Helen to drive us. Good thing I know someone on the block with a car. You probably would’ve taken him out in the rain looking for a cab.”

I ask about Jim at the admitting desk. The woman says That your wife? She’s very worried, but everything’s going to be fine. We’ve a great staff here, especially for emergencies.”

“Would you also know about a man brought in more than an hour ago with serious wounds in his stomach and chest?”

“Two in the last two hours with knife wounds and another who was fed glass.”

The two with knife wounds.”

“One died, one didn’t.”

“Mine was Caucasian and kind of elderly and very short.”

“He died. You knew him? We’d like getting in touch with his family.”

“I only found him in the park. I should have got him here sooner.”

“In the park. That’s what the police account said. It’s always such a job getting these men located if they don’t have identification on them. After a while they just get shifted to a medical school.”

The nurse said we can see Jim now,” Jane says.

We go to the treatment room, Jim’s about to be moved to the children’s wing upstairs.

“We’ve got his breathing controlled and his temperature’s already down,” the nurse says. “What is he, asthmatic?”

“We were told it was croup,” I say. “Seemed like an asthma attack. You ought to check with his pediatrician or a doctor upstairs. Okay,” she says to Jim, “here we go through the big building. Ready for a long ride?”

“Ha-dah, beh,” Jim says.

“Look at him. Knows what a ride means. Cute kid. Where’s he get his orange hair?”

They put him on a gurney. “Hold my hand now,” the nurse says. Jane takes his other hand. The hospital aide tells me to walk in front of the gurney in case there’s lots of traffic in the halls. I walk in front and push open the doors as we leave Emergency.

“You’ll be just fine, Jim,” Jane says.

“Oh, yes,” the nurse says.

“If your father wasn’t so concerned about the whole world, you needn’t have been brought in here at all.”

“Oh, yes? What he do?”

I turn around. “Watch it,” the aide says. “I don’t want to ram in to you.”

I step to the side. “Incidentally,” I say to the nurse, “would you know of a man treated in the last hour or so with a broken wrist or arm and broken shoulder or some part of his neck that he could have gotten from a heavy stick?”

“Not that I know of, and I’ve been here all day.”

“Who’s that?” Jane says.

The guy in the park who knifed me.”

“Did you get that treated yet?”

“It’s okay. A detective sprayed methiolate on it and bandaged it up.”

“You should get a tetanus shot,” the nurse says.

They told me.”

“I don’t want to say I saw it coming,” Jane says, “but it wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed home with us like I said.”

“Ba-ba, ba-ba.”

“Is he asking for his bottle?” the nurse says. They almost all say it that way.”

“You’d really be much more help to your son by continuing to run interference,” the aide says. “We’ve had some bad accidents here when two gurneys coming from different directions collided.”

“He’s been hurt,” the nurse says.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” I say.

“Better I do it if your arm’s really that bad,” Jane says.

“Hot soup,” the aide says as we approach a crowded cross corridor.

“One baby Jimbo coming your way.”

THE BABY

“You wanted it as much as I did,” she says.

I say “I did want it, that’s true, or thought I did. But now I don’t, and I don’t know what to do about it because it seems too late to get rid of it.”

“Rid of it, you say? Rid of it? Rid of what? And why ‘it’? Why not ‘him’ or ‘her’? It’s more than an it. He is more, she’s more. No, you wanted a him and I wanted a her and now we have him or her whether you or I like it or not, and I’m going through with it. You don’t want to, you can leave. I’ll take care of him or her on my own. Or the baby. What have I been talking about? That’s what it is — just a baby. But to you, just a goddamn pain in the ass.”

“It’s because it’s changing our lives so. The baby is. And will change it even more when it comes, and for years. It was nice, right — nice and uncomplicated without it — so why do we want to screw things up now with it? Excuse me — with the baby. It’s got months to be born yet, but it’s a baby. Okay. But I won’t get as much of my work done as I want with the baby around. You’ll be up all night, and I’ll be up because you will, and because fathers just are today with newborns — the father I’d be, anyway — and that’ll be the pattern of our lives. Being up, feeding and cleaning him, the kid getting sick, and schools, clothes, all those forced nights at home when I want us to be out, determining our vacations and trips by him, boxing in our lives in every kind of way. I didn’t think of all this when I first consented to having it, or her, or him.”

“You should’ve. But as I said — oh, I said all I had to about your leaving or staying, though naturally I want you to stay. But if you’re asking me to choose you over the baby — there is no choice. The baby’s been in me too long and I can’t give it up now. So make up your mind and then do whatever,” and she goes into the bedroom and slams the door.

I stay there and in a few seconds I hear her crying. I say “Beth, Beth — ah, the hell with it,” and go into the kitchen and get a bottle out and pour a couple of inches into a glass, throw some ice in, swirl it around with my finger, and drink. I drink it all down in a minute and then go back to the bedroom door. It’s quiet. I knock. She says “What?” and I say “Is it all right if I come in so we can talk?” “What about?” she says. “What do you think what about? Look-it, maybe there’s a way we can work this out. Mind if I open the door so we can discuss it?” “Go ahead.”

She’s lying on the bed, her stomach sticking up. It’s her stomach that first made me think if we weren’t doing the wrong thing by having the baby. I liked her stomach before she got pregnant and even better when she was two months pregnant. She was always a bit too thin for me, and also, though I had no real complaints about this, too small-breasted, and the pregnancy the first two months expanded her both ways a little. But by the fourth month, though I liked it, and still do, her breasts getting even larger, her stomach really started to get big. Although it was almost cute, her stomach then — plump but hard; it wasn’t a big dumpy stomach. Now she has a big dumpy stomach and has had it for a month, though it’s still pretty hard and I know it isn’t fat. She’s in her sixth month and I almost can’t stand to look at it, though the odd thing is that from behind she looks almost the way she always did. Still, I can take the stomach, since it’ll only be that way another three months and for a short time after. What I don’t think I can take is the sudden irreversible big change in my life once she has the baby.

This is what I’ve been thinking,” I say.

“Yes, what?”

“Give me a chance to say it. It isn’t so easy. This is what I’ve been thinking. Though most people might say six months is too late in the pregnancy to abort or induce a — to get rid of the fetus; why beautify the words? — maybe there’s a doctor who thinks otherwise and we should try to get him. Then”—she puts her hands over her ears—“listen to me. Then, in two to three years, let’s say — when I’m feeling more up to making the big plunge and also sharing you with someone else, is what I mostly mean — we can try again, this time for real.”

“You finished?”

“Yes.”

She takes her hands off her ears. “Please get out of this room,” she says very calmly. “In fact, do it immediately or I’ll scream so loud that the neighbors will be banging on the walls and calling the police. I mean it — now!”

I don’t know if she means it, but I do it. I shut the door. I hear her crying behind it. But really crying. Those are loud sobs, the kind I’ve maybe only heard three times from her and make me want to run in and throw my arms around her and say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll never say anything like that again.” But I go into the kitchen and pour myself another couple of inches and drop in some cubes and start drinking it before it’s even cold. I drink it down in less than a minute. I’m starting to feel a buzz. Tears come. Alcohol tears; I recognize them. They come when they wouldn’t have without the drinking. I feel awful about what I’ve done. I want to apologize but know if I try to go in now she’ll tell me to stay out, no matter what nice words I use. She’s that hurt and mad. She’ll say she doesn’t want to look at me again or be married to me anymore, and I wouldn’t blame her for saying anything like that. I really did want to have a child. I was happy when she first told me she was pregnant. I excitedly told everyone that we were going to have a baby. I loved her body when it first changed. Not just the bigger breasts and stomach, but also her nipples when they popped out a little and the circles around them changed. I loved our lovemaking when she was two and three months pregnant — the freedom of it. And later, after the third month, that she most of the times had to be on top since, when I was on top her belly hurt when I pressed into her. I loved accompanying her when she bought maternity clothes and things for the baby. Loved being on the subway or bus with her when she was visibly pregnant and asking some young kid if he’d mind giving her his seat. Loved that her appetite grew to almost as large as mine. Loved that at times she looked like a fertility goddess. Loved being extra solicitous to her and how appreciative she was. Loved thinking up names for the kid with her and talking about how we’d raise the child. How different we’d be than our folks were with us. All that — loved it, loved it — so why the change? Why not tell her once and for all that I want to go through with it and I won’t change my mind again? It’ll be nice having a child, I can say — nice, and fun. I’ll see so many new things about life, or at least remember lots of the old ones. I’ll have so many new things to talk about with her. Holding a child will be fun and nice. Playing with it — even feeding it — even cleaning it, though not fun, could be nice. Why shouldn’t it, once I get used to it, since it’ll bring such relief to the kid? So what if it’ll cost more than we can probably afford now to have a child and bring it up? So I won’t get all the work done that I want to because of the child. There’ll be all those other things and more to make up for it. And it’s wrong to back out now. So go in there and tell her just how wrong you know you’ve been. Tell her. Go on — go in.

I knock on the bedroom door. She doesn’t answer.

“Beth, please, it’s me, can I come in?” Doesn’t answer.

“Beth, you asleep? Listen, I’ve been thinking about the way I acted before and I’ve finally begun to understand some things about it and I want to talk about it with you.” No answer. “I’m going to open the door, then, and come in, okay? I won’t if you don’t want me to, but really have a good reason for it, because that’s how much I want to talk about it with you. Beth?” Nothing. “Okay, then I’m going to come in. After all, something could be wrong that you’re not answering, so I’m also coming in for that: to see that you’re all right.” No answer. “Okay, I’m coming in.”

I try the door. It’s locked. “Beth, you can’t lock the door on me.” No answer. “All right, I’ll give you time to think about what you’re doing, but think about this too. I’m very, very sorry. Put even another very on that. Sorry for making you cry and disappointing you in all sorts of ways. But most of all sorry for telling you I didn’t want the baby and wanted to quote unquote get rid of it. I want the baby now. I know how unfair I’ve been. It was unbelievably wrong of me, unbelievably, to first get excited over having it and then not wanting it for my own selfish reasons, which were stupid reasons too. I want it very much now and want us to be a wonderful family. You don’t have to answer any of that right away. I’m going to the kitchen, to make myself a little drink, so take your time in thinking about what I said.”

I go into the kitchen. I’m really feeling a buzz now. I should eat something or soon I’ll be spinning. I get cheese out of the refrigerator, also ice for my glass. I put some cheese on a piece of bread and eat it while I pour myself a couple more inches. I sip it, finish the cheese and bread, then drain the glass. I pour another. It’s stupid to drink like this. When I do, I just get sentimental. I’ll get so sentimental that I’ll tell her I want even more kids than one. Two more, even; three, tops. So what? Important thing now isn’t how much I believe what I say but to make her happy. To undo what I did. She won’t throw me out. She’ll accept my apology even if it’s a bit flawed. She almost has to. It’s to her advantage. She’ll be mad at me for days. Maybe one day. She’s good in that way. Then she’ll begin believing what I say, and that crisis in my life will be over. I know I’ll get to like having a kid. It’s natural, this worry over it. It could even end up with my loving it more than anything I’ve ever loved in my life. That’s what I should maybe tell her: “I know I’ll end up loving the kid more than anything in my life, or as much as I love you, but in a different way, of course.” That’s what she’ll like hearing. I even believe it, or at least feel I could. But I should tell her that before the booze makes me forget it. Through the door if I have to and extra loud to make sure she hears.

I finish the drink and am really feeling a buzz. I also feel sexy. I’d love for her to get on her knees so I can do it to her that way. That way, of all ways, seems to be the easiest for her, and it’s certainly a good way for me. I want to first hold her face to face. To tell her my thoughts about love and the baby and her and then I want to kiss her and have sex with her the way I want to.

I go back to the bedroom door. “Beth?” No answer. I knock. “Oh, just come in,” she says. “Door’s unlocked.”

“Beth, honey,” I say, opening the door. She’s sitting at the desk with a sheet of paper in front of her and pen in her hand, “I have something I think very important to tell you.”

“First I want to read you the poem I just wrote about us, you mind?”

“Sure, please do. Okay if I lie on the bed while you read?”

“Do what you want.” She holds the sheet of paper and reads.

“‘Night is a misfortune sometimes, day is a lifesaver sometimes, night he comes and lies, day he goes away, night is when I have to sleep next to him, day I can rest alone with the child, night is when he talks about death, day is when I sense my baby’s breath, night is gruesome, day is toothsome—’ What does toothsome mean? I wrote it down because it sounded right and sort of rhymed. I can always change it later.”

“I think it means ‘pleasing.’”

Then I was right. ‘Night is toothsome—’ I mean ‘day is toothsome,” looking back at the paper, ‘night is when I feel bloated because of the presence of him, day when I feel so light, airy and thin, day because he’s away, night because we fight, day because I fly, night because I cry, day and night, night and day and night, but I will have my baby despite him, I will love it every night, every day, come what may as the poets say, so good day, night; good morning, noon and night, day.’ You have the picture?”

“It’s a good poem. For a first draft, which it’d have to be, one of your best and maybe could even get published.”

“Don’t try to flatter me. The picture. You have it?”

“I do. But don’t say good night to me till after we make love.”

That’s both dumb, callous and horrible.”

“I said it wrong. What I was doing was taking off from your poem with that day and night business. And I wasn’t kidding and flattering you when I said it was a good poem. I meant it sincerely. I loved it. It expressed so much. It had feeling in it. Feeling which I haven’t been able to express in anything I’ve done or think or feel or whatever in weeks…in months. It had feeling, anyway. And that’s good.”

“What did you want to say?”

“Can we talk like a married couple who possibly still feel something for each other or at least where each is willing to listen to the other for a minute? Because I want to tell you something that’s even more than very important.”

“What?”

“Could you come over here and sit with me?”

“No, talk from there. What is it?”

“I want to have the baby. I was confused about it before. I thought it would complicate my life and ours together I didn’t know how much. It took some getting used to. Now I’m used to it. Please forgive me. I want us to be a great big beautiful family, okay?”

She’s been looking down, now she looks up at me. “Took a bit of drinking for you to say and feel all that.”

“Yes it did. Couple of inches.”

“Probably more than a couple. Probably a quarter of a bottle.”

“No, not that much, but I’m not drunk. I’m buzzing but not drunk. The feeling’s real, though. Will you please believe me?”

“Is it all right if I take a day or so to even start believing you?”

“Take all you want. Just don’t turn me out.”

“You’d have to leave on your own — I wouldn’t force you. I kind of need you to help me the next two and a half months, because things aren’t going to get any easier for me. And to help me out after, naturally.”

“Count on me. I’ll take care of you more than you can deal with. Now please come here?”

“You come over here. I’m the one who’s pregnant. And I want you to read my poem inside your head. Do that and then we might go to bed. Bed and head. I like that, don’t you? But I won’t put it into my poem. My poem’s done. I won’t change a word of it. I’ll even keep ‘toothsome’ in, even if it doesn’t mean pleasing.”

“It does, though. I’m almost positive about that.”

“Fine. What a natural instinct I have for words. I’m being facetious, of course. I stink as a poet.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t do it enough, that’s all. But when you do, they mostly work. That one was a gem.”

“Now you’re being sweet. Look at you — you’re acting like a sweetheart. I’m almost beginning to believe what you say about the baby. I’m almost tempted to go over to you in bed without you first coming here, but I won’t till you read my poem in my head. Not memorize it. Just read it once quietly to yourself. Come over.”

I get up and go to her. She holds out the sheet of paper. I take it and look at it. It’s blank. I turn it over. Other side’s blank too.

