What Is All This?: Uncollected Stories

NOTHING NEW

Now is the time for all good men to Now is the time for all good men One day she decided she had She’d had enough of the desert and him and packed to leave. Suddenly, a man jumped out of a fifth floor window I was walking under. His folks came to dinner. I was rowing by myself across the ocean when I saw He called his brother. “Jim,” he said, “there’s something very important I have to tell you.” She took her dog out for a walk and saw the same man she’d seen the last few times walking his dog. A boy was standing on a balcony waving down at me when the balustrade broke. I was holding my father’s hand through the raised bed rail when he made that noise in his chest and seemed to expire. They were getting bored with each other. They both knew that. We both agreed we were getting bored with each other. We spoke about it. Talked. One day. Yesterday. We talked yesterday about how we were getting bored with each other. We were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. It was morning. Soon after we woke up. This morning, they’d got out of bed and washed up and dressed and he made the bed and tidied up the room while she made them breakfast, and now they were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when they both agreed they were getting bored with each other. All right, enough of getting into it. Now let me get on with it.

The truth now, Lou, and only the truth, so help you God,” I said, “what do you think of our living arrangement so far?”

“I was wondering when you’d speak,” she said. “Not specifically about that. But it’s been at least five minutes since we said a word to each other.”

“You haven’t said anything in that time yourself.”

That’s what I said. We. But I’m usually the one to start the conversation. If it wasn’t for me we’d almost never speak.”

“Anyway, you’re exaggerating. It can’t be five minutes since we last spoke.”

“We haven’t said a word since I poured our coffee, right?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“And your coffee was nearly boiling hot when I poured it, right?”

“Not ‘nearly boiling hot.’ The water boiled and you poured it into the pot and after it dripped through you poured the coffee into our mugs. That would hardly make the coffee nearly boiling hot. I’d say it was quite hot. Barely sipping hot. But surely not nearly boiling hot.”

“All right, it was barely sipping hot. Both of us sipped it with difficulty right after I poured it into our mugs, or you did; I just watched you and saw by your expression it was too hot. But since that time you told me the coffee was too hot to drink, we didn’t say a word till we were able to drink it normally, and both our coffees are black.”

“True. So what’s your point?” I said.

“I can’t believe you don’t know it by now.”

That it would have had to take at least five minutes for our coffee to get from the barely sipping to easily drinking state?”

“I’m no heat or time scientist, but from my experience with coffee I’m sure it takes at least that long to get to that drinkable temperature it reached when we started talking again.”

“I agree.”

“So what I’m saying, of course, is that for five minutes we didn’t say a word. And we sat next to each other all that time, not eating or reading but just glancing at each other or around the room and occasionally barely sipping the coffee.”

“You’ll probably next say it’s because we’re bored with each other. Have nothing or very little to say to each other. But it could also be because the coffee’s much better than usual today, not that it isn’t very good every time you make it.”

“Don’t try and get off the subject with flattery. Especially about my no-better-than-average coffee.”

“It’s always better than average. And I’m saying what I feel. Your coffee today was damn good. I don’t know if it was a new blend or different grind or what previously untried thing you did with it. I know it wasn’t a new pot. So maybe we were just using those silent five minutes thinking about this great coffee.”

“Were you?” she said.

“A little. For about fifteen seconds. But we might’ve been musing about other things. Our different work. Your daughter. What we dreamed last night. And we didn’t get much sleep and we’re both usually pretty listless the first half hour after waking up, so we probably didn’t have the energy to speak.”

“We’ve always spoken — I’m saying, ‘just about always’—more than we do now in the morning no matter how tired we’ve been. Tomorrow we might even speak less than we did today. There’ll be six-minute silences soon, then seven, no matter what the coffee’s like in temperature and quality or how long we’ve been up or slept.”

“If the coffee’s really bad tomorrow, I might have something to say about it.”

“You don’t like my coffee,” she said, “you make it.”

That’s not what I meant.”

“Anyway, after you’ve said whatever it is about the coffee tomorrow morning, you, and probably me too, won’t have much more to say to the other. In other words, each day we’ve that much less to say, it seems, so why do we bother staying together when we’re obviously bored with each other?”

“You’re bored with me?”

“Please, you’re not bored with me?”

“Answer me first. I asked it first.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to answer you first.”

“Just answer it first, then.”

“Only if you then answer me back honestly,’”

“I promise,” I said.

“Yes, I’m bored with you. Now, are you bored with me?”

“Yes, I’m bored with you, or with myself…”

“No hedging. Be honest. You promised. You’re bored silly with me, period.”

“No, I’m bored with myself, comma, and because I am, I’m also bored with everything and everyone else. This is someone else’s philosophical statement or Indian-or Chinese-religious belief, which I always felt was much too simplistic for me before, but feel it applies to me now.”

“No matter whose statement it is or what land it comes from, we’re bored with each other and have to separate.”

“I felt you were getting to that.”

“If you did, then you should have said so or asked me to confirm it, so we could have avoided all this getting-around business to what we finally got to now.”

“If I had, then we really wouldn’t have said much to each other. For it wouldn’t have seemed right for us, after living this long together, to just wake up, wash up and so on and sit down for breakfast and over coffee say right off that we’re bored silly with each other and must separate.”

“Whether it does or doesn’t, we are and so know now what we have to do.”

“We’ve been bored with each other before.”

“Never like this,” she said. “Admit it. We’ve absolutely nothing to say to each other anymore.”

This conversation hasn’t been that boring.”

That’s because all we’ve left to talk about is our boredom, and we can’t talk about that subject for very long without it becoming boring and then very boring and then the most boring subject of all. If we don’t resolve the problem now, then all we’ll have to talk about the next time we speak at length, for I’m disregarding the ‘Answer the door, please, Louise’ and ‘Don’t forget to get a package of cream cheese,’ is how boring we are to each other. And since we already spoke about it before, that conversation will have to be less interesting than it is now. And the third time we speak about it will be even less interesting than the previous time, and so on, until we won’t be able to speak about it, it’ll be so boring, and then we will have nothing to say to each other but ‘Answer the door, please, and don’t forget the cream cheese, Louise.’ It’ll just be silence between us. Eight minutes. Ten. Broken, perhaps, only by directions, orders and simple requests. Maybe we won’t even be able to say these because our boredom and presence together is disturbing us so. Half hour to an hour of just no conversation at all while we’re having coffee together at this table. Could you stand that? I couldn’t.”

“I’d rather wait till it happens before saying how much I couldn’t stand it. I might like it for a while, for all I know.”

“What about what’s already happened? The five minutes of no talk. You liked that?”

“It wasn’t bad. I stood it. I thought about things other than us. Something in my childhood, for instance.”

“I’m not interested,” she said.

“It’s similar to now. When I was five or six. I can’t know how old I was. Seven, even, or nine, though I doubt I could’ve been older than that. Sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and my mother saying, while sipping a cup of coffee…I know coffee was part of it, as steam was coming out of her cup, and she never drank anything else hot like that, not even cocoa or tea, that I couldn’t leave the table or say another word, just as she wasn’t going to say another word to me, till I finished my milk.”

“I’ll ask. Did you?”

“She eventually gave up, let me leave without finishing it. It must have become too boring for her, once she drank her coffee, sitting there without either of us saying a word.”

“Well, I won’t, and I am not your mother.”

“I know. You’re my girlfriend, or sweetie, or once was.”

“Which could be another thing, Herb.”

That can come back. But before it does, I feel the conversation should come back. And with this conversation, our conversation is coming back.”

“I already told you. This conversation is self-destructive in that it destroys itself by our having it. And now that we’ve had it — and I have had it, Herb, I have — this conversation is destroyed. Make it easy for us both. Agree to separate, which means, since I live here with my things and child and you only with your things, to leave the apartment agreeably. Find someone or somewhere to live with or at, or do what you want once you leave here, like travel, but don’t try to have anything more to do with me once you leave, as I won’t with you.”

“I could and would if only I didn’t enjoy these little conversations, which only you of the two of us think are finished and from this point on or thereabouts can only get more boring and self-destructive. But let me think about it. My first inclination is to say you’re probably right.”

“Maybe what I say now will help you make the decision. If you don’t leave, I will. It’ll be more difficult for me, just as it’ll be difficult to stay without your share of the rent. But what will be more difficult than either of those is staying here if you plan to stay, even if you pay all the rent.”

“I think I plan to stay with you and pay all the rent, and not because I want to be difficult.”

Then Rae Ann and I will have to leave.”

Then wherever you go I’ll try to go too and pay all the rent, even though I know for a while I’ll be making myself difficult.”

“But why submit yourself to what you have to admit, this sophistic argument aside, will be almost total and then total boredom between us?”

“Because I still feel, no matter how boring you say our conversations will get, that if we continue to stay together our conversations will become interesting and soon we’ll have a close relationship again.”

“It’ll become horrible. You’ll make me mad. I’ll yell at and curse you. I’ll plead with you to stop bothering me. I’ll say it’s bad for me, you and my child. I’ll call you a child. I’ll call you worse. I’ll have you locked up if you persist. People will call you asinine and mean, childish and insane. Particularly, your family. They and your friends will say you’re thoroughly wasting your time in trying to live with me. Face it, Herb, we were once close but now aren’t. There’s nothing left between us. Or only the least thing left, which is like a residue of what once was. Or more like a residual, which like insecticide residuals are more effective against insects than sprays are. This analogy might not be exact from A to Z, but you’ll get what I mean, and of course I’m not saying you’re an insect. But once the residual is applied, it stays around. Sprays go away and are really only effective when sprayed on the insects directly. But, if you’re an insect, just try to casually walk over the residual or even leap over it in the kitchen. It gets on your feet — I’m assuming the insect’s not wearing shoes — because it’s been applied in too wide a space for just about any insect to stride over or leap across. And after it licks some of the poisonous residual off, it dies. So you can’t avoid it. And you more than anyone I know like to go into the kitchen, at least thirty times a day. The residual covers every entrance to the kitchen, surrounds every opening and hole. Because the insect, in its own way, knows after a while it can’t go into the kitchen without dying, it must separate from that room. Separate from me, Herb. I am that kitchen. Find another kitchen to get food from. Agree to leaving alone or staying here alone or whatever you want to do so long as it doesn’t include being with me, because obviously the kitchen can’t separate from the rest of the apartment to get rid of the insects. No matter what, I’m not saying another word to you till you agree to one of those types of separation I mentioned.”

“I think I can agree to one of them. Let me think about it.”

I thought about it. Briefly. About other things. Mostly. We continued to sit at the table. She reheated what coffee was left in the pot and poured us each a half mugful. Then I thought about something my sister and I used to do as kids. If we both happened to say the same word or words at the same time, we’d immediately hook our right pinky fingers together and one of us would say “What comes out of an old lady’s pocketbook?” and the other would say “Money.” And the first would say “What color is it?” and the other would say “Green.” And the first would say “What comes out of a chimney?” and the other would say “Smoke.” “What color is it?” “Gray.” Then the first would say “Make a wish and do not speak till someone speaks to you.” And we’d each make a wish and neither of us would speak till someone spoke to one of us. Then the one spoken to would ask the other one something so that one would be free to speak. I said to Louise “I was just thinking of something Caroline and I used to do as kids.”

She didn’t say anything.

“It relates to what you said just before, just as what you said related to what my mother said when she told me she wouldn’t speak to me again at the table, nor would I be allowed to say anything or leave the table, till I finished my milk. You did get the idea about not speaking to me from that, didn’t you?”

Drank her coffee.

The coffee’s not as good reheated as when served fresh.”

Didn’t speak.

“Of course, that goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

Put down her cup.

“Anyone who drinks coffee knows it’s better when just made than when just reheated, or really when reheated anytime after it’s been made.”

Silence. Looked away from me.

That is, when they’re both served at a reasonable temperature. When they’re both served very hot or, for me, iced — not that I’d then see the reason for reheating it first — they’re both undrinkable, right?”

Looked at me. No expression.

“All of this said, of course, after I already said that it goes without saying that reheated coffee isn’t as good as fresh.”

Stood up.

“I was also thinking before about the first time we met. Do you remember where and when that was?”

Got a valise out of the coat closet and went into our bedroom. I followed her.

“Forget the when, then; just where?”

Began packing.