“Can you remember it?” I say. Because if you can or any part of it, you ought to quickly write it down.”

“I only want to be close to you now, is that enough?”

I put the paper on the desk, take her hands and stand her up. We hug.

“Oh, you big stiff, now it’s all right with you, huh?” and I nod that yes right now it is with me.

ENDS

Started. I’m going. Really moving. No stopping me now. Look at me fly. Fly is to run. Faster than the sound of speed. Speedier than the fast of sound. Sounder than the speed of fast. I don’t know. I don’t care. Makes no dif what holds up. Just to be on my way. Just to stay on my way. Right to the very end. The top. I’m there. Stop. The end.

I’ve reached the end. Very nice here. It is. It isn’t. Plenty to do here. Nothing much. Nowhere to go but down. No fun. No sights. I sit. I stand. What to do? Let me see. I sit and stand and rest and sleep and stand and nap and eat and sit and stand and think what to do. What to do? I don’t like it much at this end. I’ll go back to where I began at the other end. Somewhere back there where I can do some other things and maybe go another way. But not just to stay right here. I go.

I’m heading back. Still in a rush. Places I’ve seen. Things I’ve done. All much the same. But all much different. Not bad going back. Seeing the same things from another way is what I meant. A long tunnel down, like. A long passageway down, like. Those are about the same. That’s all right. Everything’s all right. And maybe things have changed at the other end since I was last there.

I’m here. Back. At the other end. Hurray. Where I first began. It’s changed somewhat. Or I’ve changed somewhat. Or I’ve or it’s or both have changed a lot to somewhat. Could be. Don’t know for sure. But it has changed. Or I have. Don’t know for sure. Said that. Say something new. I can say I like it better here than at the other end. I can’t say I like it better here than at the other end. They’re both pretty much the same. So many things beginning to seem the same. Both places no place to go but the other way. Up or down. Back or back. Depending which end I’m at. I go.

Toward the other end. Places seen, things done. No longer the novelty of seeing it again coming from the other way. And still no better point to it all, it seems, than to reach the other end. I stand still. Maybe that’s the point. To see the same thing till it means something to me. But standing still I find is seeing the same thing till I get tired of it. And going slower than before is seeing the same thing only more of it. And going faster than before is passing the same thing only less of it. I’m bad at definitions. But haven’t time to clear them up. In a rush not so much to get to that other place but to pass through here.

I’m there. At the other end again. Seems the same. I’ll stay to see if it stays the same or if I’ll see things I’ve never seen before or in a way I’ve never seen. I stay. I sit. I stand. Still too much the same. It’s almost exactly the same. Maybe even more than almost exactly the same. It is the same. Other than for my staying longer than my last time here. I can go back. I can stay at any of the places in between ends. I can stay here. I choose none. But that’s choosing one. And I want to move. I choose movement, not a place. I jump up and down in place. That’s moving without moving. That’s being in the same place but not being in it. That’s seeing at different levels. It means a lot of things but ultimately nothing. I choose going back. I don’t choose, I just go back. Maybe there’ll be some place to pass through in between ends this time. You never know. I go.

On my way back. Still no place to pass through in between ends. Maybe that point’s past the last place where I can see it hasn’t changed. I pass that place and that, and that place hasn’t changed. Nothing’s changed. Maybe none of what’s to come has changed. Maybe only places I’ve just passed but can’t see from here have changed. I turn around.

I start to the top end from the middle. The place I called the top end that first time I reached it only because I started out that first time from what I thought was the bottom. But it wasn’t. And the top’s not the top. And the top’s not the bottom and the bottom’s not the top. The middle’s the middle, though, or as close to it as far as I can tell. And all the places I couldn’t see from that so-called middle point I just left haven’t changed too. And going a ways farther, all’s the same too. Maybe things will start changing or have been changed by the time I get a quarter way from the top end. I reach that three-quarters’ point, or as close to it as I can tell, and still nothing’s changed. Maybe some of what’s ahead will change or has been changed when I get halfway into the top quarter or a quarter way into the top eighth. But nothing’s changed. Neither the halves of thirty-seconds or sixteenths of sixty-fourths. That’s the same and that’s the same too and that and this and everything I pass. They’re all the same. I reach the top. It’s the same too. What to do?

I’ll stay here for the rest of my life. To go back would be foolish. Maybe things take more time to be changed than I thought, so why not this place over any other? But I find after a long time that if I only have a day left in my life I won’t be able to stay here for the rest of my life. That foolishness is easier to live with than boredom. So I start back. It’s all the same, of course. No new breakthroughs in between. I dig. I claw. I tap for hollow spots. No new breakthroughs in between. It’s the same. But I mind less now. I begin to like what I come to expect. No, that’s not so. I just accept. I reach that so-called middle point. I could turn around now and head back. I could go back and forth between middle point and top end or between any two points including the two ends, but what would be the point of all that? I haven’t been for the longest time to what I first called the bottom, so I continue to that end. Things might have changed. Or better: For the longest time I haven’t been to the bottom of all the places I’ve been to, so there’s probably a better point for going there than anyplace else.

I reach the bottom end. I decide to stay where I first began. I stay. I want to go. I try jumping in place so as not to go. I try walking inches away and coming back. I try walking in circles, crawling in figure eights. I try jumping in circles, crawling backward in figure eighty-eights. I try everything I know and can do. All the numbers. All the positions. All the movements and combinations of numbers, positions and movements. I say stick it out as long as you can. I say why stick it out as long as you can? I try, though. I stick it out. I can’t stick it out any longer. I go. I stay. I return. I rest. I reach. I stay. I stick. I go. I jump. I walk. I rest. I try. I crawl. I reach. I stay, go, return, walk, run, reach, rest, combine, stay, jump, crawl, try, rest, reach, stay, stick, go, combine, return. I try the thirty-seconds. The sixty-fourths. The one hundred twenty-eighths. The two hundred fifty-somethings. The five hundred something-somethings. It’s the same. No change. It was never so good as it was when I first was at those two ends and for that entire first run. It was next never so good as it was when I first returned to that bottom end and during the second run. It was after those never so good as it was when I first returned to that top end and during that third run. I think about all those for a change. I think about it all till I’ve thought about it all, and that too becomes unchanged.

WHAT IS ALL THIS?

Dirk drove to Helen’s house to pick up their son. It was his weekend with Roy — once every other, which he and Helen, without lawyer advice or court decree, had congenially agreed to a year ago, when they separated and she filed for divorce — but she had different plans for today.

“Donald invited us to the city for the weekend. Roy can’t wait, as Donald’s been telling him what great wooden planes they’ll make and how much fun Roy’ll have sleeping in the balcony-bedroom setup Donald’s built in his studio. But what happened to your phone? I called before, around the time I figured I wasn’t going to hear from you. Called collect, but the operator, checking with her records office, because at first I refused to believe what she said, told me that as of yesterday, your phone’s been removed. Why? What puzzles me most is that you paid good money having a phone installed, and one week after it’s in and when you really could’ve used it, you have it removed. Weird. I’ve definitely made up my mind, Dirk: Sometimes you’re absolutely weird. Were all sorts of incoming wrong numbers getting you down, as they did in L.A. last year? Maybe I’m being unfair, but you at least had that phone for two months, which suggests you’re getting better, which means progressively worse. My point is that Roy could’ve reached you if you had a phone, and now he has to wait for you to call. Next time, I suppose you’ll have your phone taken out the day after it’s installed. And the time after that, if any phone company is insane enough to let you have a phone, you’ll ask the telephone serviceman to remove the phone right after he’s packed up his installation tools to go. But, admittedly, all that’s your business now,” and she yelled down the hall “Roy? Is your knapsack packed? And your daddy’s here.”

Roy came out of his room, his unhitched overloaded knapsack hanging from a shoulder by one strap. He rushed up to Dirk, kissed him, said “You coming to San Francisco with Mommy and me?”

Helen said no, “Your father has once more made the mistake of driving down without first calling.”

Roy talked excitedly about his trip, how sleeping in a bedroll at Donald’s was going to be like camping out in the woods. “And he says I can look out the windows there and see mountains and ocean and even look through a telescope to the stars. Do you want to sleep with me?”

“Dirk has his own flat in San Francisco, which you can probably stay at next weekend, if he doesn’t mind.” She looked at Dirk for confirmation as she sipped from her mug. “Want some tea? You’ve that old desiring expression again. I didn’t make enough for two, but if you think you need it for the drive up I’ll put more water on.” She went to the kitchen — Roy to his room to find his cowboy boots — and returned with two smoking mugs of tea. His was very sweet, just as she liked it, with two to three tablespoonfuls of honey in it, the liquid well stirred. “Is something wrong with the tea?” she said. She sipped her own tea as a test, seemed about to spit it back, swallowed, said it was too tart, too lemony, “Uch, it’s just awful,” and they exchanged mugs.

“You like it tart, I like it sweet — our respective predilections, if you like; natures, so to speak. You like the shade, New York snow, barely endurable Eastern winters, depressing poetry, music and films, and decomposing flowers to paint. While I like the sun, warmth, California spring, summer and everything happy and silly that goes with it, including getting a tan. You always put down that silliness in me. No, not always. We got married and everything was nice for a couple of days and then you suddenly became stern and critical, you very definitely changed then — and started doing your unlevelheaded best to kill off my own silliness. What do you say about all that now? Donald’s very much like me, in a way: Opposites now detract. Sometimes he’s terribly silly, does cart wheels in the street; more than that: just dumb, foolish, indescribable things — he gets along with just about everyone. He’s able to cut off his equally serious work almost immediately and simply have a gassy time. And so far, he and Roy get along great. He’s teaching him about camping and carpentry and all kinds of ocean-creature things and even how to write out their names on your old electric typewriter. All three of their names apiece, including the Mister and Master — Roy wouldn’t settle for less. Roy,” she yelled, “will you move it along? It’s past noon.”

Roy hobbled into the room in one boot, said he was still looking for the other.

“You don’t wear cowboy boots on Saturdays. Just Tuesdays and Fridays — you know that. “

There it is,” Roy said, and he crawled under the couch, came out with the boot and sat on the floor to put it on.

“I said you don’t wear those boots on Saturdays. Find your moccasins, jackboots, even your mukluks, but I want no more diddling around.”

“Please?” Roy said, and he stood up, walked a few steps and fell over; the boots were on the wrong feet. Most of his clothes, books, toys, tools and crayons fell out of the knapsack and Roy screamed “Damn it.” He threw the knapsack at his dog, who had just come into the room, and was snapping his crayons in two when Helen picked him up by his ankles and began tapping his head on the rug.

“Idiot,” she said.

“I give up,” he said.

“Idiot, idiot, idiot.”

“Mom, I said I give up, so let me down.”

She stood him up on his feet. They looked crossly at each other, Roy serious, Helen mocking, then started laughing, and hugged. The dog, Sabine, got between their legs. “Ummm,” Helen said, still hugging Roy with her eyes closed, “just ummm.”

They all left the house. Dirk got on one knee to pick weeds out of the gravel driveway as Helen, Roy and Sabine got into her car. “Call next time,” she said. “And if you’re going to Ken’s thing Sunday night, maybe Don and I will see you there,” and she started the car, he stepped aside, and they drove away.

He weeded the driveway clean, got in his car and was in the freeway’s speed lane doing 75, miles from their house, when he saw them in the rearview mirror, Roy and Sabine standing on the back seat, looking out the rear window, Helen wanting to pass. He flicked on the directional signal and switched lanes. Helen flashed a begrudging thanks as she drove alongside him. Roy spotted him and beamed and waved. Dirk waved back. Roy now waved with both hands and shook Sabine’s paw at him and nudged Helen’s shoulder to point out Dirk driving behind them in the adjoining lane. Dirk floored the gas pedal, but her more powerful Saab was still increasing its speed and distance over him. Roy displayed his tool kit, took a hammer out of it and made hammering motions in the air. Dirk smiled, nodded. Soon there were several cars separating hers from his laboring Volks, and Roy blew him a kiss.

Dirk turned on the portable radio strapped to the front passenger seat by the seat belt. The Warsaw Concerto by Richard Addinsell, the announcer said, and the name of the orchestra, conductor, pianist, record label and the LP number and time of day. Dirk hadn’t heard the piece for years. When he was thirteen or fourteen, it had been his favorite music — this same pianist on both sides of a 12-inch breakable record that, at fifteen, he jokingly broke over his brother’s head. He tuned the radio in, listened to the loud dramatic opening, switched to AM and the telephone voice of a woman who said “Certainly, Dr. King’s death is sad, as every assassination and sudden making of a widow and four fatherless children is sad. But who’s to say he wasn’t asking for it a little, you know what I mean?” and the broadcaster’s enraged denouncement of her bigotry and proclamation of her stupidity and the loud click of his hanging up, and Dirk turned the radio off. A car honked behind him. He was straddling the broken white line between the two left lanes, and while he edged into the slow lane, an elderly woman cut into the speed lane, narrowly missing his rear fender. From across the middle lane, they looked at each other. She frowned, glared. Dirk let his tongue hang out and crossed his eyes, as if he were being strangled. She accelerated her huge Mercedes to 80, 90; in seconds, he was left far behind. He took the San Mateo exit to the restaurant he liked best in the Bay area, at the outskirts of town.

They’d had their wedding reception there, unusual Japanese and Okinawan dishes made special for the feast in the tatami room upstairs. Lots of the guests got drunk on shochu and high-grade sake illegally flown in that week from Tokyo through the owner’s secret contacts at JAL; most of the other guests got stoned on Israeli hashish smoked in the spray-deodorized johns. Irises, cherry blossoms, rose incense, paper slippers, friends’ children sitting on the foot-high tables and guzzling from sake carafes filled with soda, handfuls of cold cooked rice thrown at the couple as they left. Later, he picked rice out of her hair; together, they painted “peace” in fluorescent acrylics on their bedroom window overlooking the beach at Santa Cruz; in bed, she said how life was best when she had the sun, health, loving man and a backward and upside-down view of “peace” from a comfy new mattress all at the same time; but where, she wanted to know, will they go from here?

A card, hooked over his front doorknob, read that he hadn’t been home to receive a telegram; and penciled on the other side was the deliverer’s personal message: The gram’s been slipped under your door.”

“If you have no objections,” Chrisie wired from San Luis Obispo, “I’ll be driving up for weekend with two girls.”

Chrisie’s younger daughter, Sophie, was genetically his. He’d met Chrisie at a New York party three summers ago, he in the city to be with his dying sister and grieving folks, she on a week’s vacation from the man who was still her adoring hot-tempered husband; and minutes after their orgasm, when he was squirming out from under her to breathe, she said she was convinced she conceived. “Preposterous, granted, but I felt it, just as I felt it with Caroline three years ago, their infinitesimal gametic coupling before, as explosive as our own.”

He rolled up the canvas he’d been painting on the floor, put away his income-tax statements and forms — Federal, state, New York City, six jobs in one year and once three part-time jobs a day, and he was going to be penalized for filing late — shampooed his rug with laundry detergent, washed down the baseboards with diluted ammonia, dusted every object in the place a two-and five-year-old could touch or climb up on a chair and reach; on his knees, scoured the bathroom tub and tiles and soaped the linoleum floors with the now ammonia-maimed sponge.