“It was in a movie house. The Embassy. Before the picture began, I sat down next to you, about halfway up the middle aisle, three or four seats in. About ten minutes into the movie, I had to go to the men’s room. I asked if you could save my seat for me, and do you remember what you said?”

Silence. More clothes. Went into the bathroom and came back with some of her toiletry to put in the valise.

“You said nothing, Louise. You put your finger over your lips, just as my sister and I used to do right after we’d said the same word or words at the exact same time, and went shhh to me. Do you remember that? Do you remember what I said to you after you did that?”

Closed the valise but couldn’t snap it shut. Opened it, pushed the obstructing sweater sleeve further in, and snapped it shut.

“I said ‘How can I ask you to save my seat without asking you to save my seat?’ Do you remember what your response was?”

Went into Rae Ann’s room. I followed her.

“Face a bit strained with anger, you went shhh to me again, which I’ve already said isn’t saying anything — it’s just making a sound. To save my seat, though I didn’t think this would work — it was really a last resort — I put my book on it, and when I got back I was relieved to see no one had taken my place. Do you remember when you first said any of what I’d consider real words to me?”

Got a knapsack out of the closet and started packing some of Rae Anne’s things.

“Outside the theater. It was a pleasant summer night, do you remember? July 6^th, a Tuesday, to be exact. After the movie, I’d got out of our row first, intentionally hung back for a few seconds and then followed you up the aisle. Admiring you, I admit. You probably didn’t know I was right behind you. Did you?”

Put her hand on her hip and looked straight at me.

“I stopped you in the lobby, not outside the theater, and said ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to be annoying before, as I think you thought I was. But every seat seemed to be taken and I had to go to the men’s room and didn’t know how to ask you to save my seat without actually asking you, which I know I’ve already told you inside the theater, other than for the men’s room part and that I thought every seat was taken.’ Do you remember that?”

Resumed packing.

“Then do you remember what you said right after I told you that?”

Went into the bathroom and got Rae Ann’s toothbrush and hairbrush and a few hair ties and threw these into the knapsack.

Then did you know my sole reason for stopping you in the lobby was to start some kind of conversation because I was attracted to you?”

Raised her eyebrows as if she’d forgotten something. Shook her head. Tied up the knapsack, put it over her shoulder, went to our bedroom, picked up her valise, snapped her fingers, dropped the valise, got some personal papers out of the top drawer of the dresser and put them into a knapsack pocket, picked up the valise and went to the front door. I followed her.

“All right. You give up. Or maybe you didn’t forget. Did you? Do you know what I’m still referring to? You said, after I stopped and spoke to you in the lobby, that you had been too engrossed in the movie to be bothered a single second by me in the theater or to try and save my seat. I said I was sorry. You accepted my apology. We continued to talk in the lobby. Then we went to a cafe nearby for coffee. I was the one who suggested it. Over coffee, I asked you out for dinner the next night. I don’t think you wanted to. It wasn’t because you had to be with Rae Ann. She was with her father for the summer. I in fact think I even had to work very hard to convince you to come to dinner. But the next night, when I was walking you to your building, we made a date for that Saturday. And then, for the rest of the summer, we saw each other almost every day. And after that summer, we saw each other several times a week, sometimes going on-weekend vacations together, a couple of times with Rae Ann. And the next summer, a month-long camping trip in Canada with that very knapsack. Then we rented this apartment together, and of course, except when either of us had to be out of the city, we saw each other every day. By the way, do you remember what kind of movie it was?”

Pointed to herself.

“Right. That kind. Silent. You can say it. I won’t bite you if you do. A revival of the best of the silent films, the movie theater billed the series as. We saw several others in the next month. But that day — that first time we met — no piano accompaniment, as there was supposed to be. Do you remember why?”

Opened the door.

“‘The pianist,’ the theater manager told the audience before the movie began—”

Left. I got my keys, locked the door and went downstairs. She was sitting on the building’s stoop.

“‘The pianist,’ the theater manager said, ‘broke his hand the previous day and they couldn’t find a replacement in time and, unfortunately,’ he said, ‘there are no silent movie piano pieces for solo right hand.’ Then he said ‘That wasn’t nice to say, for the pianist is still in great pain.’ Now is that a coincidence? The pianist’s hands were silent. The silent movie. The theater was silent during the movie except for sporadic coughs and cracking of candy wrappers and things, and of course me. That you originally said shush to me. That you now say we’ve nothing left to say to each other. That you refuse to say anything to me now. The coincidence factor ends, though, because the traffic is certainly noisy, as is the garbage-receiving contraption at the back of that sanitation truck, and noises from other places. That window being replaced. The plane, now, overhead. Even this mosquito near my ear and now yours,” and I swung at it and missed. “But the other coincidences are something to speak about, aren’t they?”

A car with Rae Ann and her father pulled up. I looked at my watch. Right on time: nine, when he brought her back every Monday morning after having her for the weekend. Rae Ann kissed him goodbye and got out of the car with her overnight bag. He waved to Louise, she smiled and waved back, and he drove off. Louise grabbed Rae Ann’s hand and they walked down the block, knapsack over her shoulder and valise in her other hand.

I walked after them. “Louise, I was lying before when I said I was thinking about how we first met. I didn’t think about it. I was only trying to use that as a guise. I thought that by mentioning it, you’d think wistfully about that night and even get a kick out of it, and agree to staying in the apartment with me.”

Hailed a cab and they got in.

I ran up to their cab window and said “Say something, Louise. Then say goodbye to me, Rae Ann.”

Louise put her hand over Rae Ann’s mouth. Rae Ann was looking at me at that moment but I didn’t know if she was going to say anything to me. The cab pulled away. I went back to the apartment, and in the kitchen I ate till I was stuffed. Then I sat in front of Louise’s electric typewriter and turned it on. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy The quick brown fox jumps over the The quick brown fox jumps

INTEREST

They’re not interested in me anymore. They say they are. They say it to my face and over the phone. They say “We’re still interested in you.” They’re not. I know.

How do I know? I know by the way they say it. When they say “We’re still interested in you,” they don’t say it enthusiastically. They say it without enthusiasm. That’s one way how I can tell.

Another way is that they don’t look straight at me when they say they’re still interested in me. They look away. Or half at me, half away. That’s another way how I can tell.

How do I know these are signs they’re not interested in me anymore? Have I asked them directly? I have. I’ve said “You look half at me, half away from me when you say you’re still interested in me.” I’ve said “You don’t say you’re still interested in me with much enthusiasm. You say it unenthusiastically, is what I mean.” They said I was wrong. “Dead wrong,” they said. But I still know they’re not interested in me anymore.

How do I still know, or rather, why? Because, although they’ve said over and over again they’re still interested in me, they do nothing for me. Have they once in the last few months sent my projects to people who might be able to accept them or do something with then? They haven’t. I can say that knowledgeably. Have they once in the last few months spoken about me enthusiastically to people who might be able to accept my projects or do something with them? They haven’t. That I can’t say knowledgeably, because when I asked them if they’d spoken about my projects to other people who might be able to accept them or do something with them, they said they had. I asked “Who?” and they said that was a secret. I asked why was it a secret, and they said if they told me why it would no longer be a secret. I said That’s an answer for a child,” and they said it was the only answer they were going to give. I said “Why?” and they said “Let’s not go any further into it. Let’s just not.”

So how do I know they haven’t sent my projects around to these other people in the last few months? Because I’ve asked these other people if they’d received any of my projects in the last few months, and they all said no. I then asked if anyone who’s supposedly interested in my projects has spoken enthusiastically to them about me in the last few months, and they said they’d rather not say. Then has anyone, I said, spoken to them in any way about me or my projects in the last few months, and they said, again, they’d rather not say. They said that was their business, not mine. Meaning, I should stay out of their business or what they think isn’t mine. I knew what they meant. They didn’t have to spell it out for me, and I didn’t ask them to. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I didn’t because I didn’t think it would get me any place with them. I also felt it might make matters worse for me with the people who are supposedly still interested in me, and with the people they speak to. I also felt lucky to have even gotten to speak to these other people — the people in the right places, I’ll call them, who might be able to do something with my projects. The truth is, I didn’t speak to them. I spoke to the people who say they’re still interested in me, but only wrote to the people in the right places, and they were kind enough to write back and answer me several times over a period of a few weeks.

Where does that leave me? I know that the people who profess to be still interested in me, are not. They’re definitely not. Maybe not “definitely,” but I can say I’m almost positive they’re not.

Why am I almost positive they’re not still interested in me? Because of the reasons I’ve already given here. Anyway, nothing has come of their professed interest in me for months. In fact, nothing has ever come from their interest in me or anyone else’s interest in me and my projects, except for my being initially encouraged by their saying they were interested, which made me produce even more projects for them to send around.

So what am I going to do? I’m about to give up on them. I’ll probably make that decision tonight: whether to give up or stick with them. If I stick with them, I’ll probably have to accept their lies that they’re still interested in me and are sending my projects to people in the right places, or at least speaking enthusiastically, or even just speaking about me to these people, when I’m almost positive they’re not. After all, I’ve tried everyone else who can send my projects to these people, and I’ve also tried sending my projects to them myself. I couldn’t do anything for myself. The people in the right places I sent my projects to said I should get someone to send the projects in for me, that they don’t look at them when they come from the producer of the project himself. And all those people who sent my projects to these people tried hard in the beginning, but their interest soon waned. Now that, I also know to be a fact. Because in the beginning they all sent me proof they had sent my projects around to the right places, and then these proofs stopped coming to me. And each time, after I’d stopped getting these proofs for months, I also asked if they were still interested in me and were still sending my projects around, and they all said they were. But this is the first time I also asked these people in the right places if they’d received any of my projects the last few months, and the answer to that I already gave.

What now then? Maybe I should ask the people who say they’re still interested in me why they haven’t sent me any proof the last few months that my projects are still being sent around. I could do that. I’ve asked them just about everything else, and it is a question I don’t see how they could get out of answering. Because what could they say? If they say “Yes, we have proof we’re still sending your projects around, but forgot to send them to you,” I could say “So send them to me now.” If they then say they don’t have them anymore, I could say “Why not? What happened to them?” If they then say they lost them or they were accidentally destroyed, I could say “Tell me another, because that excuse is the oldest in the books. Besides,” I could say, “I spoke to all the people you supposedly sent my projects to, and they all said they haven’t seen any of my projects in months.” If they say That’s not true, or you misinterpreted what they told you,” I could say There are two ways for you to prove it’s not true or I misinterpreted what they told me, and either will do. One, by having these people tell me by phone or letter that they got my projects, or, two, for you to come up with those written proofs and send them to me.”

Asking them that question about the proofs is another decision I should make tonight. I don’t know if I will. What I mean is, I don’t know if I can make the decision by tonight, or even make the other decision about whether to give up or stick with the people who say they’re still interested in me. Because that second decision really depends on the answer to my question about the proofs in the first decision, and there still might be something about this situation that I haven’t as yet figured out.

BIFF

This weekend.

What?

I said let’s get away this weekend.

What?

I said we’ll go away this weekend. For a trip. Just to be away.

What?

You telling me you still can’t hear?

Is that what you were saying all the time before?

No. I was saying we should get away this weekend. Someplace.

What?

I said — can you hear me now?

Are you still there, Biff?

I’m sure you can hear me.

I can now, almost, but not before.

You mean, everything I said before?

I don’t quite hear you.

I said, all the time before, you couldn’t hear what I said?

Is that what you said the last time you said something?

Yes.

Though not all the times before that?

The times before that you have to know I said something about our getting away this weekend.

What?

I’ll call you back.

What?

I said I’ll call back. This connection’s ridiculous. Something’s at least ridiculous. And we’re sounding ridiculous.

What?

He hangs up, calls back.

Hello?

It’s Biff. Can you hear me?

Hello? Is that you, Biff?

Yes.

Biff? Hello? I still can’t hear anything. Anyone there?

He hangs up, calls back.

Hello?

It’s me again, Jane.

Hello? Who is it? Shout if you have to, but I want to know who’s there.

IT’S BIFF.

Hello? I give up. I hope it’s not someone staying silent just to upset me. But if it is someone I know and want to speak to—

It’s Biff, Biff.

— then call back, okay? Anyway, I’m hanging up.

Good idea.

Biff?

You can hear me?

Suddenly I can.

You’re not playing a joke on me?

Why would I do that?

You might not have liked what I was saying. That you and I should go away this weekend.

What?

Oh, come on.

This time I was kidding. But where would we like to go?

Say, a cottage on the ocean.

Why the ocean?

Then a cabin in the woods.

No, I mean it’s that I could never see the ocean in the summer.

Bad eyes?

Bad joke. I don’t like sitting around getting sunburned. I think it’s so unromantic, getting unhealthy. Burnt skin, healing creams. White marks where the bathing suit straps were, bed soaked with sweat from your shiverings.

Then we’ll rent a dark dank cave with a single warm bed. Would that satisfy you more?

I hope it’s not just a bed you think makes for romance. Anyway, I can’t go.

Why not? Before, you sounded as if you could.

Before, I was curious what travel suggestions you’d make. I’m curious about a lot of things with someone I only recently met. Especially that he asks me away for a weekend in a single bed. But as I said, I can’t.

The single bed was a joke. But why?

Personal reasons.

Too personal to tell me?

You, yes.

Thank you.

Another thing I’m finding out about you is your infantile sensitivity.

You’d be the first woman to think or say that.

That can’t be true.

It isn’t. Several have.

Another about you is that you’re a bit of a liar, or fibber, but can’t keep to your fibs when it might benefit you or please another.

Is that an honest, dishonest or tomato aspect?

Tomato aspect? Tomato aspect. Good God. Another unpleasant aspect of yours is your numerous unfunny jokes.

And one of yours I’m pretty well fed up with is your criticisms of me. And fed up with your tomato aspect as well.

I’m sorry. And I think I better go.

My infantile sensitivity again?

Partly.

You prefer your infantile sensitivity in men to be more adult, right?

I prefer none at all.

An insensitive man, then?

No, I don’t. I’m getting mixed up. You’re making me mixed up. I really have to go.

This conversation’s gotten us nowhere. It’s in fact set us back a ways. Because I originally called with a nice attitude to ask if you wanted to go away this weekend.

You did. That’s true. And I don’t. That’s true too. Or rather, I can’t. I already told you why without being explicit. For now that should be enough.

Listen. I’ll see you.

Fine, if that’s the way you feel.

It seems the way you feel.

You know how I feel? How nice. Maybe this conversation hasn’t been a waste of time after all. But call again if you like.

You mean that?

I said it, so I meant it.

I’ll see you then, Jane.

Have a good weekend.

You too.

He calls back.

Hello?

You said call back, so I did.

I’m wondering if I meant right away.

Then you didn’t mean it — see?

Let’s say I did mean it. What’s new?

Well, now that you ask, I was thinking if you’d like to spend part of the weekend with me in the city.

Actually, I was planning on going to the beach to develop a slight case of sun poisoning. But now that you asked.

You serious?

No. I really am tied up this weekend, Biff. Honestly…Biff. What a strange name. That your real one?

Biff Junior’s my real name.

Is Biff Senior still with us, I hope?

And Biff Senior the first. You see, I’m the third. But my dad didn’t like to be called Junior, so he eliminated his. But when they had me, he liked the name so much that they named me Biff, also. Not Biff Also. Biff Junior.

It would seem if he was so devoted to individuality, he would have wanted you named Biff Also. Or Also Biff. Or Biff Biff. That would be the best one, I think.

I don’t. And I don’t like talking about my name.

You don’t? I forgot who first brought it up. Must have been me. Well, I’m sorry if it was.

Yes. So, anyway, you’re busy this weekend.

Tied up in knots, I’m afraid.

I’ll come and rescue you.

Touché, but no thanks.

Not to stay; just to cut the ropes.

Touché encore, mon Bift, but I’m sorry. I definitely can’t see you this weekend.

Not so much where we have to go out or anything. We could meet for coffee somewhere.

Sorry. I’ll explain some other time, but right now I can’t.

Someone there with you?

It’s not that. Or it might be. Whatever it is, I’m not saying. It’s none of your business, that’s why.

I think it is.

Think what the heck you want, but I’m not going to ask why, because it isn’t and you know it.

I thought you were interested in me, that’s why I said it.

I thought I was also, to a certain extent, but when you come on like this?

Like what?

Let’s see, where were we? Look, I have visions these conversations are only going to get worse for us. So sometimes it’s best to let them drop, wait a week or so, and then call back. Or I’ll call back. But right now, whatever there was forming between us, is being grounded.

Are you saying, with me?

You really didn’t think I meant you and I?

Yes, I have to admit that.

Then either the connection was bad again or you’re just plain stupid.

See you, honey.

He hangs up, opens a beer, takes two swigs. calls back. The receiver’s picked up but nobody answers.

I don’t know who should be sorry, me for hanging up like that or you for calling me stupid.

What I said was that either the connection was bad again or else you’re stupid. I didn’t call you stupid outright.

To me it still sounds as if you did.

Then the connection was bad again just now or you truly are stupid.

He hangs up, finishes the beer, calls back.

I’m being silly now, maybe even stupid, calling like this. But it must mean something.

Maybe that you like making an ass of yourself on the phone and I either like helping or hearing you make one of yourself. Or maybe you’re itching to know something more about me that you didn’t and you’re finding out because I’m doing nothing to hold it back. Or else you’re working for the Secret Service and you’re keeping me busy with your calls till they pound my door down and arrest me for something. Or maybe it means I’ve run out of reasons to explain all your calls and I really don’t want to talk to you anymore today, or I don’t know what. Why?

Why, what?

You continue to call me. Because you know I won’t call you?

It could be I like speaking to you.

You call this speaking to me? You enjoy this? That’s so silly. You’re silly.

I’m going to hang up on you if you say anything more derogatory than that.

Hang up, then.

Just don’t say anything more derogatory than silly. You may call me stupid, ignorant, foolish, dumb ox, hateful, aggravating, insufferable, all the others, but not, and I repeat, not silly or very silly. I don’t want to be called silly or very silly.

What would happen if I did? You’d hang up?

I promise.

Then you are very silly.

No, I don’t promise, because I feel you’re about to call me very silly.

Now that’s the first clever thing you said since your first call today.

Then I must sound very stupid to you at times.

Oh, very. At other times, extremely. And a couple of other times, profusely. But sometimes, no. You have said clever and even witty things before, but not since that first call.

Dark dank cave with only a warm bed in it, after you said you didn’t like sunlight — that wasn’t anything but stupid to you, right?

Wasn’t that in the first call? And I didn’t say I disliked sunlight. And the remark wasn’t clever, no.

Bad eyes?

Bad eyes? Oh, yes. Old, old joke. What about your having a minor physical ailment in your insides to get out of going into the army — no guts.

That’s very funny.

Of course it isn’t. The reason I said it was to explain when I first heard it. Years ago. When I was a freshman or sophomore in college and the older boys were still fairly successful in being rejected by the army—

Deferred from.

Deferred from for physical reasons they made up or exaggerated. Let’s see — another one.

All right. So my bad-eyes joke wasn’t funny.

No no, wait a minute. There’s one more the boys used to tell. That’s right. I’ve stomach trouble.

You’ve stomach trouble. I see.

No, you don’t see. You’re not supposed to say anything, in fact, except maybe an oh-yes, but certainly not an I-see. That could lead to your bad-eyes joke again. But after you do say something to my stomach-trouble line, I say yes, I get sick every time I think of myself in the army.

Not bad.

It’s said differently, I didn’t tell it right. I never could.

None of us can.

No, some can. But there’s one more and then I’ll stop.

Please, no more. I don’t think I could take it. I’ve stomach trouble also. I get sick every time someone tells me a bad old joke.

Okay, bit of a joke theft, but you’re getting there.

Few years with you and I’ll be a real comedian.

It would also probably save you a few thousand dollars in phone bills, but don’t let me give you any ideas.

Oh, I couldn’t see us communicating any other way but by phone, even if we lived together a couple of years.

Lived together? Say, really now, just put that notion out of your head.

No, listen. The idea is for us to live together for two years but to only communicate by phone. In other words, being the phone addict you obviously think I am, if you wanted me to go out for groceries, let’s say, you’d pick up the phone, even if we were only ten feet from each other and this was a one-room apartment we shared, and dial the other phone in the place, and I’d pick it up and you’d tell me what you want at the store, and we’d talk like that. What do you think?

I wouldn’t see any reason for it.

Now you’re the one with no sense of humor.

I think a sense of humor has to have some sense. In this one, it’s just projecting your fantasies a bit, wouldn’t you say? Besides trying to intrigue me.

That’s legitimate.

Right now, it isn’t. Look, to be honest with you there is someone else. I don’t want to go into it, but someone, and whatever he thinks of me, someone.

He craps on you, right?

I’m not going to answer that.

Why not? If he doesn’t, say so.

I give up. Goodbye.

Don’t go.

He calls right back.

Jane?

Right after this call, I’m phoning the phone company to take out my phone.

I don’t like being hung up on.

Then don’t call me.

Even though I’ve hung up on you, I think it’s an exceedingly wrong thing to do. You could be nice.

The nicest thing I could do for you is convince you never to call again.

I wouldn’t have. And this will be my last call. Only you sounded — something in your voice and what you said — a little sad, so I called back.

What bull. And I’m not sad. I can handle my own affairs quite well.

But he does crap on you, right?

Give up, my friend.

Biff. And give up I will. I told you, my last call. But he does, and that’s always the case. With me, I mean. Whenever I’m interested in a woman, she’s not. She’s interested in someone who isn’t interested in her, and he probably with someone else who’s not interested in him, and the same with someone to her, and so on and so forth and ad infinitum, absurdum, exhaustum and dum de dum.

The dum de dum I like best. But that isn’t always the case and not necessarily the case with me now.

Not necessarily but not absolutely not.

Not absolutely not, then. Or not the case absolutely in perpetuity for all time then, not. It just isn’t so. And it’s still not your business.

I don’t believe you, but maybe that’s my problem. What I wanted to add though is that it’s also reversed for me too. When a woman likes me, I’m usually not interested. Not because she’s interested in me, but that the ones who get interested in me I’m not interested in to begin with.

Never?

Almost. With you it’s the other way around.

I never said I wasn’t interested in you, Biff. Just not right now.

Why not? Let’s forget all the others. We’ll just go away, or stay here, but develop something, become friends. Talk and have fun and anything you want to do anyplace you want to do it at.

That’s very generous of you, but again, I can’t right now.

Then when? Because we could just go, that’s what I’m saying. I could pick you up in half an hour.

Impossible.

Then an hour.

Impossible till one day I tell you it’s not. When, who knows? Most likely never. If you can’t accept that, stop calling.

Will you call me if I don’t you?

For the time being, no. Things have to be settled first.

Like that guy who craps on you? You like being crapped on?

I don’t like the word, expression, meaning or even the implication or symbolism or anything else about it in any tense or form. Don’t mention it again, please.

That this fellow craps on you?

Biff?

I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I felt like saying something mean.

You feel like that a lot. That’s why you shouldn’t bother with me. It can’t be healthy for you. And if you like me like you say, then don’t bother with me. Find someone else.

There isn’t anyone else.

First you have to find her.

I’d love to. You think I like making a fool of myself on the phone? I only do it because I think you’re worth it to go through all this crap with you and letting you see what’s really inside me.

That’s a line.

You joking?

A trick, an act, a masculine stunt. A universal ploy, then, used by men and women alike, said for your own gain. Me, me, me. It never ends. I can’t even say goodbye.

He calls back.

Call me once more and I’ll pull out my phone. I mean it. Leave me alone.

He calls back.

I thought you were going to pull out your phone.

And you with your last call ten calls ago, what about that? Anyway, I thought it would cost too much having my phone repaired. And what excuse could I give the phone company — some maniac wouldn’t stop calling me?

You could have said my calls were obscene.

I could have, but now I don’t feel like pulling it out. No strength. Anyway, I could just leave it off the hook. Besides, I’m going out. Bye, Biff.

Will you call me sometime if this thing with this fellow is ever through?

I don’t think so. Goodbye.

If you say you’ll call sometime if this thing you have is ever over, then I won’t call again.

Call all you want. What I’ve decided on now is a new number. Unlisted. I want to be away from all callers. You, everyone.

Even him?

Even him. Even you. Even who? You’re such a cluck. Did I ever say there was anyone else? Even if I did, I didn’t reveal much because I said it was too personal. So why do you persist?