He left the door unlocked and hauled two bags of linens and clothes to the laundromat down the hill. A girl was in front, her smock cut from the same inexpensive Indian bedspread he used to cover the mattress on his floor. “Spare change?” she said. He never gave, but today handed her a quarter. Thanks loads,” and “Spare change?” to a man approaching the laundromat with a box filled with laundry, detergent, starch and magazines. He said “I work for my money.” She said “I work for it too, by asking for spare change.” He said “Dumb begging kid,” and she said “Dear beautiful man.” And he: “You ought to be thrown into Santa Rita with the rest of your crazy friends,” and she: “And you ought to drop some acid.” He: “And you ought to poison yourself also.” She: “I wasn’t referring to poison.” “Well, I was.” “Spare change? Spare a dime, a nickel, a penny, a smile?” “Out of my way, pig,” and he shoved her aside with the box and went into the laundromat.

Dirk read while his laundry was being washed. His were the most colorful clothes in the machines. A few minutes before the cycles finished, he got up to stick a dime in the one free drier, but a woman beat him to it by a couple of seconds. “You got to be fast, not slow,” she said, and stuck three dimes into the coin slot.

“Spare change?” the girl said outside.

A man set down four shopping bags of laundry and opened his change purse. “Oh, no,” and he snapped the purse shut, “I forgot. I’ll need all the change for the machines. The coin changers have been vandalized so often this month the owner’s had to seal them up, and now she’s got to take them out, as they’re still being forced open. People are violent and nuts.”

One of the driers stopped. A woman sitting under a hair drier and another unwrapping a candy bar signaled with their hands and eyes and candy bar that the machine wasn’t theirs. Dirk touched the arm of a man on a bench with a hat over his face, who was the only other person in the room the drier might belong to, but the man still slept. Dirk removed the warm clothes from the drier, folded them neatly and stacked them in a basket cart. He was throwing his wet clothes into the drier when the man who’d been sleeping before squeezed Dirk’s wrist and said “Don’t any of you people have the decency to wait?”

The telegram read: The girls and I won’t arrive till tomorrow. Husband, parents, complications, love.” Dirk drank a few vodka and tonics and fell asleep, awoke in the dark with the radio on and went outside. He had a Moroccan tea at a Haight Street coffeehouse, where many young people were drawing, writing, playing checkers and chess, talking about police harassment, pot planting, Hippie Hill freedom, the Bach cantata being played, democracy now but total revolution, if that’s what it’s going to have to come to, tonight’s rock concerts at the Fillmore, Avalon, Winterland, Straight. A man sat beside him, pulled on the long hairs of his unbrushed beard and braided matted hair and said “Hey there, joint’s getting real artsy. Very beautiful old North Beach days. Culture with a Das Kapital K. Loonies just doing their dovey ding, am I tight?” Dirk shrugged, the man laughed and patted Dirk’s shoulder consolingly. A girl at the next table shrugged and the man said “Yeah, North Beach si and now the Haight. You’re all gonna burn out famous,” he announced to the house. “Like Ginsberg, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, me boys, me best, me fine old friendlies who bade it ballsy and big. So try and refudiate me in five years, fiends, that all of you who pluck to it haven’t made buns of bread,” and he finished his coffee, chugalugged down all the milk in the table’s cream pitcher and left.

Dirk was on his way home when a girl stopped him on the street and said “Can I crash your pad? I’m alone, in real trouble, it’s just me and I won’t be any bother, I swear. The pad I was supposed to flop at won’t let me in. These four guys I was living with there all of a sudden split for Los Angeles — ran off with my records and clothes while I was sitting it out in jail. Look at this. The creepy keeper gave it to me this morning as a sort of graduation diploma and safe-conduct visa out of Nevada.” She showed him a paper that said she’d been arrested and released after five days for vagrancy, loitering, wayward minor, accessory to crime, resisting arrest. “Resisting arrest, bullshit. They just clamped on the cuffs, felt my tits and dumped me in a smelly van. We were selling speed, made our contact, two cats and myself in Carson City — America’s worst dump. Ever been there? Don’t ever go. The creepy keeper said ‘Now I’m warning you, sis, don’t be turning back.’ And when we left the diner with our contact, twenty Feds jumped out of the shadows with guns cocked like puny movie gangsters and threw us against our truck, arrested us all.”

While they walked to his place, she told him she thought she was pregnant again. “I had a kid in Hartford last year, gave it away. My rich German-Jewish father told me the baby was very ugly after he told me how much he was forking over for my bills. Best of hospital service, never had it so good. And he was kind of sweet too, like an overconcerned expectant father expecting his first child, and then, with my society-minded momma, had me committed. But the state released me after four months, though my folks wanted me in for at least a year but were too cheap to pay for a private crazyhouse, when they found I was still getting pills and grass and was caught balling one of Connecticut’s prize mental deficients behind a bandstand during a Saturday-afternoon dance. Ever been to Hartford? Don’t ever go there, either. That’s what they told me in Carson City. Said ‘Don’t come back for six months minimum,’ and I said ‘Six months my ass, I’m never coming back, none of my friends will ever come back, you lost a good tourist trade with us when you locked me up, and this giant Swedish matron, she was very congenial when she wasn’t forcing my box open every ten minutes to see if I was stashing anything inside, she just laughed, laughed and laughed.”

Dirk gave her one of the two tuna fish salad sandwiches he made. She said “It looks so pretty and sweet, lettuce flouncing out of it like a dress, and sourdough’s my favorite of all nonmacrobiotic breads, but no, thanks. With the last kid I gained 46 pounds, I’m ten pounds overweight as it is, so I’m only going to start eating again when and if I find I’m not pregnant. Look at that view. Golden Gate from your own place. Do you ever really look outside — I mean, really? Too much. You ought to raise your mattress to window height, make it with a groovy chick while you’re both stoned on hash and eye-popping the moon. You do all these paintings? Do them on pills? Well, don’t ever get on them, don’t even hold them, they’re worse than anything besides junkie’s junk, which can actually be a good trip the first time but the shits when you have to start paying forty bells a high. You’re a real housekeeper. Just look how clean this place is. You ought to wear an apron — a clean flowery one. I’ll make you one, if you get me some thread things and paint and an old clean sheet. Floor recently mopped, books in place, bed made, not even a curly body hair on the rug, and pardon me for all my luggage”—she lifted her average-sized pocketbook with her pinkie and reset it on the floor—“but I feel utterly helpless if I have to travel light.”

They drank tea, she showered and said she was sorry, but she had soaked his bathroom floor and then drenched a few towels in trying to wipe it up. “When I was living in Hartford, I wasn’t such a slob. In fact, I was a real housekeeper then, also: cooked, cleaned, deveined the shrimp and cracked the crabs, just obsessed with ridding my place of flecks and specks, as my mother is and you must be. But now I haven’t made a bed in eight months, no, nine, except for the five days in Caron City’s most depressing jail. You have kids? You look like you have a half dozen. That you and your boy in the sailboat? Is your wife as blonde as he? I never want kids, never want to get hitched. Marriage is for con men who give charm for money and that Mongoloid I balled who’ll always need lots of help and love. For everyone else, it’s me me me me. My childhood was the worst. My mother’s a hysterical bitch and shrew. My dad’s got a gripe against because he always wanted to screw me and now because he bought me a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes to keep me in Hartford just two days before I split for the Coast. Two cats came by the place I was staying at and said ‘Let’s take you away from all this,’ meaning my apron and housekeeping chores, and I said sure, anything; there wasn’t anything happening in Hartford since I gave that ugly baby away. So I packed those clothes in two valises I stole from the college boys I was living with — they did much worse to me in the past, so don’t even begin to twinge and twist — and we made it across country without a bit of flak, never for a moment being anything but high. I’ve now been in every state but Alaska and Hawaii — Carson City, Nevada, my forty-eighth. And I have no clothes, maybe two dimes in my wallet, my father would just piss if he knew and my mother’s aching to put me away for life. And most everyone who knows me says I’m wasting my time. That I’ve more than a one-forty I.Q. and ought to use that natural intelligence in writing about all I’ve seen and done, but with a humorous aspect to it, as there’s far too much sad seriousness in literature and the world as it is. And one day I will. Just as soon as I land a pad of my own.”

He offered her a sleeping bag on the floor and she said that was exactly what she needed for her rotten back. They went to bed. “Hey, look,” she screamed, “I can see the moon. It’s getting a little past the half stage. My God, it’s being eclipsed by the earth — our earth. What do astrologers say about eclipses of the moon? Are they special nights, do any of the signs undergo any change? I bet you’re a Gemini. Geminis are the worst. Yes, I’m sure you’re a Gemini. Well, I’m a Taurus, we’d never get along, and my name’s Cynthia Devine.”

The room was very dark when he awoke a few hours later to Cynthia talking about her magnificent view of the totally eclipsed moon. He put his hand on her knee and she felt his chest. “You have a very interesting heartbeat. I’ve never slept with a man with such a rapping heart.” Her hand moved down his body and she said “Ooooh, now I know why it’s rapping so fast. But stop, will you, because then I can say tomorrow that it was a lot better sleeping here than in jail. There I got a crummy mattress on a wooden plank with no privacy. I wasn’t even allowed to see daylight till they traipsed me across the yard for a health exam. The doctor gave me these pretty blue antibiotic pills and blood-red capsules for what he said was my venereal disease. I told him ‘Vaginal infection, Doc, not V.D. A vaginal infection I’ve had for a month,’ and which I still have now, till he finally apologized. Prison doctors are always trying to stick you with the worst. But he was fairly nice, all told. And Sheila, the matron, wasn’t half bad, either, when she wasn’t trying to get into my pants.”

Someone knocked on the door. “You get your share of telegrams,” the deliverer said. “When this one came this morning, I was sure it was my fault because you didn’t get the two I slipped under the door and this one was trying to find out what was wrong.”

“I started out this evening,” Chrisie wired from San Luis Obispo, “and then returned home. Let me know if you think I should really come. Call. Love.” And her phone number.

He walked Cynthia down the hill, to show her where the public phone booth was and to cash a check at the drugstore for himself. “Goodbye,” she said, shaking his hand. “I think we — no, I’m glad we didn’t — oh, maybe it would’ve been fun if we had, as it’s always a crazy farce with somebody new, though it’s also nice sleeping peacefully, for a change, without someone’s hands tearing into me. I’ve got to call some guys I know. They were staying at a flat around here before I got busted, and if they’ve already split, then I’m truly screwed. Maybe I could phone my dad for cash. I can get him at business now, just after he’s returned from a three-martini lunch. He’s really quite beautiful when he’s smashed, and thanks.”

The druggist smiled. “You made the year 1968 on your check instead of 1969.”

His 85-year-old landlord was pulling out weeds from around one of the fifty or so signs he’d painted and then erected in the front yard. The sign read: Stop Being An Accessory To The Crime Of Fratricide — Don’t You Know All Wars Are Silly? “I’ve just come from distributing my peace pamphlets downtown,” Mamblin said, “and you wouldn’t believe the wonderful reception I received from so many of our courageous lads. ‘Peace first,’ I told them—‘love, learn and grow. Jewish and Christian wars must end,’ I said—‘gardens, not battlefields. A mental revolution, not a physical one.’ One young man from Santa Monica, of all places, said that after listening to me, he would think about resisting the draft. He said I was a man of God, which I disproved scientifically — a walking institution to peace, he tried to make me, which was nearer the truth. But I’ve unfortunate news for you also, Dirk. Mrs. Diboneck dropped by much too early this morning and complained that you’ve been coming in at all hours of the day — playing the radio too loud, waking her. Having wild parties, orgies, she said, and that you’re also running a hippie haven in your apartment downstairs. She’s old, a good woman, knew my wife, been here close to twenty years. And you know I had trouble with the tenant before you, he being a bit queer with men in a sexual manner and shooting out all my lovely leaded-glass windows and causing a mild heart attack for Mrs. D. But what do you think of my latest sign?” He pointed past a couple dozen older ones to a new one with gold-painted letters bordered by red; I Have Arisen From The Dead. “Did it yesterday, after a long stimulating conversation with a young Welsh lady who happened by while I was weeding. It has no Christian significance, of course, other than its possible mockery of mythological Christian belief — but the symbolism’s what I like. I have arisen from ignorance, mediocrity, mindlessness, myths, lies, half-truths, superstitions — I have arisen from the deaf, dumb, blind and spiritually dead. And being you’re one of the truly good people in this city and a disciple of mine, I think — I don’t precisely know what to make of you yet, though you’re being carefully studied, Dirk, phrenologically and every other way, so be on your guard — why don’t you work matters out with Mrs. D. yourself? I only don’t want her waking me up again before nine.”

Mrs. Diboneck’s typewritten note in his mailbox read: “I would appreciate if you would not slam the door so vigorous. It shakes everything and scares me to death. I accomodated your wish last week ago by using my T.V. and Radio allmost never. So be a Gentleman and hang on to the doors!! Thank You.”

Using Magic Markers, he made a quick small drawing of the view from his room. Red towers of Golden Gate Bridge, gold spires of St. Ignatius Church, green park, blue bay, yellow ocean, purple sky, brown, black, orange and pink hills and mountains of Marin County, and rolled it up and was about to stick it into Mrs. Diboneck’s mailbox when he saw her watching him through one of her lower door panes. She stepped onto the sidewalk, clutching her house dress together at the chest. “I’m sorry I complained to Mr. Mamblin before, Mr. — but what is your name? But the noise, dear Lord, one would think a children school down there directly below with what I hear and you make. Why, why? I ask myself an old woman without any answers, and the radio, so loud I can’t hear myself phone talking when it isn’t waking me out of sleeps and naps I need and all such things, or is it your TV you own? But is it not possible, may I ask, that people live in this building, too? I don’t want to speak about it more than now and never again to Mr. Mamblin if I must, so be reasonable, please, a nice young man and your blond boy so sweet, and we will remain kind friends. Otherwise, I must one day call the police if Mr. Mamblin does not, which to me even with my illness seems cruel but no matter can I help taking this being forced by you,” and she dropped a small bag of trash into the garbage can standing between then and returned to her apartment. He put the drawing into his billfold and went to the post office.

“Five cents a card is still quite the bargain,” the clerk said, “what with all the other postal rates raised and the cards staying the same. A two-dollar bill? Where you been hiding it? And a John Kennedy for your change.” He made a drawing on one of the cards of a laughing man running through a forest followed by a galloping sixtailed five-horned four-eared three-tongued two-nosed one-eyed horselike creature called The Multimal and addressed it to his son in San Jose. Beneath the address he wrote “Attention: Love to you and Mommy,”

“I arrived at the exact instant this thing was being delivered,” Chrisie said, holding out a telegram, as she and her girls cautiously walked down the long steep rickety flight of outside wooden stairs.

“Decided not to come after all,” Chrisie had wired from San Luis Obispo this morning. “Why not drive down here instead, Love,” her address and the number of the main connecting highway, 101.

“Remember Dirk, Caroline?” Chrisie said to her older daughter, and Caroline said “No, when are we going home?” “Remember Dirk, Sophie?” and Sophie, two in a month, said “Dow? Dow?” and painted her hand with his purple marker. “Remember Chrysalis, Dirk?” Chrisie said, and he hugged her, made bacon and eggs for the girls on his two hot plates, gave them juice in clean paint glasses, set up Sophie’s portable crib, unrolled a sleeping bag for Caroline, later placed a triptych screen between the section of the room the girls were asleep in and his mattress on the floor.

He and Chrisie had tuna fish salad sandwiches, wine, carrots, cookies, grass, got under the covers, turned down the electric blanket, tuned in a Vivaldi piccolo concerto, watched the lights of a low-flying plane pass his window and cross the full moon. A dog from the house below his began to bay.