I persist–

Oh, you persist because that’s the way you are. Because you got it sealed in your head you’re interested in me and that we could be great together. Oh, yeah. Because you like my face. My neck’s so nice. My eyes so blue. Sky blue blue. My lips are so symmetrical and full, you never met anyone with such lips. So soft, not chapped. How sweet. My sweet tweet lips. Or you like my perfume, though I don’t wear perfume or cologne. You adore my legs. Long strong thin legs. Tiny feet. Legs like an athlete, dancer or gymnast. Did I like sports when I was a girl? You’re amazed by my waist. What size belt could I possibly wear? Why do I ask? Because I once knew a woman who had a very small waist, but yours seems even smaller than hers. Or you like my hair. You always had a thing for long straight black hair. The way it shines. It can also look blue. Pitch black or rich blue in the night light. And so fine. How many times must you take a shampoo a week? How did it ever get so long? Don’t the ends break off at that length? Or you like the way I stand, walk and run. An athlete again. My voice. The way I talk and move. Especially the way I move. And most especially my mind. If there was nothing else about me, you’d be attracted to my mind.

You do have a good mind.

Of course I’ve a good mind. That’s what I’m saying. That you say it. That you want to be with me for all these things. My unpolished fingernails. Because I eat health foods and don’t wear lipstick and no makeup and I’m slim and my clothes and I can make jokes and talk lively and I seem sympathetic and no guises and am friendly and everyone seems to like me, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. Your comments. Now don’t call. Do not call. Don’t — you hear me? — call. You do I’m gonna get my big brudder to come over your house and knock your block off, ya unnerstand? Now goodbye.

Wait.

He calls right back.

Your dialing finger must be exhausted.

I have a push-button phone.

You would.

You don’t approve?

Who am I to disapprove? And for someone who makes as many calls as you, it obviously serves a purpose.

I don’t like to dial. And never liked the sound of the rotary part going backwards after my finger went around. I also don’t like waiting, even for a half second, for the rotary part to rest after each digit’s been dialed before I can dial again, or the frustration, after so much dialing, if the line’s busy. Now it’s so easy. Just push push seven times for the city or ten for long distance, and I’m there or I’m not.

You’ve sold me, despite the additional expense.

It’s not much more. About as much per month as having an extension.

You have one of those too?

Three.

Three? How big’s your apartment?

Two rooms, and kitchen and bath, all of which have a phone.

Why a phone in the bathroom? No particular sexual or scatological hangup, I hope.

The bathroom’s separated from the rest of my place by a long hallway, so I have one there in case I get or want to make a call.

Wall or standup?

Both. It can be attached to a wall hook or set down on a flat surface. Again, push push, peep peep, and my phone call’s made.

Those do seem like the appropriate sounds for a bathroom. How does the one in the kitchen go, chop chop, squirt squirt?

Push push, peep peep. They’re all the same.

Are all the colors the same?

You’re not really interested.

But I am. Who wouldn’t be? A man who has four phones in one apartment?

But all the same number.

I know. Three extensions and the original. Are you more attached to the original phone than the others because it was your first?

I got them all at once. I had four in my last apartment also. I always felt I needed them. I don’t like running from one room to the other and have the caller wait for me for five or six rings.

But it’s natural to wait for someone to answer.

With me, people calling avoid that wait.

What they don’t avoid is your calling.

You’ve avoided calling.

I said your calling. But it’s getting late.

You’ve some place to go?

Yes, and I have to get dressed. Look. Now that we’re speaking so congenially, would it be too much to ask you to understand that I’m short of time and you’re tying up the line and that I’m expecting a call?

From that man?

The one who occasionally craps on me, yes, him. You must feel content now.

I was wondering why you didn’t leave your phone off the hook before. Most of the times I called, you probably thought was him.

Right. All the time, right. In everything you say, right. Seriously, though, we’ve had our nice little chats. Now free me for the time being?

You’re free forever.

Thank you. I hope you mean it too.

What can I say to convince you?

Not what you say but what you do. Don’t call back?

Got ya.

Okay. You said it. Now remember. Bye.

He calls back.

I forgot to say goodbye.

Goodbye, Biff.

Goodbye.

He calls back.

You disappoint me, Biff. I thought you were being serious.

I’m never serious. I should have warned you. And I’ve just pulled a great grand joke on you that maybe backfired a little. Because if you believed what I said about anything before…My getting upset. My acting silly and sullen or weird and especially that I was serious in this sequence of calls, then you don’t know me at all. You’ve been taken in, though I miscalculated how deeply you’d believe it. And now I want you to have a wonderful weekend with whomever you want to be with, and that’s all.

Thanks. You too.

Me too, what?

A good weekend. Be happy and well. Long life and…goodbye.

Goodbye.

He calls back. The line’s busy.

He has another beer and then calls back. The line’s busy.

He calls three hours later. The line’s busy. He calls an hour after that.

Yes?

It’s Biff, Jane.

He calls back.

Now listen, you big dope. Will you stop annoying Jane?

Who is this?

Whoever I am, I’m not a big dope. Leave her alone or I’m putting the cops on you.

Not yourself?

Stop being a schmuck. Can I level with you? You’re tormenting the hell out of her. Who could stand someone phoning every minute. And look at the time. It’s past two. Grow up. You’re interested, she’s not, then don’t bother. Simple as that. I know what you’re feeling. Who hasn’t been through it, but that’s the way it goes.

Isn’t that true? Whenever you really care for a woman, she doesn’t for you.

Not always. This time it didn’t work out for you. So forget it.

Do you care for her?

I care, I care.

You don’t crap on her?

He says do I crap on you? — What man doesn’t crap on a woman and she on him in return or before the fact? What’s important is if in general the relationship works. That.

Does it with you and Jane?

What’s it to you? We get along. We like each other. So now leave her alone. Be a good guy.

I love her.

You hardly know her.

She told you that?

I know. Accept that I know. And if she wanted to see you, she would. She’s an exceptionally honest, straightforward person. If you love her as you say, that’s good, but it should also mean you wouldn’t want to hurt her as you’re doing. It isn’t nice. Be nice. Maybe this sounds overrighteous. And giving advice isn’t my line. But on something like this, you’ve got to take it like it comes.

What is your line, crapping on girls?

Oh, brother. Your wasting everyone’s time. Hers, yours, and what’s maybe not as important, mine.

Sure, sure.

Okay. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe thinking humility would get you to stop. Worst of all, you’re wasting my time. I’m sleepy, I worked hard today, and I don’t want to hear this damn phone ringing all night.

Ah, the truth comes out.

Truth, yes, shallowness, no. What can I possibly say to convince you? Jane must have said it all. She’d nodding her head. She’s making like she’s cutting her throat. Maybe my throat. Oh, the phone’s. She wants me to hang up. Who could blame her. And as entranced as I am with our talk here, what do you say we call it quits for the night? It’s very late.

You’re starting to sound like Jane now.

So, Jane and I are pretty close. But it does seem dumb to let everyone on the phone know you’re a misfit. Even dangerous. People get put away for less. But I don’t think you actually are. You’re just very distressed over being rejected.

Deferred.

Not deferred; rejected. She doesn’t want you no way. You’ve struck out. Zero. What more can she say — get lost?

Let her say it.

Listen: get lost. Take a walk. Scram. Vamoose. But leave her alone. For your own sake, you have to.

Take care of your own problems.

I said leave her alone, you dumb creep, is that clear? Now I tried to be nice before, but if I have to break your dumb neck to get you to stop, I will. I mean that.

You convinced me.

And I’m not saying this for selfish reasons. You’ve got to have some consideration for others and yourself too.

No, you’re right.

Peace, then, brother.

Peace.

He calls back.

Do you mind, brother? We’re screwing.

He calls back. The line’s busy. The line’s busy ten minutes later. He goes to bed, calls her.

No one can be as crazy as you.

Wait, Jane. I’m sleepy myself. Drunk, besides. No, that was said for affect. What I meant—

Go to sleep, Biff.

What I mean is now that I know you’re in no way interested—

I can’t pretend. I can’t say yes, you’re right. Everything would sound too absurd to say. I can’t even hang up on you again. That would also seem absurd. You have to just hang up on yourself and fall asleep and never call again, because there’s nothing else I can say or do for you.

Jane? Jane? You still there? Don’t answer, then, but you’re still there, somewhere by the phone. Well, I love you, Jane. Beery and sleepy as I am, I hope you know that. I never told you that on or off the phone. I did your friend. I know it’s a little late to tell. Late o’clock and late for us and so on. But now you know. I’m also sorry for all my disturbances today, and to you too whatever that fellow’s name is. The man you’re with or I hope were. And whatever he said to me about me was right. And he didn’t seem to be crapping on you, as much as I know you don’t like the word. He seemed all right. He implied I should act more like a grown man, and of course he’s right. He told me I was tormenting you. I wish he wasn’t right on that, but how could I believe he’s wrong. I’m sorry, Jane. You listening? Well, listen, then — I’m very sorry. This whole day’s been awful. It started off horrible with something I didn’t even tell you. And then those calls. How do I ever get out of them or forget all this? I’ve never done anything like it. They just built up. If you had said yes for the weekend, they wouldn’t have happened. I would have come over, tonight, or last night, because it’s now morning, with the car. Driven us to where we would have gone. Who knows if from there we might not have gone on for years or for life, even, and I never would have done anything remotely like those calls. But it snowballed, as they say. Snowballs in summer. It can happen anywhere, anytime. Jane? Is the receiver on your bed? Are you on your bed? Alone, or both of you? Are both of you listening to me now? Well, I love you, Jane, I do. And you, whatever your name is, I don’t love you, but if you’re there — well, you were very kind. He was, Jane. Smart. Thoughtful. He blew up at me because I was asking for it. I’m sorry. I hope you’re both happy and well, if both of you are there. And have fun together, if he’s still there. Though I wish I was in your place. His place with you, Jane, if he’s there or not. But that’s all right. I mean that. Jane? I can’t talk like this. It sounds crazy, talking to myself. It does. But I have to say something. You knew I wouldn’t like it. You’re a real shrewdy. And I know this is my last call to you. Even if you hung up or said call me again, it would be my last call. Listen to me, Jane. I’ve only a few more things to say and then I’ll be gone. You probably thought there’s nothing left for me to say, but you’d be wrong if you thought that. There is. You see, I felt forced into making those calls. Maybe some spirit got hold of me inside, but it wasn’t really me. That’s nonsense, of course, spirits. I mean…please say you’re there and listening, Jane. Then just say you’re there or listening. I’ve never in my life talked to myself like this. It’s a new feeling and I don’t like it. New for me. I mean new in that I’ve never in my life called anyone so many times in a row. I think I already said that tonight, or something like it, but it’s true. And surely it wasn’t important what I had to say. Everything. We both know that. Nothing was. But I felt compelled. That’s it. That’s what I meant by my being forced to make these calls. Compelled, now and all the other times with you, but less so now. And I know it wasn’t in any way a joke. I realize it was the worst thing I could do to you. And it won’t ever happen again. I’m saying I’ll never be like this again, Jane. I can’t. I learned. I promise. It was so totally uncharacteristic of me. I mean it. Totally. Jane? You there? Well, speak.

LEAVES

I’m sorry but I’m not going to leave. Even if you slipped another message under my door and this one begging me to go, I won’t leave. You could send a half-dozen messages if you want, two dozen if you like, and all typed on the finest stationery or written in the most elegant hand, but I still won’t leave. You could have anyone or any number of people you know or I’m supposed to know slip under my door any number of messages that you or they as a group dictated and someone else wrote, but these aren’t going to get me to leave. You or anyone else could phone me a hundred times in succession and all night long and all day tomorrow and the day and week and even the next week and month after that if you think it’ll do any good, but it won’t get me to leave. You could send a satchelful of telegrams of any kind including ship to shore and anniversary and get-well singing grams, but I still won’t leave. I’m telling you, I will not leave. I won’t even stick my head or foot past the door to give the impression I’m about to leave. I won’t even make a single move to open the door, even so much as to get closer than I already am to the door, for as I said before, why should I give you even the slightest hope I’m leaving or even thinking of leaving, as there isn’t anything I can see that’ll change my mind to get me to leave.

Of course you could try coaxing me to leave by pleading through the door. You could say “Would you do me this very one favor and leave?” Or “Would you please, without any more fuss, get your things together and leave?” Or “Listen, I’ve been reasonable and fair up till now, haven’t I, so what do you say you leave?” Or “Haven’t we had enough of this trying to wheedle and coddle you, so will you please just leave? Then will you just plain leave? Then will you just leave then, spelled 1-e-a-v-e, and please?”

But no matter how emotional and assertive you get through the door, I’m not going to leave. Even if you said in a much angrier voice “All right, that’s more than enough now, are you going to leave?” I wouldn’t leave. Or “Okay, do you hear what I say? — I want you to leave.” Or “Fun’s fun, but I’ve taken all I’m going to take from you, so leave. Now I’m more than asking you to leave. I’m more than even telling you to leave. I’m saying you have to leave. Once and for all now — you’ve got to leave. Now I don’t want to say this again — leave. This is the last time I’m telling you — leave. Did you hear me, I’m ordering you to leave. I said, I order you to leave. Now I want you to get out of there or I’ll really do something more than just order you to leave. Now get yourself straight the hell out of there, as you’re forcing me beyond the little self-control I’ve left to do something more than just order you to leave.”

But nothing you say or how or where you say it will force me to leave. Even if you screamed those threats from the street up to my window, I wouldn’t leave. I wouldn’t leave even if you got several people to yell from the street and outside my door that the only right thing for me to do is leave. That I’m spiting nobody but myself if I don’t leave. That I’m not doing it by the book or following any of the traditional or unspoken rules. That whatever little game I’m playing is up. That I should know by now that no place is anybody’s for keeps. That when you have to leave you have to leave and that’s all there is to it. But no matter how many of you yell from the street or through my door that I’m driving the lot of you beyond whatever self-control you have left to do something more than just order me to leave, I still won’t leave.

So go on and give the most rational arguments and doomful warnings imaginable, but you have to know by now they won’t make me leave. I’ve yakked about it through the door to you, yowled so loudly the whole block must have heard, sent my own telegrams and other dispatches and made calls why it’s impossible for me to leave. But you never seem to understand why I can’t leave. Or if you do understand, then you still can’t, or refuse to believe if you can, that nothing you or anyone else can say or do will ever get me to leave.

Of course you could do more than just yell from the street and behind my door that I’m forcing you to do something more than just order me to leave. You could tap on my door and ask to be let in so you can try and reason with me why it’s in my own interest to leave. Or even rap on my door and demand I let you in so you can reason and then insist, or just insist without giving any reasons, that I leave. Or you could bang on my door with another person, both of you asking and then demanding, or just demanding I leave. Or bang on the door while trying to force it open, so you could get in even if I tell you I don’t want you in, or barge in without first asking if I’ll let you in, and then demand I leave. Or bang on the door while someone else is kicking the door and two other persons are trying to pick the lock or force the door open and several other people are shouting behind the door and from the street and the roofs and windows of the buildings across the street that I leave. But the door’s quite strong and secure with several bolts, latches and locks, so no amount of picking, kicking and shoving’s going to force it open.

You could, of course, then pound on the walls of the two adjoining vacant apartments, while other people are banging and kicking my door and trying to force it open and shouting from all the other places I mentioned and throwing pebbles and bags of garbage at my window to get me to leave. Or you could climb up or down the building’s fire escape and yell from the landing outside my window that I leave. Or throw a rock through the window and shout through the broken pane while other people are shouting from the street and roofs and other windows and fire escapes and kicking and pounding on the adjoining walls and my ceiling and floor from the vacant apartments right above and below mine that I get straight the hell out of here. But listen to me. Even if you get all those people to do all that or they do it voluntarily and you also stick your hands past the broken panes and rattle the locked window gate while screaming bloody murder at me, I’m still not going to leave.

Of course your eviction methods might get more vicious and tactical than that. You might try driving me out with smoke-or stink-bombs or even some kind of narcotizing or tear gas. But I’m still quite the limber fellow, I want you to know, and prepared myself with a thick pair of fireplace gloves, so anything you toss in goes right back out the window at you. Or you might be able to bust open the door by snapping the latches and locks with a crowbar and then push aside my dresser and upturned bed and storm in. Or maybe you’ll just saunter in after you push everything aside and say “Picnic’s over, my friend, so do you leave peacefully or do we have to come up with some other way?” And once you again see your sweet talk doesn’t work: “We’ve had it up to here with you, do you understand? Now get your ass out of here this second or I’ll pull you out with my bare hands. Or knock you down and tie you up and, with a little help, carry you to the street. Or just drag you out by your hair, not caring a damn for the lumps you’ll take from the bumps along the way and down the stairs.”

But you’re not about to drag me anywhere while I’m chained to the radiator, and none of your bullying’s going to get me to say where I stashed the key. What you’ll then most likely do is try to rip the chain apart from the radiator. But this chain’s the strongest made these days, and try boffing me stiff so you can cut it with a hacksaw, and I’ll wrap it around your ankles and tug on it till you give up and wobble out on your knees. This is a small room, big enough for maybe two or three people and the radiator, toilet, dresser and my massive bed, and I’ve been here so long I know all the ins and outs of the place better than anyone, so don’t think you’re going to strong-arm me to leave.

You could then think the time was right for sound reason to work, and say “Why don’t you use your common sense already? With all the damage we’ve done to your window, door and walls, your room’s not worth living in anymore.” And when I remain silent: “What I’ll have to do, if you don’t unchain yourself or give me the key, is clean out your kitchenette, including the removal of your little fridge, sink and hot plate, and then stop all food deliveries from coming in and maybe even get your water and plumbing turned off.”

But what will you do when you find out I’m staying here no matter how poor and unsanitary the conditions are and that I prefer starving to death than leaving? Only thing I can see you doing after that is unbolting the radiator through the ceiling of the apartment below mine and dragging the radiator out with me still chained to it and swatting away at you from the other end.

Once you drag me out of the room, you and a few of your workmen could pick me up still chained and carry the radiator and me downstairs. Or if that’s too hard, lift the radiator over the windowsill, past the crowbarred window gate onto the fire escape and from there into a crane shovel, and with me, still attached, forced to follow, lower the radiator and me to the street.

You’ll have to do one of those things to get me out of here while I’m still chained to the radiator. And if you do drag or carry the radiator and me downstairs or manage to lift us over the windowsill into a crane shovel, you have to know by now that nothing’s going to stop me from coming back. Even if I’m still chained to the radiator because you couldn’t find the key, or I’ve lost the key and, as punishment or just to keep me from returning here, you’ve left the radiator chained to me, I’ll find some way to drag myself along with the radiator step by step up the stairs. If I can’t drag myself and the radiator, then I’ll find some tool or rock to file or chip away at the chain or radiator till I’m either free of the chain or have detached it from the radiator, and then only chained to the chain I’ll drag myself upstairs.

I suppose the only way you could then stop me from getting back here is to erect a wall around the building and cement up my window and door and maybe remove the fire escape and stairs. But in time I’d find some way to reach the building and get to my floor and through the cemented-up window or door, so the only way you can really ever stop me from coming back would be to remove the building.

Only then would I be able to say to myself that not only were you able to force me to leave but also from getting back to my apartment. I don’t see how there can be another way for you to stop me from returning, so you might as well raze the building now. And as long as you’re going to have no choice but to demolish the building, suppose I unlock the door myself, leave the room and go downstairs to the street.

THE FORMER WORLD’S GREATEST RAW GREEN PEA EATER

He hadn’t spoken to her in ten years when he decided to call.

“Hello?”

“Miriam?”

“Yes, this is Miriam Cabell; who is it?”

“Miriam Cabell, now — I didn’t know. Whatever happened to Miriam Livin?”

“If you don’t mind, who is this, please?”

“And Miriam Berman?”

“I asked who this is. Now for the last time—”

“Arnie.”

“Who?”

“Arnie…well, guess.”

“I’m in no mood for games, really. And if it’s just some crank — my husband handles all those calls.”

Then Arnie Spear — satisfied, Mrs. Cabell?”

“Wait a minute. Not Arnie X.Y.Z. Spear.”

The very same, madame.”

“Arnie Spear the famous sonnet writer and lover of tin lizzies and hopeless causes and the world’s greatest raw green pea eater?”

“Well, I don’t want to brag, but—”

“Oh God, Arnie, how in the world did you get my number?”

“I’m fine, thank you…have a little pain in my ego, perhaps, but how are you?”

“No, I’m serious — how’d you get it?”

“I bumped into Gladys Pempkin coming out of a movie the other night. She told me.”

“How is Gladys?”

“Fine, I guess. Haven’t you seen her recently?”

“I’ve been running around so much these days, I hardly see anyone anymore. In fact, the last time with Gladys must’ve been a good year ago.”

“Your name,” he said, “—Cabell. That’s your new husband, isn’t it?”

“Fairly new. We’ve been married two years — or close to two. I wonder if you knew him.”

“Don’t think so. You happy, Miriam?”

“Happy? Why, was I ever really unhappy? But maybe I should toss the same ticklish nonsense back to you. How about it?”

“I’m happy. Very happy, I suppose. Really doing pretty well these days.”

“I’m glad.”

“Whatever happened to Livin — your last?”

That bastard? Listen, I made a pact with myself never to mention his name or even think of him, so help me out, will you?”

“What happens if you break the pact?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if let’s say we suddenly begin talking about him. Do you declare war on yourself and sort of battle it out till one or the other side of you has won?”

That was a figure of speech I made. And why would you want to talk of Livin when you never knew him? Anyway, tell me how Gladys looks. Last time I saw her it seemed she was hitting the bottle pretty heavily or at least on pills.”

“She seemed fine. A little tired, perhaps, but not much different than the last time I saw her — which was with you, remember?”

“No, when was that?”

“I don’t know. About ten years ago or so.”

“I can only remember old events if I’m able to place in my mind where I was at the time. Where was I?”

“In this coffee shop on Madison and 58^th. The Powder Puff I think it was called.”

“No, I don’t recall any such place.”

“It folded about four years ago. I know because for a few months I had a magazine editing job in the area and used to walk by the shop daily. And then one day it was suddenly empty of everything but a couple of sawhorses and there was a For Rent sign up. Now it’s a beauty shop.”

“Wait a minute. Not some incredibly garish beauty shop? With lots of pink and blue wigs on these wooden heads in the window and with a refreshment counter in front serving tea and cookies?”

“I think that’s the one.”

“Do you know, I once went there to have my hair done — isn’t that strange? It’s not a very good place, which is why I only went once. They dry all your roots out.”

“Well, that’s where we last saw each other. The place has always been particularly meaningful to me — almost as a starting point in a new phase of my life. Because if it wasn’t for what you told me in there that morning, I doubt whether I would’ve become so conscious of my hang-ups then to leave the city, as I did, and get this great job out of town.”

“Excuse me, Arnie. You’re still on that beauty shop?”

“Don’t you remember? We met there for coffee — when it was still a coffee shop. It was a very intense scene for me — holding your hand, and both of us unbelievably serious and me trying to work up enough courage to propose to you. Well, you mercifully cut me off before I was able to make a total ass of myself and told me, and quite perceptively, I thought, what a shell of an existence I was living and how, instead of trying to write fiction about a world I knew little of, I should get a job and move out of my parents’ place and see what things were really like. I was so despondent after that—”

“Yes. Now I remember.”

“Remember how torn up I was? I was a kid, then, granted, or just awfully immature, but it was very bad, extremely crushing.”

“Yes. I hated that last scene.”

“So, right after that, I quit school and got a cub reporter slot on the Dallas paper my brother was working for then — more copyboy than cub reporter, really — just so I could be away from you and the city and all. And later, well, I did become a reporter and moved up fast and then went to Washington to cover local news stories for several Texas papers. And then the correspondent jobs overseas seemed to pour in, none of which I could have taken if I were married at the time or seriously attached.”

Then things have worked out in their own way, right?”

“I suppose you can say so.”

“And you’ve also seen a lot of the world, am I right? I mean, Europe and such?”

“Europe, Central America, Rio and Havana, and once even a year’s stint in Saigon as a stringer for a consortium of TV stations. I’ve had a good tine.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’ve been very fortunate for a guy who never had a thought of going into news — very.”

“I’m not someone who reads or watches the news, so I never had the chance to see you. But it really sounds like you’ve done well. And there can’t be many things more exciting than traveling. Besides the fact of also getting paid for it.”