“Happy Easter,” Chrisie said when he awoke, handed him a wicker egg basket filled with candy eggs, jelly beans, chocolate bunny and new electric razor. Caroline said “Merry Easter, Dirk,” and showed him a similar basket with a baby rabbit inside sniffing the green-paper grass. Sophie was standing in her crib, nibbling a blue candy egg.

Two conductors wouldn’t let them on their cable cars because of Caroline’s rabbit. The conductor of the third car patted the rabbit’s head and asked if he could feed it part of his apple. The car rattled along Lombard street, was very crowded. A woman said to Dirk she would have thought twice about getting on a cable car if she had known a rodent was aboard. A man hurrying to catch up with his wife, who had suddenly jumped off the car to take movies of what her guidebook said was “the world’s crookedest street,” nearly knocked Caroline off the rear platform. The rabbit got out of a basket, as Chrisie was picking up Caroline, and disappeared into a storm drain. They got off the car, and Chrisie and Dirk made a show of looking for the rabbit. Dirk blew the highest note of his harmonica at the man, who snarled back “Hippies,” and resumed his smile and pose for his wife’s camera. Caroline stopped crying after Chrisie told her the rabbit had joined its Northern California family underground and Dirk gave her his Kennedy half dollar and harmonica.

They took the next car, Dirk holding Sophie as it headed down to the Wharf. She was wet, smelled, her mouth bubbled, he kissed her sticky fingers, felt her firm back, rubbery legs, grazed his face across her thread-thin hair, which was getting blonder than Chrisie’s lemon-colored hair. They got off at the turntable, Chrisie said how touristy the whole area was, got on the same car for the return trip up the hill, went to Golden Gate Park, where a radical New Left political party was sponsoring a be-in, and got up to leave an hour later. The sound equipment was bad, not enough music was being played, Chrisie was getting paranoid at the number of people openly turning on around then, and the field was too crowded and the girls could wander off and there were too many political speeches being made and most were too virulent. The black man,” the black woman candidate for the state’s 18^th assembly district said, “and the white man had all better start working together fast to end the repulsive criminal police power in this fascist town, or else the whole Bay Area’s going to go up in flames, a lot of noninnocent people going to get accidentally wiped out, the entire state and country might even get cooked, and I ain’t just bull-jiving, brothers and sisters.”

“We simply don’t work together, fit together, do anything well except sex together,” Chrisie said in his apartment, “and even that we can’t be too certain about, Dirk. I liked you better when I first met you — even liked you better during that last disastrous weekend in L.A. I like you better in your letters, prose paintings, painted postcards and grunts and silences for phone conversations. I think you only see me because of Sophie. You’re so compulsively solitary, while at the same time, so hungry for companionship and maybe, maybe even love. Most people we both know agree to my theory about you, or have even volunteered a similar one of their own, that there are really three of you — and, we can say this unhypocritically while realizing you probably represent, in an exaggerated form, the condition of us all. The pleasant helpful exterior, the bored angry man inside, who keeps distorting the fake amiable face, and the third you, who’s inside the second you and who deeply wants a close enduring relationship with someone but can’t find his way out. I’ve thought about it a lot, Dirk, so maybe you can think about it a little after I’m gone. Blaise didn’t know I was driving up. Nobody knew except my father, who called as I was leaving the second-to-last time and asked why I couldn’t spend Easter Sunday with them. I told him because I was celebrating it with a friend, and he said which friend, as he thinks he knows all my friends, and I said a friend, and he said male or female friend, and I said male, of course, though we’re strictly platonic, but only because he’s a brilliant young scientist fag. I finally had to divulge your name, John Addington Symonds — I love playing literary jokes on my dad, if only to let the snob know how really uninformed he is — and gave a bogus address, which they’re likely driving to right now. This place is like a monk’s room other than for the paintings. Though David Lieberman became a monk and he still paints. I think Blaise is going to cut up your painting when he discovers where I’ve gone. I’d hate for him to do that. You painted it for me without my asking you to, and it’s going to be worth a lot of money one day. Everyone who’s seen it concurs with me on that except my father, who says it’s too psychedelic and you ought to try another art form. That one looks like a sexed-up vagina close up. And that one there has always been my favorite — an immense forget-me-not, which was my pet flower as a girl. But Suicide—no, it makes me anxious, tense. You should have sold it when that very suicidal man wanted to buy it from you, just to get it out of the house. Show me all the new ones, Dirk. I like that one; that one’s fantastic; that one’s another great pulsing vagina; I don’t like that one — another Suicide. This one should be reproduced in an alternative newspaper’s centerfold; this one hung on a busy street corner; this one hung above the bed of a couple who want to but can’t conceive; this one given to Blaise to cut up. Can I make you a liverwurst and cheddar on rye? Are we getting along better than we did last night? Do you have any more Miracle Whip for the girls’ tuna fish salad?”

The telegram to Chrisie from her husband read: “Don’t bother returning less you bring back two fresh loaves Larraburu extra-sour sourdough white.”

They drove to the party where Helen, Donald and Roy might be. Sophie in his arms, Caroline behind them, blowing into the harmonica, they climbed the steep flight of stairs, were greeted at the top by the host, who was the twin brother of the man who’d invited Dirk. He shook their hands, seemed disappointed. “Cute kids,” he said, “the little one a girl? Coats over there, head’s through there, drinks in there, nice to see you — Dick, is it? Julie? I never remember names and especially not children’s, and he greeted the childless bottle-bringing couple behind them with a long noisy hug. “Wendy, Harris, glad you could come, glad you could come.”

Ken, the host’s twin, said he was happy to see them, lifted Caroline and swung her, kissed Sophie’s head, Dick’s cheek, Chrisie’s lips, said “Soft, soft, like morning mush. Bar’s over there, head’s back there, I guess you know where you put your outer dugs and I’m the bartender, so vodka and tonic for everyone except the teeny kids. Orange pop on the rocks do you, Caroline, my dear?” and he put her into a soda carton and carried her to the bar.

Helen was in the living room, dressed and groomed meticulously in a floor-length harem suit, different from Chrisie, who in less than two minutes had washed her face and brushed her hair and ran a wet washrag over her armpits, and thrown a wrinkled paisley smock over her body, with nothing on underneath but sheer panties she could hide in her fist. “So this is Sophie,” Helen said, and took her from his arms and kissed her nose. “She’s a darling, a dream child,” and held her high. “She should be on television, promoting very pure white soap. She looks nothing like you, Dirk, except for her thin hair.” Chrisie’s uneasy smile failed; she looked weakly defensive, sullen, said nothing; they were all handed drinks by Ken.

“Special,” he said. “Drink this and two more magically appear in its place.”

“Why’d you come, Dirk?” He had gone to the bedroom to get their coats. The party was dull and the children’s presence was annoying the host and guests. “Why’d you come, or does it matter? You knew this’d be an adult party. If you came with Chrisie alone, I’d say fine, big deal, you’re fully out of my life now and I think it’d be wonderful for you if you ended up marrying her and possibly even hilarious. She seems nice, quiet, down to earth, attractive, and good to the girls, though expressionless. She has no expression. I could never understand that in a woman. Ken says she looks like a wasted hippie. Surely, you didn’t think Roy would be here. Because if you did, and he was, what kind of message would you be trying to send him? Oh, well.” She put the headset back on to listen to the music being piped in from the living room stereo. “Unbelievable. The Chamber Brothers doing Time Has Come Today. Like having the speakers built into your brains — four big beautiful spades coming on like Gang Busters in your skull. Want to hear?” She gave him the headset, he sat beside her on the bed. She got up, shut the door, got back on the bed and stretched out on her stomach. He felt her thigh, she laughed and turned over and stroked his neck. She said “Roy’s being baby-sat at Donald’s by this wild old Russian countess, if you’re interested.” She said “Donald’s in this super cutting room downtown, editing his totally insane flick, if you’re interested.” Drank from her drink, his drink. Said his tasted better, sweeter, would he mind if they exchanged or just shared? Touched his waist, said she thinks he’s lost weight. “It looks good; you’ve been getting much too heavy. You look best when you’re slim,” Signaled she’d like the headset back. When he put up his hand for her to wait awhile more, she said she thinks the host has another set. She left the room, returned with the second set, plugged it into the jack, lay beside him, both on their backs, listening to Time, which must run for around twenty minutes. She asked if he could do it quickly; she could. Donald’s way above par, and all that, but he’ll be editing film all night and she wants to fuck, does he? “And then, you’re still my quasi-legal husband till June and such, but no rationales or threats, can you do it quickly? I can.” He helped her kick off her panties, she helped him unbuckle his belt. He got on top of her and both moved to the group’s howls and the beat of “time…time…time…” Their headsets got in the way when they kissed. He tried throwing off his set and got one earphone off and was prying out the other phone cord still wedged behind his ear, when the doorknob turned, the door was being pushed, Helen’s wrist was pressed to his mouth and her teeth clenched tightly when Caroline yelled “Dirk,” as they came together, “I’m tired, Dirk, and Mommy wants for us to go home.”

“We don’t often accompany each other that high and far,” Helen said, as she took off her headset. “Did they make your ears hot too?” She kissed his forehead, slipped into the room’s bathroom. He unlocked the door, gave Caroline her coat, helped Chrisie on with her sweater, took a sleeping Sophie in his arms, shook Ken’s hand and waved to the host, who seemed delighted they were going, said from across the room “Nice to meet you, Dick; nice to meet you, Chris; come back again real soon.”

“Did you two make love?” Chrisie said during the drive home.

“I thought that’s what you were doing and didn’t want to bother you in the room. It was Caroline who insisted we go. And when Helen opened the door and came over to the bar asking for a second set of earphones, I had some crazy idea you were going to do it with those things on. What was it like? You smell like a marriage bed now. I wish we could do it with sound ourselves.”

In the apartment, the children asleep, he and Chrisie began to make love, stopped, she said it was usually better when he was hard, she’d understand if he couldn’t or didn’t want to right now but she felt it was something more. “Feel like it, Dirk, that’s an order, or almost an order. No, no order at all; it was nothing, maybe a confession, forget I said anything. But even if talking about the act usually kills it, I still feel I’ve got to do it at least once before I leave. My femininity’s at stake, my whole well-being’s in peril, the children’s futures are in jeopardy; besides, we haven’t done it in half a year and you were usually so good at it before; do you mind? Strange how things change.”

Chrisie and the girls were in the car, Dirk on the sidewalk. “Will you be coming to Obispo?” she said. Though I suppose I should continue coming here, what with Blaise and a rabidly uptight father and a mother who’s always spying by for butter and mommy-sissy chats and demanding to know who painted those erotic watercolors. No, I’ll come here, or maybe we should just start living together. Blaise would love that. He honestly would. He wants to be alone also, so you two could sort of switch. And you cook better than him. I like to cook also, but you cook so well I’d let you run the kitchen. And your sandwiches. I think I’ll fly up and get us all killed next time, just for your sandwiches. You ought to open a sandwich shop. Just make sandwiches any old way you like and I’ll be your only waitress. We could retire in ten years and live for as long as we liked on the Costa del Sol or any one of those other Costas or Sols. But you do make delectable sandwiches, Dirk, and thank you for buying me two front tires. I didn’t know the old ones were bald. I didn’t know that people got blowouts from bald tires. I thought that even new tires could get blowouts. Goodbye, Dirk.” He stuck his head inside the car window and they kissed. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Caroline said. He opened the rear door and kissed her. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Chrisie said. He extended his head over the front seat and they hugged, cried, kissed. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Caroline said, and he laughed, kissed her cheek again, closed the door, keeping his thumb pressed to the handle button, to make sure the door stayed locked, “Goodbye, Dirk,” Chrisie said, and he stuck his head through the window and they kissed. Caroline was still flapping her toy bunny at him as their car entered the freeway on ramp. During all these words, embraces and gestures of departure, Sophie had remained asleep in her child’s car chair hooked over the back seat. What, he thought. What, he wanted to say, what is all this?

PRODUCE

Suddenly, one of the front windows broke and a fire started at number-three cash register and I knew right away what had happened. Someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the window. Because just before the smell of fire and smoke had covered over every single smell in the store, there was this smell of kerosene that had flashed in and out of my nose.

“Hey, I’m burning, I’m burning up,” Nelson Forman said, first very surprised to see his clothes on fire, then running from his post at number three with flames coming out of his back.

“Get a blanket,” a woman customer said. And when I yelled “Where in hell am I going to get a blanket in a supermarket?” she said “Get a coat, then, something to wrap around him, at least.”

But this was a hot, sticky August day and not a person in the store had even a jacket on, not even the register clerks, though it was compulsory for them. Nelson ran up aisle A, flames still coming out of his back. Everyone, including a dozen or so customers and the delivery boys and all the clerks, except the two who were using the store’s only working fire extinguisher to put out the small blaze at number three, just sort of looked dumbfounded and helpless at Nelson running up and around and down the aisles, wailing his head off, till I tackled him from in front, a perfect tackle right below the knees, so his whole body would buckle and fall backward and lose an extra yard and maybe even loosen the ball from his hands, and rolled him on the floor on his back till most of the fire was out. Then I flipped open five quart bottles of cranberry juice, the nearest liquid I could reach, and poured them over him till the fire was doused, and rested from the ordeal, with my breath coming on hard, while all three delivery boys uncapped quart and half-quart bottles of tomato and pineapple and apricot-orange juice and spilled the contents over Nelson, even after his clothes had stopped smoking.

“Anyone call the police for an ambulance?” I said to the manager, and he repeated the question to the customers and staff surrounding Nelson and me, and they just looked at one another, some shaking their heads.

One man, speaking for his wife and him, said “We didn’t; nobody said to.”

“Well, someone call the police for an ambulance,” the manager said.

“Want me to do it, boss?” Richard, a food bagger, said.

“Dial 9-1-1, Richie.”

“Nine-eleven, right, that new police emergency number, right away. Which phone should I use — the one in the office or the pay one in back?”

The office, and quick, now, Nelson’s hurt.”

“What I do, what I do for this?” Nelson said, his eyelids and nostrils fluttering, and just my trying to blow away the ashes on his chest that were the remains of his short-sleeved white shirt caused him great pain. He seemed to be going crazy and his hair smelled singed like burned chicken feathers and we were both getting more soaked by the second from being in this large puddle of juice. Nobody seemed to want to get near us or even get their shoes wet.

“How do I keep him from going into shock?” I asked the manager.

“Put his legs up on that olive-oil can there and keep his head straight down.”

“No,” a woman said, “you put his head up on something soft and his legs down.”

“Which do I do?” I asked the manager.

“Let’s keep him flat, then. The police will be here in a sec.”

A combination of different sirens was heard in a few minutes and then police came and firemen with picks and fire extinguishers and what looked like gas masks and then ambulance people from the local city hospital. Nelson was given oxygen and put on an IV and treated briefly for his burns and was being wheeled out of the market on a gurney when he threw off his oxygen cup and yelled “Boom, damn bomb went boom. And I saw the man who threw it, saw the bum who went boom.”

“Hold him there for a moment,” a police officer said to the bearers, but the doctor said he’d have to insist that Nelson not be detained.

“Just one quick question, please.” And to Nelson: “Who’d you see throw the bomb, son? I’m saying,” when Nelson looked at him blankly, “the person who threw it, I mean. You know him? Could you give me a description of him?