“Even then, it’s not as if I’ve had everything I exactly wanted — like the wife and kids I always spoke about.”

That’s right. You used to speak about that a lot.”

“It was way too early to, but I did. Or the home. The relatively permanent home with some grounds I could putter around on my days off, for basically I’m a family and fireplace man and I’d be a self-deluding idiot to deny it. But I’ve been quite lucky all in all.”

“I’d say so. In ten years? You’ve done a lot.”

“Yeah. Well, then last night, when we were in the lobby waiting for the movie to break—”

“You were with someone?”

“A friend — a woman I see, although nothing serious. So, I spotted Gladys, and I don’t know, I just ran over to her and for some reason threw my arms around her — something I never would’ve done ten years ago, as I had never cared for her much. But things change. I was actually exhilarated at seeing her. And we naturally got around to talking about you.”

“What did she have to say about me?”

“Nothing much.”

“I ask that because she’s always had a savage mouth. Always spreading lies about people — me particularly, though I was one of only a few people to even take a half interest in her. She’s another one I made a pact with myself never to speak of or think about. She’s said some filthy malevolent things about me — to mutual friends, no less — which, in another age, we’d be cut off the line if I repeated them.”

“For me, she’s always had a special ironic place in my memory. Because if you remember, when we finally emerged from that coffee shop ten years ago, Gladys was walking past — the last person we wanted to see at the time, we agreed when we saw her.”

“Now I remember. That bitch was always turning up when you least wanted her.”

“She saw us and smiled and began waving an arm laden with clanky chains as if this was just the most beautiful day in the most beautiful of worlds for everyone in it. I remember her vividly.”

“You always had an excellent memory. I suppose that’s important in your field.”

That among other things. But that incident comes back amazingly clear. Even the kind of day it was, with the ground freshly covered with the light snow flurry we had watched from the coffee shop.”

That part,” she said, “I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

“Everyone has a few scenes in his life that stick out prominently. And not just extraordinary or life-changing events — that’s not what I’m driving at so much. For instance, I can remember supposedly insignificant and meaningless incidents that occurred twenty to twenty-five years ago, and also what kind of day it was then and how everyone looked and even what they were wearing down to the pattern of their dresses and ties.”

“What was I wearing that day?”

That day? — Oh…that green suit you had. And a trench coat. The tightly belted coat I especially remember, even that the top button was off and you said that right after you leave me you were going to head straight to a notions shop to replace the button.”

That trench coat. I got it at the British-American House and did it ever cost a fortune, though I at least got a few years out of it. But the green suit?”

“A green tweed, salt and pepper style. It was a very fashionable suit at the time — the one you most preferred wearing to your auditions.”

“Nowadays, I just go in slacks.”

“You usually wore it with a white blouse and the amber bead necklace I gave you, and so I always felt somewhat responsible for the parts you got.”

“I forgot about that necklace. You know, I still have it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wasn’t about to throw it away. It’s a nice necklace.”

“How does your husband react to your sporting these priceless gems from other men?”

“Jack? He doesn’t think a thing about my clothes — not like you used to do. But he’s very kind and sweet. A very peaceful man who knows where he is more than most anyone, and extremely generous and perceptive in other ways. He’s a dentist.”

“Just about my favorite professional group — even if they hurt.”

“But he’s not your everyday dentist. He specializes in capping teeth for actors. In the last fifteen years, I’d say most big New York stage and television actors who’ve had their teeth capped, had it done by him. That’s how we met.”

“You had your teeth capped?”

“Just four of them. The upper front.”

“But you always had such beautiful teeth.”

“Well, a number of people who know about things like this thought my teeth should be capped, if I wanted to do soaps and TV commercials, and I agreed. They were a little pointy — the incisors, especially — like fangs. They look much better for it — honestly.”

“What could a job like that run someone?”

“Couple of thousand, but that’s with two cleanings and x-rays and everything. And you have to consider the labor and time involved. I was in that chair for months.”

“Did Dr. Cabell make you pay up before he married you?”

“Oh, we got married long after that. You see, about six months after I paid up completely, he phoned me out of the blue and mentioned something about my having missed one of my monthly payments. I said ‘Can’t be, Dr. Cabell, there must be some mistake,’ and he said he’d look in to it further. He called back the next day and said I was right — I was paid up in full. That’s when he asked me out to lunch — to make up for his misunderstanding, he said — and the next year we were married.”

“It sounds as if he was initially feeding you a line.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Why, because, and I say this quite harmlessly, it has all the earmarks of a line. Which is all right if it works, I suppose, which it obviously did.”

“But you’re wrong. He, in fact, told me in that second call that I might think his bill call was only an excuse to contact me, but that it wasn’t. He really did think I wasn’t paid up.”

Then why didn’t he have someone in his office call you about the so-called overdue payment? He has a big practice, I assume, so can’t be doing all the billing and appointments and such by himself, and it’d seem a lot more professional doing it that way.”

“Jack feels that something like that — when he has the time, and he tries to make time for it — ought to be handled by him alone. He’s a very informal man, Arnie, despite his imposing office and successful practice, and he’s told me several times that there’s already too much impersonality in the city between patient and dentist. Also, he likes to chat.”

“You’re no doubt right. It’s absurd of me to even have brought up such a petty issue. But I suppose I’ve been hauling around this vision of you of being a person too clever to fall for that kind of palaver, we’ll call it.”

“Fall? What are you talking about? I married the man. Even if he was giving me a line with that call — which he wasn’t — what’s the difference now? It’s all water under the cesspool or something when you married the person, isn’t it?”

“Naturally.”

“Oh sure, you really sound convinced.”

“Well, despite what I said before about how it’s okay and such if it works, I’m against lies and deceptions of any sort, what can I tell you? I don’t like hypocrisy. I’ve seen too much of it in my work and I simply don’t like it.”

That’s right — I forget. You’re the big world traveler and interpreter of newsy events.”

“All right, I happen to be a journalist — a newsman, if you like. And I write and report on things that turn my stomach every day. In politics, diplomacy, business—”

“You were also always a big one for the soapbox, if I remember. Even in college; always the big speech.”

“No, you’re not catching my point, Miriam.”

“Oh, I catch on. I haven’t been asleep these past ten years. But one would think that during this time you might have changed. But you still have to beat the old drum.”

“I’m not beating an old drum. I was simply saying—”

“And that you might have learned some tact. Because to call up an old friend and insult her husband as if he were a first-class hypocrite and schemer, well, uh-uh, I’m sorry, that’s not showing much tact. That’s not using much brains, either, if I can say so without you jumping down my throat.”

“I’m not jumping down anyone’s throat — especially not yours. I happen to like your throat, just as I liked your teeth. Truth is, I once even loved your throat. I’d never try to hurt you — and I didn’t intend to insult your husband. I’m not even sure I did, but let’s drop it.”

“Why don’t we.”

There was a long silence before he said “Miriam, Miriam, you still there?”

“Yes. And I have to go now, Arnie. The baby—”

“You have a baby. When I spoke to Gladys—”

“It’s not mine; it’s the child of a friend in the building. I’ll have one, though. We’re working on it.”

“I’m sure you will. And then it’s been good speaking to you, Miriam.”

“A little rough at times, but I’m glad we can still say it was nice after all.”

“Don’t be silly. And also — Well, it might sound asinine to suggest we meet for lunch one time this week, but I will be around for that long. And it’s what I originally called for.”

“It’s probably not a good idea right now, so maybe another time.”

“A quick coffee then. Just for a half hour or so, and if not at a shop then perhaps I can even come up to your place. It’d be interesting seeing you again, and then these scenes of ancient college boyfriends popping up after so many years have almost become proverbial in books and movies by now. You know, where the husband just stands aside while these two sort of conspire in their talk about those dreamy goofy college days. And then the husband having a fat laugh about it with his wife when the silly old beau goes.”

“Not a good idea, really. I’ve never been much for conspiracies. Call up again when I’m less hassled by work and getting a new apartment furnished, and I’m sure we can spend some time together. I love talking over old times with good friends.”

“So do I.”

He said goodbye, but she didn’t hear him; her receiver had already been recradled. He bought a newspaper and walked the twenty blocks to Penn Station, since he had more than an hour to kill. About fifteen minutes before the train was scheduled to leave for Trenton and his sister and two nieces waiting on the platform for him, all eager to see him after his two years away and planning a family party tonight to celebrate his return before he went abroad again, he rushed out of the club car and called Miriam.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?” she said, and after her fifth hello, hung up.

He called back a minute later and the woman who answered said in a stiff Operator’s voice that the telephone he dialed was no longer a working number. The next time he called it was a thick rolling Bavarian voice that answered, saying “Isolde’s Fine German Pasty Shop, dis is Isolde speaking, vould you like to place an order to go to hell?” He said “No, thanks, I guess not,” and hung up.

JACKIE

The badly decomposed body of an unidentified man was found floating in Billowy Bay off Motorboro Airport at 4:15 p.m., Tuesday, by a Port Authority police officer.”

So?

Know who it is?

How could I?

Jackie.

Jackie?

Jackie Schmidt. Floating in Billowy Bay. What’s that, a little article?

Under “Area News.”

And you can tell who it is just by reading this little thing in the paper?

I’d known he was thrown in there. First shot, then thrown.

Does it say anything about the guy being shot?

Doesn’t have to. I know.

But if he was shot, wouldn’t they also say it?

They haven’t found out where yet, but they will.

And there can’t be another unidentified man thrown in the same day? Of course not.

It doesn’t have to be the same day. It takes time to get decomposed. In fact, it couldn’t’ve been the same day.

How long you think it takes?

Days. Maybe two weeks. Badly decomposed, three. That’s when they threw Jackie in. Shot, took his clothes off, boom, in the water. Today’s Wednesday? Then three weeks today. It’s him.

So what are we going to do about it?

Nothing. It’s done. Jackie’s dead. I knew about it. Now I read about it, I was only telling you, thinking maybe you knew, and if you did, then who from? And if you didn’t, that you’d probably be interested to hear.

You mind my making an anonymous call to this paper so his wife could know?

Jackie not coming home for three weeks, she knows. So will everyone in time.

How? He’s unidentified and decomposed. And no clothes you say? Nothing at all?

Stripped clean. Wristwatch. Socks. Even his gold star.

I don’t know why they didn’t say “naked” or “nude” in the newspaper, but all right. Did he also have no fingerprints on when you people threw him in?

I didn’t throw anybody in. Neither do I know who did. I just know some people who know who did and why and how. Gambling debts. But in bad, and loans. Worse. Taking on more big debts with another group and not paying off the first one a dime before he went in deeper, and then telling both groups to go eat it. Now if he’d just been in deep with the first group and told them to eat it, they would’ve only broken his arm. But taking on two big debts way over his head and telling them both to eat it and then going to another city to take on a third, well, that got to be too much. The first two met, and with the third’s approval, elected to dump him. As for his fingerprints, I guess not. Why bother, for they’d also have to kick out all his teeth and fill in his chin cleft and scars. Besides, they didn’t want to make it impossible to identify him.

Then you’ll have to explain to me, because I’m still fairly new at this. Why only take off his clothes and go part way with the unidentification, when they know Jackie has a record and will eventually be indentified? Time to give them a cover or get the people who did it away?

No. They thought it’d be a good lesson to whoever might think he can beat out on two big debts to two vaguely related groups and to tell them both to eat it besides.

But how are these people who are supposed to get the lesson supposed to find out it’s a lesson and also one meant for them? By reading of an unidentified decomposed man found floating in the bay who could’ve got there through a long sleepwalk? How did the groups even know it was going to make the paper, nothing as that article was? And if it did, that it’d even be read?

Whisper and word started getting around a month ago. “Jackie’s betting heavy. Jackie’s welshing. Jackie’s in very steep. Jackie won’t cough up a note for them and told them both to eat it raw. Jackie could get a jaw broken, talking and acting that way. If anyone’s a pal of Jackie’s, give him the word? Jackie’s missing. Hey, anybody seen Jackie or heard from him the last few days?” Then, body found. “Hmm, bay you say? Isn’t that where they usually drop guys that welsh big-time?” Tomorrow or the next day we’ll read he’d been shot with a small caliber bullet so close and clean that it almost got lost behind the back hairs of his head. Everybody will know by now who it is and what for. As for the newspaper — if it hadn’t gotten in, somebody would’ve informed them. What’s really important, though, is that the people this lesson’s directed to get to know it slowly till it sinks in.

These groups never seemed that clever to me to plan it so smooth.

Listen, we’re not psychologists and know beans about the subject, but in what these groups do and their customers, they are. They haven’t studied it but just know.

So I forget my call and even thinking about it?

You’ll see for yourself. Jackie’s wife will claim the body in a few days and there’ll be a funeral and we’ll attend.

We were his such good friends and nobody will mind we’re there?

No one. Neither his wife, who’ll be compensated for the lesson. And the people who did him in will even expect it of us, and some of them will be there too. They play it decent, very orderly and good manners, something Jackie didn’t do or have. That was his problem. Not much brains too. Hand in hand with his gambling, that can kill you. Being a smartass besides, you’re dead.

I’ll remember that.

It can save your life.

Look, a life worth saving might as well be my own. You know, I don’t think I like this business anymore. Money’s good and not too many hours and so far steady, but too much excitement for me and you never know who to trust. Your friend’s your friend one day, and next day you’re fingered by him on maybe even a lie, and there you go with his thumb pressed into your throat goodbye.

There’s a lot depending on it for everyone, that’s why. You just got to do what’s expected of you till one day you get the right to give orders. That takes time and you got to want it but not ask for it. No matter what, it’s true you should never think you’re absolutely safe. Like with any job, any business. Draw your own parallels.

But even when you’re right up there, company president and the rest of it, you can be giving all the orders and still get it in the head.

Not if you do nothing wrong. Everything’s protected. Or let’s say, all your moves are almost already made. Sure, accidents happen, flukes out of nowhere. New people move in, alliances fall apart and develop, but then you got to know who to be for. All in all, though, you got to stay in line.

But what you’re saying makes it seem even more impossible. This one, that one, time comes along, how do I know I won’t be dumb enough to pick the wrong one? You saw with that phone call. Suppose I’d made it and some power person found out and thought it a very bad move. And for all I know it could’ve been my third to fourth very bad move in a short time and they might decide that’s the max so now I also definitely belong away. You could’ve told them of all the moves I made that I didn’t know were so bad, and this last one, coming from someone else, could’ve been the clincher.

Me? Your best friend? Tell on you?

They can give you reasons. I’ve heard that it can happen. You know it yourself. No, I really want out, but total.

Too early. You got too much put in — and they with you the same — for you to go so immediately. You have to step back very slowly till everything you do’s being done by someone else or among a crew and you’re so unnoticed, you’re out. Something like that. But takes time. Anything else is suspicious.

Then I’m leaving the area.

Forget it. They see a small hole, means someone’s missing. You’re not around, means it’s you. They find you, you’ll have to explain. Most times, to be extra protective of themselves, they won’t believe you whatever way you say it. You should’ve thought of all this before you came in.

How could I have known?

Come on. You heard of it, read about it, grown up with it, seen it in the movies and still do. Well, it’s not so far from all those combined where you should’ve known what it was like beforehand.

Poor Jackie.

Stupid Jackie, you mean.

Poor. Because he’s dead. Little I knew, I liked him. Oh, let’s shut the light.

I want to read some more.

The newspaper ink will make your fingers dirty.

I can live with it.

You feeling like a little physical activity before I turn over?

Not tonight, love, not tonight.

The article about Jackie?

It’s not that.

Then good reading.

And you, sweet dreams.

THE CLEANUP MAN

“That’s it, I quit, I can’t stand it anymore,” and I put the broom into the closet and go downstairs to the locker room. The boss comes.

“What’s this? What happened? If it’s Pete again, I’ll sack him.”

“No, it’s not Pete, though he gives me a hard time all right. But it’s not him. I’m tired of this job. I’ve been at it too long. Tired of all this kind of work. I get no satisfaction from it and I don’t think I ever did, not just here but in every place. I don’t know, but I’ve got to get out of it for good.”

“What satisfaction you want? You sweep the floor, you clean the dishes and occasionally bus some tables. What possible satisfaction can you get in that, except in doing a good job? And you do a good job with your sweeping and cleaning and when I ask you to bus, not to say the way you take care of the windows. Those windows shine. And when they shine, people see them and know it’s a clean place I got and they come in and sit down and want to be served and eat and drink and spend money. Customers compliment me on those windows. So I compliment you and on everything you do besides. So why do you want to quit? Satisfaction, that satisfaction that artists and scientists and great teachers get from their work, will never come to me or you. But just small satisfaction, like those people complimenting me on my windows and food, and a compliment or two from me to you and just in your own self about the good job you do, that you’ll get. And that you deserve, so stay. I’ll raise your salary if you want — ten cents an hour starting when you came in today.”

“It’s not the money,” I say.

“Don’t be a fool. It is so the money, or has to be in some big way. Because what else you live on: the garbage you wipe off the plates or sweep up in the corners of the dining room? Maybe you do find something every now and then on the floor you don’t tell me about, like a diamond earring or dollar bill or a customer’s bracelet. That you deserve too if the person who loses the earring or bracelet doesn’t come in to say she lost it, though whatever loose money you find is yours no matter who comes in to claim. But money you earn is what you live on. And ten cents more an hour, though not a lot to most people, to you comes up to almost five dollars a week, which you can certainly use. So ten cents an hour raise you’ll get, and starting first of this week, not today.”

“It’s not the money. I don’t want a raise. I wouldn’t say no to it if I stayed here, but I wouldn’t stay here for a dollar more an hour. Like I said, I’m tired of the job and it’s probably tired of me, whatever that means.”

“Fifteen cents an hour then, but that’s my limit. At four-eighty an hour with the new raise, you’ll be making more than just about any restaurant cleanup man in the city.”

“No, please, I told you—”

“Okay, you got it. Twenty cents an hour raise, but only because you’re so damn dependable, though don’t try to hold me up for more. That’s almost nine dollars more a week you’ll be getting, plus I won’t even tell you how much it costs me in those two big meals a day you eat. Of course, you’ll have to work a little extra harder for it. I don’t give raises away like that just any day of the week.”

“Really, I’m through with this line of work. I have to try and do something else, but I don’t know what.”

Then why leave? Leave, and I can’t say you did anything but quit. And if you quit, the state won’t give you unemployment insurance.”

“I don’t want any.”

“If you could get it, you’d take it — don’t tell me. It’s probably what you’re planning to do anyway.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Jesus, over three years I’ve been here, and you don’t know me at all. You see, I’ve cleaned up for you and all those other restaurants for twenty-some years because I never tried to do anything else. But I want to be…Well, I want to do…Ah, the hell with it. Sorry. And I’ve got to go.”

I put my apron on the bench, change into my street clothes, wipe the kitchen crap off my shoes with a paper napkin, and say “So, I’ll be seeing you, and I hope no hard feelings,” and start upstairs.

“Go, then,” he says, following me. “But you made a fool of me by not taking my pay raise, which I’ll never forget. Use my name as a work reference to someplace not even close to what you had here, and you’ll see what you’ll get. I’ll go out of my way, even, to make sure you don’t get hired. And if I hear you’re working in some joint, I’ll call the manager there and tell him what I think of you. I won’t say you stole. That, you never did, which is another reason I prized you. But there are other things I can say that will sound almost as bad, especially that you left me stranded today with five hours to go on your shift. That’s almost as bad as stealing, as far as we’re concerned. And if I can’t get someone in for you in two hours, just as bad and maybe worse.”

I buy a newspaper outside, go home and search the want ads for possible jobs. Computer programmer, machine operator, bank teller, and so on — nothing I could do, and they all say no on-the-job training. File clerk and messenger I could probably be hired as, but they seem no better and interesting as jobs than what I’ve been doing.

Next morning I get into my best clothes — my dress clothes, which aren’t much, but something — and go to a dozen or more employment agencies. The interviewers all tell me my experience and education qualify me for nothing much better than what I’ve been doing: cleanup man, dishwasher, busboy. I want to do something more challenging and personally rewarding, I tell them, and I’m too old to be a busboy.

“Busboys come in all ages,” the last interviewer says. “A man can retire at sixty-five as a busboy and get a reasonably good pension if he belongs to a good union. I’d suggest you find work in an expensive restaurant as one. If you work fulltime as a busboy and your waiters are fair with sharing part of their tips with you, your earnings should add up to more than you’d make as a cleanup man in even the best-paying restaurant. If you’re interested, I have a new listing here for one.”

“I’m too old to be called a busboy is I guess what I’m saying. I also feel I’m still young and healthy enough to hold down a better kind of job, and also, for a change, one cleaner. Maybe I should go back to school for something.”

“By your looks, you’re in your forties. You want my opinion? You’re also too old to return to school to study for a new profession. For an education, maybe — just to get one is what I mean. But that’s what you want? Go ahead — everyone can profit from more learning at any age. But I don’t expect you have much in savings? And just going to school without working at the same time, unless you want it to take you a few years, is one luxury I don’t think you can afford.”

I buy the evening newspaper, go home and read the want ads. Records assistant, operation analyst, registered nurse, data processor (manual) — half of them I don’t even know what they mean. There is an opening for someone to clean offices but that would be more of what I was doing and the ad says I’d need a car. It gets depressing, reading these ads, and I drink more than I usually do and soon I’m feeling drowsy. Well, maybe a good night’s sleep is what I need, and tomorrow I can start out fresh in looking for a job.

My ex-boss calls just as I’m getting into bed. “So,” he says, “find anything yet? Bank president? Water engineer? What?”

“I’m still looking. What do you want?”

“You sound different — your speech slurry. What is it? You became a drunk already in one day since you quit on me? Because you never drank at work that I know, or much ever.”

“All right, I’ll be truthful with you, for what do I got to lose? I had more to drink tonight than I’m used to. It’s depressing looking for work when you know there’s nothing much for you but the same lousy thing. And one full day of it and I think I got the picture what’s out there, not that it’s going to stop me from keep looking.”

“You know, you really got me mad yesterday,” he says.

“Oh, yeah? Well, if I made things tough for you, I’m sorry.”

“Shh — listen to me. And mad not just for that raise business and that I had to wash dishes for three hours myself. But as I said, good cleanup men are a rarity in this city, and great ones like you are a find I’d never let any other restaurant owner or manager know of. Start drinking on me, though, and I wouldn’t let you work another minute in my place.”

“Who says I want to work for you. I, in fact, don’t.”

“Wait’ll I finish, first. I think so highly of you that if you do come back as my cleanup man, I’ll also start training you under the cook.

‘Sous chef’—do you like the title? Because for an hour a day, we’ll say — or let’s just call it ‘sous chef apprentice’—that’s what you’ll be. Cooks are good-paying jobs and can also be very creative ones — not in my place so much but in others. And when you’ve learned enough, which, granted, takes time and the cook wants to go on his break, you can fill in for him instead of me or the salad man, and get plenty of practical experience. Then — though who knows when? — you really proved you can handle it, I might even put you in for him on his day off, though you’d have to work an extra day a week to do that, and with your regular wages. That might take a year. It might take two. And I’m only training you that one hour a day as I said. Though train as many hours as you want on your own time, if the cook doesn’t think you’re getting in the way, but only after the eight you work for the restaurant, which includes the one I’ll pay you for to be trained. So what do you say? It’s a big step up and can lead to who knows what. In two or so years you could be filling in for the cook on his summer vacation, and for real second-cook wages. It’ll mean I’ll have to get a cleanup man to replace you, like one of those bums, who’d make anyone look good, on your day off. It’s even, when you think of it, being extremely generous on my part, after the treatment you gave me. But I felt the offer worth it if I get a verbal guarantee of your cleanup work for me for two to three more years. And starting at the last salary I offered you, with regular increases, of course, which was what? — four fifty-five an hour?”

“It was up to four-eighty before you raised it another five cents.”

“Hey, mister, you drive a hard bargain and got too good a memory, but okay: consider yourself the winner. Now, as for your current drinking problem, we’ll call it an off night, right? Because I still appreciate you, and even if nobody else in the restaurant says to your face they do, I know they all think you’re a big plus for the place running so smooth.”

He says he’ll see me the regular time tomorrow, and hangs up. I slam down the receiver. I kick the chair and throw the ashtray against the wall. I slam my fist into the lampshade, and the lamp goes flying over the couch and the bulb in it explodes when the lamp hits the floor. The room’s dark, and that was my only lamp and bulb. I turn on the ceiling light switch, but that bulb went out a couple of years ago. I finger around for the ashtray pieces on the floor, and after nicking myself, give up. Now I know what was wrong with me all these years. I never once lost control.