The person was a man,” Nelson said. Threw it right through it, right at me, right through the window at the Heinz beans I was ringing up. Went boom. That man went boom. And the boom went off like a bomb and burned my back, the bum, my back.”

“Is that what happened. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine and dandy in a few days, son, and take care.”

“Good luck to you, Nelly,” one of the register clerks yelled out.

“Safe recovery.”

“Now, what happened?” the police officer said to me. “And please say it nice and straight and slow. Shorthand’s not my profession.”

My wife asked if anything had happened at work that day, as she asked almost every night when I first got home and immediately went to the bathroom to wash my face and hands and sometimes take a shower, and I said “No, nothing much.”

She said “Oh. It’s because this time you look more tired than usual, so I thought something might be wrong. Like a beer?”

“Yeah, a beer — no, an ale. I’m dying for one ice-cold.”

“You bring home any from work?”

“No, I didn’t even bring home a beer. I didn’t even bring any groceries. There was a fire at work, that’s why.”

“A fire? So, now what are we going to do for supper? I was counting on a chicken from you, Kev. Why didn’t you stop at another market? Or, better yet, phoned me so I could shop somewhere near here. I would’ve, even though we don’t get the discount like at your C & L.”

“Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the store window and Nelson Forman nearly got burned to death.” She asked who Nelson was and when I told her, she said “Was he seriously hurt?”

“I said he was nearly burned to death. That means nearly being burned to death. The hospital I called said he has second-and third-degree burns on about fifty percent of his body and that he’s still critical and probably lucky to be alive.”

“Which is worse, second or third?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if first is worse or better than second. All I know is that fifty percent body burns is very bad, very critical.”

“You should’ve phoned me, Kev. You phoned the hospital; I admit that’s more important, but you should’ve also phoned me. Now we have nothing for supper but eggs, unless you want to go and walk the ten stupid blocks to the market.”

“Is that the closest?”

“And the only one. It’s almost seven and that’s it in about a square mile around here that stays open. I think they’re worried about robberies and such. An enterprising chain should open a store nearer the project, stick an armed guard in it and stay open till nine or ten at night and make a fortune. You ought to suggest it to C & L.”

The phone rang just around the time we normally sit down to eat. “Who is it?” I said, angry, as if everyone in this time zone should know that most families have supper at this hour, and a man said “Wimer, Kevin Wimer, you’re in charge of the C & L produce section at Bainbridge, correct?”

“Sort of assistant in charge. Finerman’s head.”

“Finerman, that’s right. There was a fire in your store today, caused by a particular labor-trouble reason I’ll disclose this very minute, if you’re not in a rush. There’s a movement going on for better wages and working conditions by the ras-, black-and loganberry pickers of this country. And your food chain has continued to sell these products, even though we’ve expressly requested it to boycott all the big growers of them till they’ve fallen in line with the few smaller growers who’ve raised pickers’ wages to the national minimum and improved the pickers’ living and working conditions while they’re on the job. Were you aware your store was firebombed today?”

“Sure. One of the clerks got fifty percent of his body burned, both second and third degree.”

“I heard. And it’s terrible. But if it’s only five percent second and forty-five percent third, it wouldn’t be that bad, am I right?”

“You are if second is worse than third, but it could be fatal the other way around.”

“I’m very sorry for this clerk. But if I related to you some of the living and working conditions these pickers have to endure, you’d see they’re almost better off dead than alive.”

The pickers can always get other jobs, can’t they? I mean, there’s no Government law saying they can’t.”

“Are you a union man, Mr. Wimer — I mean a good one? Then you, of course, know you can’t be fired from your present position without an exceptionally good cause, correct? And if you’ve any complaints that can’t be settled by you directly with management, then the union settles them for you, correct? The pickers formed a union, but the major growers won’t recognize it, so no complaints are settled in any way except the way the growers want, and that’s always to the extreme disadvantage of the pickers. These pickers are relatively uneducated but very honest people, usually from a foreign-speaking minority, good family men, they know how to pick fruit, like the outdoors and accept gladly their means of livelihood. And now all they want is for their legitimately formed union to be recognized and honored by the growers, so the union can bargain directly and fairly for better wages, decent wages, the most minimum of national-minimum-wage-act wages, and for the most commonly accepted working and living conditions, which means a portable privy near their work area and dormitories that weren’t built ages ago for pigs. Now, is that asking for too much?”

“No.”

Then support us by joining the boycott movement against the illegal growers. We’re asking you — and, incidentally, this is in full accordance and sympathy from your own union organizer, Mr. Felk, at Local 79—to refuse to sell ras-, black-and loganberries in your store. And, in fact, tomorrow, in the street outside your supermarket, to publicly dump and destroy the berries you already have while TV news cameras of two local stations here take pictures of you doing it, all of which we’ll be instrumental in setting up.”

I made a few whews and good Gods into the phone and asked the man to repeat what he’d just asked me to do, which he was doing when Jennie walked over with a blackboard that listed the ingredients that were going into her “New Superspecial Famous Northern California Egg Dish tonight, which includes sweet cream, Swiss and parmesan cheese, scallions, peppers, pimientos and fresh chopped oregano and parsley,” and said “Who’s on the phone?”

I said “Union business.” And to the man: “What’s your name, if I might ask?”

“I’ll give my organizing name, which is Blackspot. Now, what do you say?”

I said why not ask the head of produce, and he said Finerman was too old, besides being in complete agreement with the berry growers and management against the pickers. “Do what I ask, Kevin, and it might be the spark to make our Eastern boycott successful. We don’t want any more firebombing. Innocent people get hurt and it looks bad for us, besides. Just dump the berries at ten a.m. tomorrow, which the stations say is the latest they can cover the story, because of previous camera commitments. We swear we’ll use every pressure we have to keep you on at the store, if they decide to fire you, and if that’s impossible, then your union has promised to place you at even a higher wage at a pro-picker store. You’ll also be stamping your own special mark for the same things your union fought for and won only twenty years ago. Now, what do you say?”

I said I’ll think it over, but he said I had no time. I said why didn’t he get a produce head of one of the giant, more influential markets to do it and he said because my store was in the news now and to gain back respect for the movement, that firebombing had to be whitewashed from the public’s mind. “What you’d do would mean that even though one of your favorite colleagues was severely burned, his fellow employees still thought so much of the movement that they forgave the firebombing and were, in fact, placing direct blame on the market owners for selling those berries.”

I said oh, what the hell, I’d do it, and he said I’d see him in front of the store at ten, then. “You’ll recognize me as an ordinary pedestrian with the most unordinary happy grin an ordinary pedestrian ever had. Pickers around the nation will never forget you for this. You’re a credit to your profession and local.”

I didn’t care about being a credit to my profession. I never had any illusions my job was difficult, or needed many physical or mental skills, though I did have to use some better judgment and really strain a muscle or two when I worked for a small market five years ago and had to get up before the pigeons do to select and buy the store’s produce line right off the trucks. Now I open crates that are delivered twice a week to the market, make sure the fruits and vegetables look appetizing and salable to the customers, which mostly means using the right fluorescent lights and straightening out the food and spraying it every other hour to give it that just-picked or rained-on look and odor, put up the price signs that management directs us to from its offices in another city and occasionally use my own mind by writing and installing cute and clever sayings on the more perishable items, such as “Act like this fruit is your mother-in-law: Please do not squeeze.” But I agreed with just about everything Blackspot said about improving the lot of the pickers, was bored with C & L after three years and didn’t mind losing my job, with two weeks’ severance pay, if I could get another one. And it’d be a kick seeing myself on television, having my wife, friends and relatives all seeing me, which’d be the most exciting thing to happen to me since my plane came back with me and my National Guard unit in it from an overseas emergency Middle East crisis several years ago and my crying wife and family nearly suffocated me at the airport gate.

“How’d you like to see me on television tomorrow night?” I said to Jennie when she set that superspecial northern-California egg dish in front of me, and she said “And how’d you like to see me in a brand-new Valentine gown?”

“But I’m serious.” And she said “And so am I. Wouldn’t I look spectacular? Now, eat up.” And to that five-month-old thing in her belly: “You, too, mister, and don’t be letting me know if you think the dish is too hot.”

The eggs weren’t very good, too bland, which not even salt would improve, which surprised me, with all the different herbs, spices and ingredients she put in it. When she asked how it was, I said “Great, fine, though still not as good as one of your plain cheese omelets or fried egg marinara, so maybe this should be the last time we have it, okay?”

“I like it. The sautéed pepper I could do without, but I like it.” She ate all her eggs and, without asking me or anything, spooned half of my eggs onto her plate, while I just sat there, thinking about how I was going to get the berries to the street tomorrow before the manager or Finerman got wind of what I was doing.

I got to work a little earlier than usual and cleaned up the produce section a half hour before the store was to open at nine. The window from the bombing the day before still had wooden planks and tape over it and the store still smelled some from the fire, even though we had used several cans of bathroom spray. One of the girl food clerks said that just before she left work last night, the manager told her the company wasn’t going to replace the window till the weekend, just to show the agitators that we didn’t think a broken window was going to lose us much business and to also show the neighborhood how difficult it was providing them with the wide selection of food products we thought they wanted. I told her I thought a broken window was sure to lose us trade, not only because it looked bad but also because it reminded customers that more agitation might come if the dispute wasn’t settled and, worse than that, of Nelson’s near death.

“How is he, you know?” she said, and I said I’d been thinking of calling the hospital; in fact, would do it right now, since I had a few minutes before the store opened, and went to the office.

“Good morning, Kevin,” the manager said. “Everything straightened out up front?” He said this almost every time I saw him and he meant was the floor swept in my section and was I getting the more perishable items that wouldn’t last the week right up on top for everyone to see or at least working with Finerman ordering replacement produce, since the company prohibited markdowns on its fruits and vegetables. This was really his office, he made us very aware of that; made us feel uncomfortable whenever we had to use just one of the three desks in it. And he red-circled the check-in numbers of our timecards if we clocked in three minutes late more than once a week or two minutes late more than twice a week and even complained to our department superiors if he thought we were spending too much time in the washroom, which happened to be within seeing distance of his desk overlooking the store, as I guess everything else was, except the stockroom in back, where the staff took their breaks. That was why I was a little jittery and maybe too hesitant when I asked if he’d mind my using the phone to call about Nelson. He said I needn’t bother, he had called himself last night and the hospital said Nelson’s doing satisfactorily and it wouldn’t know of any improvement in his condition for two days. “He has those kinds of burns.”

“I’d still like to call, if you don’t mind, and find out if he just might have improved overnight.”

“I never knew you and Nelson were that close.”

“We weren’t, exactly. I mean, Nelson liked me and me, him and we had lots of respect for each other, as we were both on the company softball team that made the league playoffs two years ago, Nelly at short and me at second.”

“It’s also that the company’s been complaining to me recently about the excess calls from this phone, and on both exchanges. That they’re completely out of proportion to the excess calls of their other stores. They even sent me a notice to post on the bulletin board, which I haven’t done, because I thought a brief mention of it at our next staff meeting might serve as well.”

“I’m sure they could make an exception with this one.”

“I’m sure they could, too, if this were the only exception. But I can’t be explaining to them why each excess call of my employees — or at least the calls I find out about, because I’m not always in this office — is an exception. I’d be explaining to them all week, if that were the case.”

So he wasn’t going to let me use the phone. He didn’t care about Nelson, except that he had to be replaced by a less efficient man at the register and that might lower the day’s profits a fraction of a percentage point and — good God! — how was he ever going to explain that to the company. He didn’t care about the pickers or even his own employees. And if it had been me burned and Nelson who wanted to call the hospital, it would have been the same excuse: excess calls. I said Thank you,” I don’t know for what, and called the hospital from the pay phone in back. Nelson was doing satisfactorily, a woman there said, though chances of his complete recovery wouldn’t be known for at least another day.

“You see the TV cameras?” Mary Sarah, another food clerk, said when I got back to my section. They’re setting up outside — two of them from different stations. What’re you think they’re for?”

“Probably to film the scene of yesterday’s bombing.”

“And the paper today? There was a picture of our market, real as life except for the boards, and another of Nelson, all bandaged up, waving from his hospital bed, although he looked so grim and weak, it seemed maybe strings were making his fingers move. My hubby, Mike, and I talked about it and couldn’t decide what all that degree business meant. Though because third sounds so much the worse over second, we almost agreed it wasn’t, because that would have been too obvious, so we wouldn’t have even considered the question in the first place. Do you have a clue?”

The store bell rang, everyone got to his post, the doors opened and the usual early-morning surge of customers, eager to get what they believed were daily-delivered fresh produce, bought grapefruits, oranges, peaches and tomatoes and raspberries that had been in the boxes and bins out here, or in the refrigerated cases in back, for a few days.

“It’s getting so exciting outside,” Mary Sarah said, coming by after the early rush had ended and squeezing and thumping a melon to see if it was ripe enough for dinner tonight. “Could you put this away for me?” she said, which I did. “And the newspaper article said it was all because of those things — those berries there,” and she pointed, to the four crates of different kinds of berries that in a half hour I was going to dump into the street and destroy. I’d already figured out how I was going to do it. I’d wait till Finerman went in back for his every-half-hour-on-the-half-hour smoke, and then I’d stack the crates on one another and carry them outside.

“Morning, Kevin.” It was Mrs. Blau, another morning regular. For six months in the cold season, she bought nothing but anise, artichokes and apples; and during the warmer months, it was plums, peaches and carrots with their tops. “You shouldn’t be selling those things,” she said, meaning the berries.

“I know that, Mrs. Blau.”

“I should be boycotting your store for selling them, because by having them, you only encourage people to buy. Haven’t you seen the television reports?” I told her I hadn’t and she said the educational network last week devoted an entire hour to the plight of the berry-pickers and the cynicism and greediness of the growers. The pickers are the most underprivileged and underpaid workers we have. Because of that, they’re forced to live in hovels and have too many children, thereby causing even more future problems for them and the world. I shouldn’t even be in this store, do you realize that? And maybe I won’t,” and she handed me the plums, peaches and carrots I’d weighed for her and bagged, clipped and marked, said “I’m sorry for putting you through so much unnecessary work, Kevin,” and left the store.

It was nearly ten. The cameras were set up and a couple of policemen were keeping pedestrians away from the equipment and newsman, whom I recognized from a local evening news show as one of the most well-known television reporters on the city scene. People were trying to get his autograph while he held a sheet of paper up in front of him and was practicing his report to an unmanned camera. Suddenly, Mary Sarah was right on top of me, excited and out of breath and saying “You know what Paul Dougherty of WYBT just said outside about you, Kev?” And Larry, the youngest food clerk, said “What, Mary, what?”

“He said that you, Kevin Wilmer, have just smashed all the grower-grown berries that hadn’t been picked by union-member pickers, as an act of protest against the growers and as a form of allegiance or something to the boycott movement, though I don’t know if he was talking about you or the pickers, now, Kev.”

“What’s all that about?” Finerman said, his cigarette pack and matches already out of his pocket and in his hands, as he was on his way to the stockroom for a smoke.

“What’s all what about?” I said, stacking a crate of raspberries on a blackberry crate.

“What Mary Sarah said.”

“Paul Dougherty said you dumped and smashed berries outside,” she said. “But you didn’t do that, did you Kev? I would have seen it from number six, or at least heard about it.”

That’s true, you would’ve.” I had three crates stacked now, lifted them up, told Larry to put the fourth and last crate on top of the three I held, and started for the door.

“Where you going with those?” Finerman said. “Now, put them down and explain to me, Kev.”

I would have, the situation was getting too unsettling and scary for me now, but everything had been arranged, which I had agreed to, and I’d feel even worse and more stupid having had all those television men come out here and set up their equipment for nothing. “I’ve got to put these berries away, under manager’s orders,” I said.

Then you’re going the wrong way, if that is what you’re doing,” Finerman said. “Storeroom’s in back. Kevin?

Now, you come back here this instant, Kevin.”

I was walking through the door. Finerman, as I’d thought, didn’t try to stop me physically, though by now he must have known what was happening. Larry, Mary Sarah and all the delivery boys followed me outside, mumbling to one another that something fantastic was about to happen.

“Okay, fellas,” Paul Dougherty said, and the cameras began shooting film of me. Paul Dougherty was reporting off camera that I was leaving the market to demonstrate my solidarity with the pickers’ movement for higher wages and better living and working conditions. Behind me, Mary Sarah said “Now I get it; now I understand,” and Larry said “Oh, Jesus, and I was the one who put the last crate in his hands. You think I’ll be fired?”

I looked around for Blackspot, but there was a whole slew of ordinary-looking pedestrians grinning and smiling as I almost never saw them do on the street. I walked to the curb, set down the crates, lifted the top crate and was about to turn it over into the street, when one of the three boys standing beside me and hamming it up for the cameras said “As long as you’re going to throw those away, can we have some?” I said no, though I honestly didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t planned for anyone to bring up what I could see was a perfectly legitimate request, and when he said They’re just going to go to waste, anyhow,” I told him “All right, but only one basket apiece, understand?”

They took a basket each from one of the crates on the sidewalk and then it seemed that everyone in the crowd other than my coworkers and the television people and one unhappy, ungrinning, very ordinary-looking man except for a purple birthmark the size of a glass coaster in the middle of his forehead began grabbing baskets of berries out of the crates and carefully sticking them into their shopping bags or just eating handfuls of berries right on the street, as the three boys were doing. The crowd emptied the three crates in less than a minute and were grasping for the berries in the crate I was holding away from their reach, when I threw that crate to the ground and quickly stepped on and smashed the berries rolling every which way and then almost everyone in the crowd joined in stepping on the berries with me.

“We’re pressing wine,” someone said. “Down with the illegal growers,” Blackspot shouted at the cameras.

“Up with the C & L fruit men,” a woman said, and that was the cheer the crowd liked best. “Up with the C & L fruit men,” people shouted. They give away free berries for nothing.”

The cameras picked up on all this. Paul Dougherty was reporting the story as if a last-ditch game-winning touchdown had just been scored. It was almost a surprise to me not to be hoisted to someone’s shoulders and paraded around and hip-hip-hoorayed to.

Later, Jennie and I sat down for the evening news.

I’d told her something special was going to be on that we should watch, as I hadn’t mentioned what had happened at work today. She said she better see how the chicken was doing in the oven, but I said “Sit tight, just for a second.”

There were a lot of reports about Vietnam and Africa and the UN and our country’s gold crisis and the city’s impending school crisis and then the store I was in. “Oh, gosh, I can’t believe it; you were right,” Jennie said. I told her to can it, I couldn’t hear. Off-camera, Paul Dougherty, while the screen showed me leaving the store, was telling a different story from the one he’d begun to recite when the incident actually took place. Now he said that what had started out to be one individual’s protest against the major city supermarkets’ nonadherence to the ras-, black-and loganberry boycott turned into a major neighborhood fun-in. “Kevin Wimer was the principal figure in the demonstration. But the neighborhood, a polyglot of race, creed and culture, wouldn’t let Mr. Wimer have his protest without them eating it, too.” The television showed the loud frantic activity of people stealing the baskets and popping berries into their mouths for the benefit of the cameras, and Paul Dougherty said it was like a “modern-dress Cecil B. De Mille-presents scene of Bacchanalian Rome.” The last shot showed me walking back to the market with the empty crates and Paul Dougherty, in the foreground, and for the first time on camera, saying “So what began as a plucky individual’s protest against a segment of the giant corporate structure ended up as the best gesture of neighborhood goodwill and all the free publicity that accompanies it that a supermarket chain could hope to get. I guess you can say ‘Berry sweet is revenge.’”

“What’d he mean with that last remark?” Jennie said.

“I don’t know; too highbrow for me. Maybe that my stunt backfired.”

“Did they can you?”

The manager said he’d speak to upper management about it. Meanwhile, because they’re short of help in the produce section, I should stay on. But there are always other jobs.”

“We got bills, you know, a baby coming on, and chicken costs money, especially if you don’t get it at twenty-percent off.” She went to the kitchen, yelled out “You’re a fool and a showoff, Kevin Wimer,” and, a little later, that dinner would be ready in five minutes.

Blackspot called. “You weren’t at first forceful enough with those three kids, but thanks, anyway. Nobody won or lost, but it at least drew some much-needed nonviolent attention to the movement. I was wondering if you’d join our picket line tomorrow against a pro-grower Food-O-Rama on a Hundred and Sixty-eighth. We need marchers badly.”

“I’m still working,” I said. “But because of my general all-around foul-up today and sympathy for the movement, I’d like to give a few dollars to the pickers. Where do I send it to?”

“We’re having a full-page ad in all the city’s newspapers on Sunday. It’ll mention just that matter and also the address of national headquarters where the donations should go.”

The phone rang a minute later. “Let it ring,” Jennie said. “Even pull out the jack, since there’ll be no end to those calls,” but I left the table and answered it. It was Nelson’s wife, Rita. She said she hadn’t seen the story on television herself, but a couple of her friends called to tell her that one of Nelson’s coworkers had come on television to say that not only did Nelson deserve to get burned but the whole city should be torched if the mayor and city council and all the supermarkets and their customers don’t support the berry boycott. I told her that wasn’t true about one of Nelson’s coworkers and wondered what news program her friends could have been watching. “It certainly wasn’t the one my wife and I saw, and the other station covering it filmed the same scene.” Then I asked how Nelson was and she said “Oh, fine, absolutely fine. How else would he be with half his body charred to shreds and all the pain that goes with it, which no amount of drugs seems to help.”

“But is he improving any? I mean, Nelson and I were friends at work, so I’m interested. Everybody at the market’s concerned, customers too.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “a lot you all care.”

“We do, a lot, me, especially. That television report your friends gave was totally false.”

“Well, the doctors say he’ll live, thank God, though with so much of his body burned, they say he’ll have to get skin grafts on the parts burned most,” and it occurred to me that she if anybody would know the answer as to which of the two degrees was worse. I first said “Listen, and I swear to this, I’d be glad to give some of my skin to Nelson, if the doctors think the color is right and all, as I’ve big thighs and an even bigger behind and I know that’s where they take the donor’s skin from.” Then I told her about the question that had been bothering me for two days now and which was worse, if she didn’t mind my asking, second-or third-degree burns?

“Well, the main difference, Nelson’s main doctor told me—” but then she broke down. I felt very bad for her and said “Now, come on, don’t cry, Rita. It’ll be all right; everything’ll work out okay,” but she said “I can’t talk anymore; I’ve been like this since the firebombing. Oh, what’s wrong with this world, anyway?” and hung up.

I stood there a few seconds with that sobbing plea of hers still in my head, then went to the dictionary in the living room while Jennie was calling me back to the table in the kitchen, but all it had in it were the words “second” and “third” and “first” and “burn” and “-s” for the plural, but no word “degree” after them, neither with hyphens, separated nor anything. I decided I’d never get to know the answer to this question. That none of my friends knew and nobody at work knew and that maybe the only person who could tell me would be one of those great skin-doctor specialists like the one working on Nelson, who wouldn’t give me the time of day on the phone if I called him, he’d be so busy. Then I remembered my promise to Rita and I said out loud “Good God, what the hell you get yourself into this time?” and I all of a sudden felt stomach-sick and woozy, because just the thought of being operated on for skin for Nelson’s grafting scared me to no end now. I hoped Rita would forget my suggestion, or maybe in her condition she hadn’t even heard me make it, but I had promised her and I knew I’d have to go along with it if I was asked.

THE YOUNG MAN WHO READ BRILLIANT BOOKS

At the state unemployment office this morning, David met a woman in line who told him, after giving him the once-over and then deploring the long wait and interminable California rain, that she had five beautiful daughters at home from whom he could just about take his pick if he liked. “You seem that good-natured and sensitive to me,” she said, “and just look at the way you read those brilliant books. And then, strange as this sounds, sonny,” and she looked around the room suspiciously and then stretched on her toes to speak into his ear, “I think it’s high time they began seeing men who aren’t always so stupid and wild.”

David thought the woman was a little eccentric, so he politely told her he wasn’t interested. “What I’m saying is that, enticing as your offer sounds, I’m really much too busy with my studies to go out with some women I don’t even know.”

“Girls,” she said, “not women. Young gorgeous, unattached girls, the homeliest of which looks like nothing short of a glamorous movie starlet. And who said anything about going out with all five of them? One, just one, we’re not perverts, you know. And my daughters are smart and obedient enough to realize that what I say is usually the right thing for them, so you can be sure you’ll have your choice, like I say.”

Thanks again,” he said, as he was trying to finish the last few pages of the paperback he was reading and then get to the one sticking out of his jacket pocket, “but I’m afraid I’ll still have to say no.”

“Why no? Listen some more before you shut me off. One’s even a blonde, though with fantastic dark black eyes. You ever go out with a blonde with fantastic dark black eyes? Ever even seen one, no less? Take it from me, they’re the most magnificent female creatures on God’s earth, bar none. Writers write endless sonnets about them, swoon at their feet. One handsome young biochemist actually wanted to commit suicide over my Sylvia, but I told him he was crazy and he’d be better off discovering new cures for cancer, instead. And listen: Each of them has a beautiful body. You interested, perhaps, in beautiful bodies?”

“Of course I am,” and he closed the book on his finger. “I mean”—he tried to harden his face from showing his sudden interest—“well, every man is.”

“Like Venus and Aphrodite they have beautiful bodies,” she said dreamily. “And cook? Everything I know in the kitchen and my cordon bleu mother before me knew, I’ve taught to my daughters. Now, what do you say?”

She was next in line now and the clerk behind the window asked her to step forward. “Listen to that jerk,” she whispered to David. “Someone like that I wouldn’t let one foot into my house. Wouldn’t even let him say hello on the phone to my daughters, even if he was pulling in five hundred a week from his job. But you?”

“Madam,” the clerk said irritably, “if you don’t mind?”

“You,” she continued with her back to the clerk, “sandals, long hair, mustache, face blemishes and all, I’d make an elaborate dinner for and introduce to my girls one by one. Then I’d give you a real Cuban cigar and Napoleon brandy and show you into our library till you made up your mind as to which of my beauties you want to take for a drive. And you want to know why? I like brains.”

“It’s nice of you to say that,” David said. “Because nowadays—”

“Brains have always been taught to me by my father as the most important and cherishable part a man can bring to a woman. Clerks like that dullard don’t have brains, just fat behinds with sores on them through their whole lives. But you I can tell. Not only because of your intelligent frown and casual way you speak but also how you concentrate on your brilliant English novel here,” and she slapped the book he held. “So, come on, sonny, because what do you really have to lose?”

“Okay,” he said, smiling for the first time since he met her, “you broke my arm. But just for dinner, if that’s all right. And only to meet your lovely family and have a good home-cooked meal for a change, with some stimulating conversation.”

“Now you’re being smart.” She wrote her name and address on the inside cover of his book, told him to be at her home around six and went up to the clerk’s window to sign the form for her unemployment check.

“You act like you don’t even need the money,” the clerk said, shoving the form in front of her.

This paltry sum?” she said for everybody to hear. “Peanuts. But I and my employer put good money into your insurance plan, so why shouldn’t I make a claim for it if I’m looking for work?”

“Next,” he said over her shoulder, and David walked up, said good morning extra courteously, as he didn’t want to give this man even the slightest excuse for becoming unfriendly and ultimately overinquisitive about him, and answered the same two questions he’d been asked since he started getting the checks.

“Did you work any days last week or receive a salary or payment of any kind for any type of labor?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you make an effort the last week to look for work in your field?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See you tonight, then,” the woman said from the side, twiddling her fingers goodbye as David signed the form. “And don’t worry about any fancy dressing for our cozy dinner. We’re informal people — very informal, though we’re not exactly beggars, by any means.”

That evening, David shaved himself twice with his electric razor, as the rotary blades were in serious need of a sharpening, and trimmed his full mustache so that none of the hairs hung over the upper lip. Then he dressed in his only suit and tie, brushed down his curly hair with hair oil till his skull was flat and shiny, and patted after-shave lotion on his face and neck and then at the underarms of his jacket, which needed a dry-cleaning. But then, he thought, it wasn’t every day of the week a lonely, sort of homely-looking guy like himself was invited to sit down at an elegant table with five beautiful young sisters.

The house he drove up to turned out to be in the seediest part of town. It was small and boxlike, sticking out of a garden of tall weeds like an ancient, run-down mausoleum. He rang the bell, much less hopeful of any grand time tonight, but, surprisingly, the girl who opened the door was as beautiful as her mother had said. She was about twenty, black-eyed and as well built as the famous Venus statue in Paris, whom she also resembled above the neck a great deal, he now noticed, except for the long blonde hair. “Come right in,” she said in a sweet voice, and David, feeling his neck knot up with excitement, managed to squeak out that he was the man his mother had met this morning and invited to dinner.

“You’re Sylvia,” he said. “I’d know you anywhere by your mother’s glowing description.” He stuck out his hand, but instead of having his fingers squeezed seductively as he had imagined, he was jerked past the door and thrown halfway across the room. When he got up a few seconds later, a bit dizzy and his pants ripped at the knee and all set to ask what kind of silly practical joke she was playing on him, he saw her locking the front door with a key, which she promptly dropped down her bra.

“Now, how’s that for a quick-change routine?” Sylvia said with a voice much tougher and throatier now, though that smile of unwavering sweetness remained. “Years back, I was in show business, so I know what’s what with costumes and makeup and things.”

David tried to stay composed by examining the rip in his pants. “It’s a damn good thing this is my oldest suit,” he said, and looked up to see what reaction his remark had made and saw her peeling off her face skin from the forehead down and then her gorgeous blonde hair.

“A voluptuous goddess of love I can only pretend to be for minutes,” the woman he’d met at the unemployment office said, “but a svelte water nymph I could play for you for hours. Not much padding then to bother my tush and ribs and hamper my walk, you know what I mean?” She placed the wig and Venus mask in a hatbox — neatly, as if she were preserving them to wear again — and unzipped her dress, removed the socks from her bra and bandages wrapped around her buttocks and, from her waist, a tight black-satin cummerbund. When she finished rezippering and hitching, and patting her gray hair back into place, she said “Well, now, Davy boy, what do you say we get down to business.”

“Why you big fraud,” he said. “I mean…why you big incredible fraud.”

“Sure, I’m a fraud. What then? You saying you would’ve come all the way out here just to see an old bag like me? But look who’s talking about frauds. We’re on to you, you know, the way you take unemployment-insurance money from our Government under somebody else’s name and Social Security number — a good pal of yours in Paris who you send a hundred bucks to every other week. We checked, so don’t think you’ve been invited here just for your good looks, you weasel. At least I worked for my unemployment money — twenty miserable weeks I worked, which isn’t one day over the minimum and which I don’t ever expect to do again. But sit down.” She motioned him to a chair. “A sense of decency I at least still got for your likes. You want a drink? Some good gin? Oh, stop shaking your head like a clod. You’re not getting out of here till we’ve had our say, so you might as well sit back comfortably with a drink.”

“About that unemployment insurance,” David said uneasily. “Well, that’s my business — my worry. And if you’ve brought me here to extort hush money out of me, forget it. I’m broke, flat, rien — comprenez-vous français? So I’ll be leaving,” and he stood up and confidently stuck out his hand for the key. She laughed and slapped at his fingers and yelled in the direction of the stairs “Georgie? Little Davy’s here and he’s getting impatient. You want to come down?”

From upstairs, a man answered in a soft, lilting voice: “I’ll be down in a sec, sweet.”

“You’ll be down in a sec, nothing. Get your skinny ass here this instant.”

A thin, sickly-looking man in his fifties came hurrying downstairs. He was panting, still full of sleep, a few days past his last shave and scratching his undershirt nervously when he gave David a limp, wet hand to shake.

“Pleased to meet you, son. Sylvia’s told me some very encouraging things about you. Very.”

“You see,” Sylvia said, edging David back into a couch beside Georgie, “my husband and I have decided you’re just the man we need for our work.”

That’s right,” Georgie said. “We need a smart boy with brains.”

“What Mr. Peartree means is that simply the idea of you carrying through your plans to finagle the Government is a good sign to us. Besides which, of course, we can always use it against you if you don’t go along with what we ask.”

“Sylvia told me all about it,” Georgie said. “Amazing. Just terrific. No, really, pal, because not many guys can get away with conning the Federal Government anymore.”

David said “Not that I’m committing myself to anything, but I still don’t know what you have in mind or even what the wages are for your mysterious work.”

“Twenty dollars a day,” she said, as if it were two hundred, “and judging from what we have on you, consider it philanthropy.”

“You’re getting a bargain,” Georgie said. “Take it quick before she lowers the offer.”

“Offer for what, goddamnit?” David said, and Sylvia, telling him to control himself for a minute, went into a long detailed account of what they had in mind. She and Georgie were basically uneducated people, she said, and as he could see by just looking around their home, these weren’t the best of times for them, either. So what they needed now was an educated person to write bright convincing letters to all sorts of big American companies, complaining about the products some woman they’d made up had bought and how much trouble and even serious harm these defective goods had caused this woman and her family.

“We give you the names of the products,” she went on, “and what you do, and which we know you’re capable of because of your strong English-literature background, is think up something wrong with these goods, type up a nice neat letter telling about it and then sign our Mrs. O’Connell’s name and our address. From these letters we expect all kinds of small and semi-large cash settlements, and if not that, then tremendous supplies of these same products Mrs. O’Connell’s complaining about, which should keep us in most of our home goodies for a solid year.”

“A friend of mine,” Georgie said, “once wrote a letter to a cigarette company, telling the truth about how the cig paper had pinholes in it, which made the things unsmokable. In a week he got back a hand-signed letter from the sales manager himself, saying how sorry they were and he should know how untypical his experience was and for his trouble they were sending along two cartons of the same brand he made a stink about. Two cartons — can you imagine? Just think if he was a brainy guy like yourself and wrote an intelligent letter telling how he found some chemically tested rat hairs in his smokes.”

“Letters like that,” Sylvia said, “which shouldn’t take you more than two days. Then you get your forty dollars and our sincerest promises that we won’t leak a word to the Government about your little insurance embezzlement. Is it a deal?”

David had nineteen more weeks to go on his friend’s unemployment insurance, which came to — after he’d subtracted the biweekly hundred dollars he sent to Paris — around two thousand dollars, tax free and clear. He really had no choice but to go along with them, so he said he agreed, though reluctantly, he wanted them to understand, and promised he’d be at their house for work bright and early the next day.

“Listen,” Sylvia said sharply as she unlocked the door, “bright and early it better be. Or around nine a.m. tomorrow, the U.S. Government gets an anonymous tip concerning one David O. Knopps, you know what I mean?”

David returned to their home the next morning and got right down to writing the letters. The Peartrees already had a long list of the names and addresses of the companies he was to write to, so what he had to do was think up something wrong with the company’s product, begin the letter with a brief, courteous description of what the difficulty was, mention that she (Mrs. O’Connell) had never written a letter like this before, make no monetary demands or threats about possible law suits but just say that she wanted to “bring this oversight to the attention of your organization, as I’m quite sure you’d want me to do.” Then he was to sign her best wishes and name, and in a postscript, assure the company that “although my five daughters and I are slightly less confident of your product these days, we bear no grudges against you, realize that big institutions as well as small individuals can make mistakes, and that we’ve no plans to stop using your product in the future.”

Working an eight-to-five shift, it took David three days to complete these letters, all typed on personally engraved stationery, with Mrs. O’Connell’s name and the Peartrees’ address, that Georgie had a printer friend run off. The first letter, to a big soap company in Chicago, took him more than two hours to compose and type. The letter suggested that one of its employees—“perhaps an anarchist or somebody, though with jobs being as hard to get now as they are, I’m hardly the one to place a person’s work in jeopardy — had substituted sand for soap powder in your jumbo-size box of Flashy which, if you must know, ruined my almost-new washing machine and an estimated value of $296 worth of clothes.”

After the first few letters, he became more adept at grinding out these lies and was able to knock off a new one every fifteen minutes. One went to the president of the country’s largest canned-soup company: “Unbelievable as this may sound, sir — and because of its importance, I’m directing this letter to you — the bottom half of a white mouse was found in a can of your cream-of-chicken soup, which, when dumped into the pot, gave my aging mother such a fright that she’s been under heavy sedation ever since.” Another letter went to a chocolate company in Georgia that, in its magazine ads, prided, itself on its cleanliness: “You can imagine our shock, gentlemen, when we discovered, after removing the wrapper of our family’s favorite candy for more than thirty years, that your milk-chocolate bar had teeth marks in it and a tiny end square bitten off.” And about a hundred other letters, all quite civil and somewhat squeamish, all initially self-critical for even thinking of writing this giant reputable company in the first place, all very crafty and subtle, David thought, in getting his main message across: that in one ugly or harmful way or another, the product had caused considerable psychic or physical damage and Mrs. O’Connell wanted some kind of indemnification.

When the letters had been read, edited and approved by the Peartrees, and a number of them retyped by David, they thanked him for a job well done, gave him his wages and a ten dollar bonus for the quick efficient way he had handled his chores and, like his closest uncle and aunt always did, waved goodbye to him from their front steps as his car pulled away. He drove home, merrily humming a peppy tune along with the car radio and convinced that he’d done the only right thing for himself in going along with their scheme. Now, with a clear mind and seventy extra dollars, he could resume collecting his friend’s unemployment checks without fear of being caught, with that money complete his master’s thesis on Henry James, whose work he disliked but at least understood, and begin applying to English departments of the better universities for a teaching assistantship as he went on for his Ph.D. He had a good life ahead of him — the academic life, which was the only one he could contend with and still be financially secure.

A month later, Sylvia called, asking in the most gentle of motherly voices if he’d care to drop by one afternoon that week for homemade peanut-butter cookies and tea. When he refused, saying how much he appreciated the offer but was too tied down in completing his thesis to even go out for the more essential groceries, she said “Lookit, you jerk. You drag that fat butt of yours right over here, or my next call’s going to be to the state unemployment commissioner himself.”

“Call him,” David said. “And the head of the F.B.I., while you’re at it. But remember; Whatever you have on me goes double for you and Georgie-boy with your mail scheme.”

“What mail scheme? That was your scheme, Davy, if you don’t know it by now. We got two God-fearing respectable witnesses, me and Mr. Peartree, who’ll swear under oath that you threatened us with force to use our home to accept your goodies from all those companies and then to even buy them from you, which is why they’re in our house. Those were your signatures, your words that went into those letters, because we sure don’t have the brains and education for that kind of prose. You couldn’t pin a thing on us without going to prison for twenty years yourself, which doesn’t even account for how much time you’d get for your unemployment insurance theft. So, how about it? You going to take down our new address and zip the hell out here, or do I make my next call to that state commissioner, police or F.B.I.?”

The Peartrees lived in a much better neighborhood now, David observed as he drove along their street. And entering their home, Sylvia bowing him in with a wily grin as if she never had any doubts about him rushing over, he was surprised by the number of boxes and cartons in the living room of so many of the products he’d written about in his letters for them. Flour, sugar, fruit juice, canned soup, cellophane tape that wouldn’t stick, alkalizers that wouldn’t fizz, ballpoint pens that leaked onto eighty-dollar blouses with the first stroke, linens that tore apart in the first wash — enough food staples and home supplies to keep them going for a good year, as Sylvia had said.

“But no money to speak of, those misers,” she said after conducting a tour of the four other rooms, each of them almost furnitureless but with enough boxes and cartons of linens and food and cleaning products to make them look like the storage room of a small neighborhood grocery store.

Though what we got we owe all to you,” Georgie said. “Some smart boy you are, Davy, And my Sylvia’s some great judge of people, in choosing you.”

David told them to stop buttering him up with such ridiculous bull jive and level with him straight off why they summoned him here.

“So, feeling a bit ballsier than before, eh?” Sylvia said. “Okay. We’ve another deal you might be interested in.” When he flapped his hands at her to forget it, she said “Only one more; we’re not gluttons. Now take a load off your feet and let me speak.” While Georgie prepared him a Scotch sour, Sylvia explained that with all this food around, they still hadn’t a good stove to cook it on or even a decent bed to put their new linens on, so all they were asking of him was to steal the day’s receipts of a movie theater they had in mind, which would be enough money to buy the big-ticket items they need and keep them going for a while.

“Oh, just a small theater,” she quickly said when he jumped up from the couch and headed for the door. “And not the box office itself, which would be too risky. All you do is approach this little squirt of a manager from behind, ask him into an alley, take his money satchel, which he’s on his way to night-deposit, and bring it here. The way we planned it, he’ll never even see your face; and then you get a hundred for your labor and we say our final goodbyes.”

“It’d be impossible,” he said. “I’d be petrified, too scared out of my wits to say a word,” and he turned away from them and, unable to control himself any longer, started to cry into his sleeve. But they saw right through his ruse, he thought, glancing up, even though he was weeping real tears. When he was finished, had wiped his eyes, having made sure to irritate them, and after Sylvia had restated what they had on him, he said he might go through with it if they didn’t insist he use a gun. “I’d rather go to prison than terrify some innocent guy with a weapon. I’m sorry, but that’s how I am.”

Around one that evening, Georgie drove him to a bar in a nearby suburban town, bought a couple of beers and, from the bar window, pointed across the street to a very short fat man leaving a darkened movie theater. The man was holding a black bag, which Georgie said contained about six thousand in ones, fives, tens and twenties—“None of it traceable. And no heavy change, either, which he leaves in the theater. We also understand this idiot refuses to call the local police station for an escort, since he doesn’t like shelling out the customary twenty bucks tip they expect for the four-block ride. Now watch him, Davy. At the end of the street, he went left, though if he wasn’t in such a hurry, he’d continue along the better-lit avenues to reach the bank. Halfway up that shortcut is an alley, which we’ll want you to suddenly pop out of, say a few standard, words about his money or his life, take the bag, order him to lie on his belly and then impress upon him to stay put and silent for five minutes maximum or by the time he gets home he’ll have found that an accomplice of yours had done some terrible things to his family. It’s all very simple. And once you get back with the bag and we see you haven’t opened it — we have ways — we promise, and you have my solemn oath for both Syl and myself, to leave you in peace for the rest of your life.”

David told him that if he was able to draw up the necessary courage to carry out such an act, he’d do it tomorrow. He knew the Peartrees were sure he’d go through with it. And in a month — if all went well, and the theft seemed simple and quick enough if everything was like they said — his thesis would be done, he already had offers from two good Eastern schools for assistantships while he earned his doctorate, and again that idyllic image of his future appeared; David as teaching assistant for three years, then instructor, assistant professor and ultimately as a full professor pulling down a nice sum at a job at which he only had to put in about twelve hours a week, besides all the long vacations and breaks and paid sabbaticals and research and travel grants. Considering all this, he didn’t feel one night’s scary episode was too great a sacrifice to make to help him realize these goals. And he was twenty-five, too advanced an age to have to start at a new profession from the beginning.

The next night, David, sweating profusely and shivering, could barely stand straight by the time the manager, holding the black bag and with a sunny after-work smile, came waddling up the sidestreet. When he was adjacent to the alley, David stepped out behind him and said — louder than he’d planned, though no one else was on the street—“All right, fella, if you’re wise you’ll hand over that…I mean…what I’m saying, fella, is…just give me that damn bag already, you big fool — you know what the hell I mean. Keep your eyes shut and in front and your face on the ground.”

The manager swiveled around, just when Sylvia’s Venus mask slipped below David’s chin, and called him a disgrace to everything good in life and then tugged at the bag David was trying to wrestle out of his hands. David, not knowing what else to do but realizing that, small and slight as he was, he was still a half foot taller and much stronger than the man, slammed him in the mouth, which sent him sprawling. The manager threw the bag at him, curled himself up and said “I want to die, I want to die this very instant,” and began sobbing. David patted his head. “Look, I’m sorry, but this money’s not even for me. I had to do it. They’re after me. My whole life depends on it. I’ve kids and everything else to take care of. Just keep quiet and stay here a few minutes and don’t say you saw my face, and I swear everything will be okay,” and he ran out of the alley, got into his car at the end of the street, and drove to the Peartrees’.

The total take of the robbery came to a little more than two thousand. Georgie said “I told Sylvia to tell you we should wait till Wednesday, when the show changes and every lonely dud in the area goes to the movies. But no. She’s always got to have her way.”

“Maybe the manager’s been cheating on the owners,” Sylvia said.

“You also get his wallet, Davy?”

David was still shaking from the robbery, and flashlike images of that tiny man curled up on the ground and bawling made him so depressed that he had to stretch out on the couch, “What you say — wallet? Never a wallet. Wasn’t asked and wouldn’t do. Would’ve been too much like a real crime.”

She stuck a hundred dollar bill in his shirt pocket and told him to forget it. “It’s over, done with. Your first is always your worst. Fortunately, this one’s your last. Now, drink up this nice brandy Alexander Georgie made for you, and let’s call it a night.”

Before leaving, David asked them to promise they’d never contact him again. “If you do, I’m calling the cops myself. I don’t care anymore. Prison would be infinitely preferable to going through another night like this. That poor man, lying there like that.”

That fat disgusting thief,” Sylvia said. “I’m sure a few hundred dollars of the receipts are in his wallet right now. Anyway, we earned enough, so you’ll never hear from us again. And to prove how sincere we are, I’ll get the Bible for Georgie and I to swear on,” but he told her not to bother.

David changed his residence that week. Without telling the landlady where he was going, he rented a one-room cabin on someone’s dilapidated ranch in the hills overlooking the campus. Working without letup, he finished his thesis in a few weeks and so now stayed in the area only till the English Department gave the work its approval. His friend had returned from Paris much earlier than expected and resumed collecting his own unemployment insurance. For money, David now worked as a bartender in one of the beer joints that serviced the college community. Two months after he’d last seen the Peartrees, they turned up at the Oasis, took two counter seats and asked David, whom they greeted as if he were just another well-thought-of bartender, for a large pitcher of beer and two cheeseburgers, medium rare.

“Go somewhere else,” David whispered. This place is hot.”

“And maybe you could rustle us up a side order of French fries,” Georgie said. “Crisp. Make sure to tell the cook we like them crisp.”

“Please. Things are finally going well for me. I’ve a girlfriend. We’re going to get married. She’s going to have a baby — my first child—mine, you hear? In six months, I’m going to be both father and husband, so leave me alone.”

They listened patiently. Then Georgie said “You ain’t got no girl. We know all about you. Where you live with the cows and what poor decent people your folks are in Idaho and what a fine university you settled on near Boston, and even that your buddy Harold’s back and you haven’t been able to cheat the government anymore.”

“You look terrible,” Sylvia said, shaking her head. “An apron on a man is such an unmasculine-looking thing. What’re you making here — three-fifty an hour plus tips?”

That’s right,” David said, “and it’s more than sufficient.”

“What about your expenses East? Motels, gas, food, car upkeep and just living there before your college money comes in. Throw that apron away and come home with us.

Next job we got for you we pay seven hundred — just think of it. That’s probably three weeks’ earnings here for just one day’s work, and we don’t take off for taxes and Social Security.”

“Definitely no,” and with a hand he tried his best to make tremble, he served them tea with lemon and a stale doughnut each. “I’m sick. My mind: it forgets. Even this job’s too much. Got into a car accident last week. Because of my dizzy spells since, my doctor thinks I’ve a concussion or worse. I’m going crazy, is the truth, and a crazy man can shoot off his mouth without knowing it and ruin all your good plans.”

Then you’re better off not working here,” Sylvia said. “And don’t worry about your mind. For this job we need muscle, not brains, and looking and acting like a lunatic will even be an asset. You see, we’ve gone into the loan business with most of the theater money you got for us, and our very best customer won’t pay up.”

“And this guy’s about the same height as the last one,” Georgie said, “but much older — more than seventy — besides being an out-and-out coward. He’s a horseplayer, a real loser, and all you’ve got to do is talk tough, flash him your cold sparkling teeth and maybe give him a slight rabbit punch below the ears to show we haven’t just hired a blowhard for the job. That should be all we need to get back our money with interest, and then we leave the loan business and move upstate to invest in and help run my brother’s dairy.”

“As you can see, David,” Sylvia said, “we want to get out of the rackets as much as you. We’re getting on in years and just want to lead a simple country life again and not always be rattled by thoughts of policemen at our door. But we can’t go unless Abe Goff pays us back what he owes. So come on: Do we have to be spiteful and tell your boss you spit in our teas and later tip off the police about your last theft? You know, that movie-house manager said in the papers he’d recognize your face even in his afterlife.”

David knew damn well what the manager had told the papers. At least ten times he’d read the article about the night the man got held up, had the movie receipts stolen and his wallet, ring, five-hundred dollar watch and three-hundred dollar cufflinks taken from him after he’d been beaten unconscious. He wasn’t sure how eager the manager would be to recognize him, since he must have collected a bundle of money from his insurance company for his own personal loss, but David still couldn’t take the chance. He wasn’t, though, about to give in to the Peartrees so easily as he felt he had always done, so he begged them in a sickly voice: “Listen. You’ve got to find another patsy. I’m hopeless. As I said: in the worst physical and mental shape of my life.”

“College life has ruined you,” Sylvia said. “Made you soft, parasitic, vulnerable and a little stupid, which for us is a perfect setup. Besides, you’re obliged to us up to your neck. So now, do I start by phoning your boss,” whose home phone number she waved in front of him, “or do you leave this place for good tonight and do what we say?”

The following night, David went into Abe Goff’s cleaning store, shortly before closing time. Abe, another little guy, had photographs of victorious racehorses and mud-caked grinning jockeys hanging around the room, and on top of the cash register a shiny bronze of Man o’ War. He seemed annoyed that a customer had come so late, but quickly gave David his most accommodating professional smile and said “So, what can I do for you, young man? Suit, coat, shirts, two pairs of pants with the cuffs removed? Let me guess. Old Abe’s the best guesser you ever seen. Your girlfriend’s yellow mohair G-string that she had French-cleaned? You come for that? Well, no tickly, no stringy, friend, so let’s have it,” and he stuck out his hand for David’s cleaning ticket.

David didn’t say anything more than he’d been instructed to. This is from the Altruistic Loan Company,” he said, with a face — without any effort at all — empty of emotion and hard. Then he grabbed Abe by the neck with one hand, punched him twice in his surprised but still accommodating face with the other hand and, when Abe was on the floor, moaning, coughing, pointing feebly to what he muttered was a bum ticker, kicked him in the chin and heard a bone crack, though he’d aimed for his shoulder. Then he fled to the street, past a screaming woman carrying clothes to be cleaned, and around the corner to where his car was parked. His instructions were to drive to his cabin and wait there till they contacted him. But he drove to their home and continued to bang on the door till Sylvia let him in with a remark that alluded to his unique idiocy. He brushed past her and searched through a few cabinets till he came up with an unopened bottle of Scotch. He had downed three quick drinks from the bottle by the time Georgie, in his pajamas and yawning, dragged himself downstairs.

“We’ve created a Frankenstein,” Sylvia said, pointing at David, who was now filling up a tumbler of Scotch.

“I nearly killed a man tonight,” David said, drinking up. “I’ve had it with you both, which is what I came here to tell you.”

“So who’s asking you for more favors?” Sylvia said. “Go home, sleep it off. Even take that cheap bottle of Scotch, if you want.”

“I can’t go home. They’ll find me. I’ve been recognized, I’ve got to stay here — just until you get your money from Goff and I my money from you — and then I’ll be heading East and out of your way for good.”

“You’re heading nowhere but home, and you’re never going East. You’re into us plenty. Even Abe the cleaner will testify on our behalf. He knows the rules of this game, which is just another thing you’re too damn smart to be aware of. Now, enough. Your college security is gone, so realize that. It was an illusion, anyway, for you haven’t the heart and mind for the good academic life, as you do for our kind of work. Be satisfied you’ve the makings of a fairly competent criminal with a financially secure future, and you’ll feel much better with your lot,” and she headed upstairs. “Lock up after you get him to leave, Georgie, love.”

Georgie didn’t like the prospect of that. Stepping back and smiling amiably, he said “Come on, son, go home peaceably. We don’t aim for no rough stuff.”

“Why not?” David said, stumbling forward drunkenly. “Get rough. Throw me out, you skinny wreck. I’m as crafty as the two of you now and surely as mean.” He slapped him — not a hard slap, as he felt a little sorry for the sickly guy — but Georgie’s reaction to it was as if he’d received a powerful blow to the face. “See what you created?” David said. “A monster of Frankenstein’s, rather than the doctor himself.” He slapped him again, this time so hard that Georgie fell back for real and nearly toppled over. “See what you made me do, Georgie boy? I was just a mild-mannered relatively honest thief when you first met me — but small-time, barely out of my diapers. Now I’m some tough goon full of rage and violence, perhaps even a possible killer.” It was obvious Georgie sensed something bad was coming. He stepped back but was too slow and David’s foot caught him in the groin. He fell to the floor, clutching himself, and David pounced on him, howling like a wild man and tearing at Georgie’s thin hair. Then he turned him over on his back and began slapping his face with both hands so fast that they became one whirring motion in the air.

Sylvia, running and screaming hysterically all the way from her bedroom upstairs, leaped on David’s back and tried to pry him off Georgie. “Let go of him, you big boob. Let go or you’ll kill him,” and she scratched and punched David from behind till he rolled over in a semifaint and lay face up on the floor, peering at their crystal chandelier, when she slammed a heavy ashtray on his head.

He remained on the floor, pretending to be unconscious. Through a slight parting of his eyelids, he saw Georgie sit up and take a Scotch on rocks from her as he whispered if she was going to call the police as she had said.

“Not the police, but the unemployment office you can bet on it. You want him to get away with what he did to us?”

Georgie shook his head and drank.

“And if he is so dumb as to blab on us,” she said, wiping his face with a towel and running her hand through his hair, “we’ll say ‘Sure, we know that horrible young man. Met him at the state office building myself and tried to mend his ways and lead him back to the Lord’s path. Then we saw the Devil was hopelessly inside him, laughing at us, besides Mr. Knopps’ being one incorrigible pathological liar himself.’”

“But who we going to have work for us?” Georgie said. “Even if Abe coughs up, we won’t have enough money for long, and I’m in no condition now to find a job.”

“A woman. Women are more dependable and gullible, carry out orders better and take more guff. And there’s a lot less chance they’re potential maniacs and killers, as so many of these overpressured students seem to be.”

“Make her a blonde,” Georgie said. They’re always prettier and get away with more, and they’re weaker in spirit, I read someplace.”

“And this one I’ll find at the city art museum. We want a cultured one. I’ll put on my old lady’s costume, Grandma Moses mask and go up to some starry-eyed single girl and make small talk about beautiful paintings and such. Then I’ll bring up somehow all the antique jewelry I have, that being the rage among girl intellectuals and artistes these days, and say how I don’t need it, my being old and not so attractive anymore, and it would be a sin to sell it, since it was actually given to me and I don’t like profiting from anything I got for free. And once she comes to the house, I’ll give her the jewelry, you’ll take a nice photo of us, just to prove she was here, and then I’ll contact her and say that unless she does us a small favor, I’m calling the police to report she stole the jewelry from me. I’m sure a beautiful young woman will be able to do a job for us that five Davids couldn’t carry out.”

“Ten Davids,” Georgie said. “Twenty Davids, even. Now you’re using your brains, sweet. Now we’re really going to hustle us up a pile of cash.” He told her to pour herself a Scotch and then raised his glass for a toast. “To beautiful young women,” he said.

“To beautiful young women,” she answered, “and no more brilliant young men,” and they clinked glasses, gulped down their drinks and, laughing and giggling excitedly, poured themselves another.

David stood up, feeling the bump on his head, where she’d hit him with the ashtray, and with his handkerchief, wiped the back of his neck, which she’d opened up with her two-inch fingernails. The Peartrees kept on drinking and laughing, giving no indication they knew he was still in the room. He grabbed the bottle of Scotch away from Sylvia, guzzled straight from it, and yelled “Bastards, hypocrites, swindlers, animals. You’ll never get away with your new scheme — not in a dozen years,” but Sylvia only cupped her free hand to her ear, asked Georgie if he recognized the kind of bird that was cooing from the tree outside the loggia window, and pulled out an unopened bottle from the case of Scotch underneath the couch and poured them each another.

David left the house with the Scotch under his arm and drove away. He didn’t know where he was going, except to first pick up some documents and papers and a few books and clothes at home. He was free of them, though — that he could tell and that was the important thing. The loss of his job and their seven hundred dollars, his possible imprisonment and dreamlike academic future, didn’t mean much to him anymore. His security was an illusion as Sylvia had said. Though maybe some university in Paris or London would take him in with a criminal record or even if he was still wanted by the police in his own country. They do weird things in Europe, like give their top literary prizes to known murderers and bank robbers, so he didn’t know. So, good, that was where he was going, if he could somehow find the means to get there and stay alive till he does.

NIGHT

Night. Blooming night. Bleeding night. Here it is. On him again. Dusk to dark. He has to do something quick. Pulls down the shades. Even with his lights. In his room. In every room and every place in his rooms. Under the covers. Inside the closed closets. Behind his book. Can’t escape it. It’s still out there. Where? Turn around. Who? He. What? Night. Don’t you see? Everywhere night. Damn you, night. Another damn night. Dark. Stars. Moon. Moons. Galaxy and clouds. Meteorites. All that. Can’t stand that. Enough.

He goes upstairs. Climbs flight after flight. First he left his apartment. He reaches the roof. Door locked. Damn door to the roof locked. Padlocked. Hates that kind of lock. That lock’s not legal by city law. Read that some place. Could turn this walkup into a firetrap. Landlord, you’ve done something illegal. Lots. But this? Why this lock at this time and place? He walks down flight after flight of stairs.

He goes outside. First he passed his apartment. It’s a city street. So a city block. Row of attached brownstones on both sides of the block. Avenue up the block and avenue down. He’s lived on this sidestreet for years. A typical city sidestreet. Typical for this city, he means. Twenty-five to thirty five-story buildings to a side. A ten-to twenty-story apartment house at all four ends. Parked cars. No parking spaces. Manholes and streetlamps. One to two people walking on the sidewalk on each side. He goes into the next building’s vestibule. Door to the building’s interior is locked. He rings all the tenants’ bells on the mailbox. One person says “Ruth?”

“Yes,” he says.

That’s not Ruth. Go away.”

Click. She’s gone.

Another answers back on the intercom “Who’s there?”

“Delivery.”

“Delivery, hell. I’m not expecting anything.”

“I mean special delivery. Mail.”

“My eye. I’m calling the police.”

“Do.”

“I will.” Click.

He goes into the next building’s vestibule. That door to the interior’s also locked. He rings several tenants’ bells. One person ticks back without asking who’s there.

He walks up flight after flight of stairs. Five to be exact. Five’s a lot. He reaches the roof. No padlock. Good landlord. Just a hook. He unhooks. Landlord who obeys city laws. He bets the tenants here even get hot water and heat on wintry days. And a fuse box that can be found and windows that don’t fall out as one of his did this year. For three days he waited for the windowman to come. The landlord said he’d called for one. When the windowman didn’t come, he put in the window himself. Windy three days. Learned something though. How to put in a window. He asked the hardware store man how. The man didn’t know but gave him the phone number of a windowman. The windowman said measure your window frame, get glass cut quarter-inch shorter than what you measured on all four sides, get glazier points and a cold or brick chisel, and you got it made. A paint scraper will do to push in the points, the windowman said. The windowman was right. It worked. A window. That didn’t rattle or fall out. But now he’s on the roof. Night. No stars or moon. City. Lights of this city. Other apartments. People cleaning, cooking, talking, watching television, playing, making love. Night not so dark because of the city. But what did he come up here for? Answer that. Who? He. Had a purpose. What? To destroy night. To forget night. No. He doesn’t know. Yes he does. He came up. Why? To look at night. No. Came up. He came up. To what? To somehow efface night. Erase night. Which? Both. But how? He had a theory. Not a theory. A solution. He had something. Now nothing. Night again. That’s it. He had a theory of a solution he would try out up here tonight. He’d yell. That’s what he was going to do. Yell. Just yell. Yell away night. So he yells.

“Night. Damn stinking night. Smelly night. Here again, night. For what? That’s what I’m asking. Why? Why you damn night? Damn starless night. Damn darkness. Damn whatever you are and look like. For what? I’m asking. Me. My name. My history. My present. Everything. Why? Why night? Why day? No. Just night. Day I can take. But night. Why do you come and always come and never stop coming and stay for as long as you stay? Answer me that. I want an answer. Why do you come and come and so often? Every day around here, which is often. Too often. Damn often. Night. Damn you, night. I detest you, night. Can’t stand you, night. You depress me. I’m depressed by you. Night’s depressing. You are. I get. And sick by you. Your darkness, Your length and stars and starlessness. Your moons and no moons and meteorites. This nothing to do almost but but sleep and read at night. Night. Why night? I used to love you so, night. If not love than tolerate you, night. But now? Not now, night. You miserable night. Why these miserable nights? Why this night? These nights. Nights. Night? Damn you, do something, night. I can’t stand another night of you always being around me, night. Of your always sure to be there night after night. Of another sultry night. Any kind of night. So do something, go somewhere, I’m ordering you to, night, night, night.”

But no use. It’s still there. Moon even comes up. He goes downstairs. First he puts the door hook back in its eye. Then he goes downstairs. Flight after flight.