CHINA

Every morning at eight the guards march us into a room for TV interviews and three hours later march us back to our cells. And every noon the guards march us across the prison yard to another building for radio and newspaper interviews and three hours later again order us into double formation and march us back to our cells. And every afternoon at five and in the evening at nine they march us into the communal lounging room to read political pamphlets and listen to lectures and recorded ancient Chinese music and then march us into the communal TV room to watch televised interviews of us done a day or two or even a week or month before — we’re never quite sure since we’re always clean-shaven and well-groomed and dressed in the same blue uniforms for these interviews and answer the same questions with the same answers to the same interviewer. After two hours of this they march us back to our cells and I usually fall quickly asleep: tired from all the marching, bored to fatigue with the prison routine, a little sick from the unpalatable food we get or else kept awake with hunger pains because I refused to eat this food, another day done — I’m always thankful for that. Because during the seven hours allotted us for sleep our releases might have been arranged and morning could mean our start out of here — though I often wake up tired, probably because in my dreams I usually march too. Tonight I marched across Chinese and European but mostly American landscape, flanked by the nine air force men who are prisoners with me, though accompanied by what seemed like the entire military service including the commander in chief, all of us singing a marching song I don’t ever remember hearing and keeping in step, as we don’t do here, to cadenced numbers as we paraded past flag-waving crowds. “Hup, two, three, four; ein, zwei, drei, vier; uno, duo, trio, fouro…”

But this morning my cell door’s open. Now that door’s never open except for the few seconds it takes the guard to march me in or out of the cell and when my food’s brought and he directs me to stand at the farthest point from the door with my nose and knees touching the wall. And no breakfast has come, no guard to tell me what kind of American pig I am today or why my breakfast hasn’t come or even why my cell door’s open. I stare suspiciously at the door. Then, with my back to the remote control camera that focuses on my cell all day, I relax on the floor mattress, happy with this one break in prison monotony since we were all brought here seven months ago from a prison that didn’t have radio and television studios.

I dream some more about marching. This time it’s across the George Washington Bridge to New York, though I’ve never been on that bridge or even to New York or New Jersey. I march up to the automatic tollbooth, toss a pocketful of change, keys and tissues into the toll basket, and when the sign flashes “Okay, Yankee trash, march ahead,” I march toward the graceful hills of hometown San Francisco turning pink and yellow pastel in the twilight and suddenly becoming the gray and black glass slabs of neighboring Oakland.

I wake around noon, my cell door’s still open. My lunch hasn’t come and I’m hungry, as I shoved aside last night’s meal. And there are no sounds from the cell corridor, no voices or car and truck noises I sometimes hear past the three inchwide slits in my outside wall, a foot above my highest jumping reach. How odd, I think, since every day but today I’ve been awakened by the guard who calls me pig in several Chinese languages, and a few minutes later he’d place my breakfast on my cell floor — plain white rice and hot black tea, the best meal of the day. Later I’d join my fellow prisoners in the corridor and we’d march down many halls and through many electronically controlled doors till we got to a compound the size of a national soldiers cemetery, which we marched across to the TV studio for another round of interviews on our spy flight over China’s territorial air space, something we’ve done every day except Chinese patriotic holidays for half a year. In the studio we’d take our regular places on a double row of benches and then, one by one, would sit in the only chair in the room other than the interviewer’s and be interviewed.

At first we refused to be interviewed, feeling it would embarrass our country and families, look disastrously bad on our service records and, once we were released, land us a stiff term in an American stockade. But Chinese officials showed us American newspapers and videotapes of U.S. news programs that quoted high American officials about how we hadn’t been on an electronic and photographic intelligence gathering operation as the Chinese had charged, but had been forced down by an air-to-air missile over open seas during a routine meteorological run and that America had done everything possible to get us released and now China had to make the next move. For three years Chinese officials told us China could never make that move unless we or a high American official admitted to the spying mission. Since we already saw two American presidents say on TV that America could never admit to a covert flight it didn’t make, we thought that instead of marching our lives away in a foreign prison, we’d encourage China’s next move by telling the truth without revealing any pertinent information about the flight. We felt that once China got all the propaganda value out our confession as it could, it’d release us to our military, whom we’d take our chances with by pleading emotional and physical breakdown during our capture. That was six months ago, and up until yesterday we were still being interviewed and the questions were always the same.

“Were you flying over Chinese soil?” the interviewer asked each of us, and each of us said “Yes, sir, I was.” “Are you repentant you were on a spying mission over China?” “Yes, sir, I am.” “Why do you want your country to disclose the truth about your spying mission?” “I love America and want it to be a truthful country so it can have the respect of the world. And also a personal reason, sir. I want to return to my loved ones in the States”—though on that last score I always said “Because I’m tired and bored with this place and the food’s inedible and I know I’ll never get used to sleeping on an inch-thick mattress on a hard cold floor and also because I want to finally find a loved one.” I have no loved ones or family, except for an aunt who’s been in an asylum since she was twelve and, for all I know, might be dead by now, God be with you, Aunt Rose, crazy since birth I was countless times told. I was sure the Chinese accepted my one digression from the prescribed dialogue because it gave a touch of realness to the interviews. Anyway, they never objected and my line always got a loud laugh and whistles from my buddies, even after they heard it a hundred times.

I go to sleep and dream of marching again, this time across the Pacific. I pass an island, and a beautiful Polynesian woman in a grass skirt and no top waves to me from a cliff and says “Aloha, Jamie, welcome to paradise now and give all those pretty boys a kiss from me.” Those boys turn out to be my fellow prisoners again, all of us marching single file. “Ahoy there,” a captain on an old whaler says, “where you off to, mates?” “China,” we say in unison, and he says “China? Why that’s unoccupied alien soil — a country we don’t even have relations with.” “China, nevertheless,” we say. “We know of a good Cantonese restaurant in Shanghai and a bar in Canton where you can either get shanghaied or buy for a week or weekend a real live China doll to have relations with.”

The door’s still open. It’s dinner time and no dinner’s come. I wish for the nightly rattle on my door of the dinner guard’s truncheon and the only joke he, or for that matter, any other guard ever made to me in English: “Arise, hair horse man, purloin meat and soiled potatoes.” I’d knock a message out to the next cell, but we’re not allowed to. “Do not communicate clandestinely,” the prison commandant told us the day we got here, “or you will lose many privileges.” “What privileges, sir?” Captain House, our commanding officer, said. “Food, sleeping and washing privileges.” That is expressly prohibited by the Kobenhavn Code regarding military prisoners, which states that basic human needs may be suspended during certain urgencies only to the extent that they are similarly suspended for the prisoners’ keepers.” Commandant Ep said China respects that code as much as America respects China’s borders. But since I apparently have no food and washing privileges to lose today and have slept all I need to for the next day, I knock on the wall to the adjoining cell.

Knock knock, I knock, but Junior Walker doesn’t answer. Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock knock, one or two knocks every so often louder or more rapid than the last, along with an occasional SOS, but I get no response. A word from the guards that I’ve lost all my privileges for the next day would be a welcome response, but no guard comes. Maybe I should stick my head out the cell door and see if a guard’s around. “Any prisoner so much as sticking a single finger joint through the cell-door window when opened,” Commandant Ep said that first day, “will be afforded the most serious punishments for this act.” “Please specify what punishments,” Captain House said, “so my men can know what to expect, which is clearly stated in article six of the internationally recognized Sashburton-Tang declaration.” “Let your men expect the most serious punishments that life can assuredly ill afford.” Thank you, sir.” And to us: “You heard the commandant, men. No sticking not even a single joint through the door window unless you want to be afforded the most serious of punishments that life can definitely not afford, agreed?” “Agreed,” we all said, slaves to living, our voices one. Thank you, Captain House. Thank you, Commandant Ep.”

I fall asleep and dream of marching again, though now I’m the officer in charge of a company of hotdogs, sizzling steaks, baked potatoes, bottles of French Bordeaux and chilled American Chablis, fresh-cooked deveined shrimps with a cocktail sauce on top and lemon wedges on the side, all marching five abreast till I command the food to halt and one by one to march up my body and into my mouth. The marchers become disorganized and retreat once they reach my waist and disperse when they land back on the ground. I begin eating my fingernails and then my fingers, but my hunger’s still not sated. I bellow “Deveined shrimp, bottles of white and red, franks, steaks, spuds, re-form into single lines and march into my mouth, hup, two, twice, no; mut, rut, vier, hup.”

I hup myself out of sleep. It’s morning. Door’s still open. I pound on the cell wall and yell This is Jamie Namurti, goddamn you, and someone answer me right now.” I scream that I’m starving, “dying of thirst besides,” and for the benefit of the remote control camera I grab my belly and drop to the floor in pain, but no doctor with food or guards with warnings about penalties incurred by prisoners for cutting up in their cells come bustling down the corridor to me. I stand up, raise my middle finger to the camera, and stick my head a few inches past the door.

Nobody’s in the corridor, the cell block seems deserted. I shout at the camera the only Chinese words I can think of: “Mao Tse-Tung, Chiang Kai-chek, Tao teh-king, Li Po, I Ching, dim sums”—those meat-and fish-filled delicacies I used to get in San Francisco tea parlors between classes at the Art Institute—“Kiangsi stew, mushi pork with three extra pancakes, sweet and sour bass with steamed bows and all the cold rice beer I can drink,” but nobody comes to order me to quiet down.

“Abe, Pule, Rick, Dom, Junior, Milkmore, Kunstman, Coneymile, Captain House,” but none of my fellow prisoners answer. “Commandant Ep,” I shout. “Soldier Hsi”—the guard who likes to call me pig. “Han, Tz’u, Shih”—the three guards who bring my food. “Chin, Chan, Tun, Yin, Shan, Shu, Wong, Wang, Wing, Went, Wu”—names I yell because they sound Chinese. Then I say to the camera “I’m sorry, but my hunger and thirst have totally overwhelmed my self-protective instincts and common sense. At the count of three I’m going to have to leave this cell to find the kitchen, though all you have to do is say ‘Don’t come out,’ and I won’t. So please don’t squeeze any triggers. Do not use guns under any circumstances. So I’m stepping outside my cell now — one, two, three,” and I throw my only bar of soap out the door, but no one shoots at it. The soap bounces a few times before breaking apart like a soda cracker. “Next, I’m coming out — the real Jamie; no inorganic impersonation. Presenting — your attention, please — the one and only in the gorgeous living flesh,” and I step gingerly into the corridor, look around, do a brief frenetic Navajo dance of peace I learned from my father, end it with a leap in the air and my heels clicking just before I hit the ground. Nothing. And all the cell doors are open I see, as I slide down the corridor’s linoleum floor. And no grimacing guards in the glassed-in monitor room at the end of the corridor, though all the monitors are on, showing, among other things, our ten empty cells. Maybe my fellow prisoners were shot, but why would the Chinese shoot them and leave me? Or taken out for questioning and I was left behind by mistake, my cell door — last one at the other end of the corridor — left open by mistake; by mistake, the corridor door left open also and the monitor room left empty. But I’ll never know unless I try to find out.

The kitchen’s on the same floor as the cell block and seems to have been deserted in a hurry: food still in stove pots and tea in cups. I drink lots of water and eat about a quart of cold rice. Then I go downstairs, announcing along the way that an unarmed peace-loving American prisoner by the name of Jamie Namurti is heading this way, admittedly unauthorized to be out of his cell but please don’t shoot, as he’s an intensely harmless chap who only wants to know why no one’s around and why his food wasn’t brought to his cell and why his cell door and the cell block door and, it seems, all the doors in this prison were left open.

Nobody’s in the building, so I walk across the compound to the radio studio and then the television one, but they’re like the rest of this ghost prison. In the television studio, I sit at my regular place on the bench to think what I should do next, rise as if ordered to by Guard Tu and sit in the interviewee’s chair, face the lifeless camera and make the kind of confession I always wanted to.

“No, you goddamn ninnies, for the three hundredth time I was not on a spy flight for America and, in fact, am not in the American Air Force or even an American. I’m the legitimate handpicked rightful revolutionary heir of the great Mao — rather than the bureaucratic New Class fakes now in control — so you’re all under arrest. Actually, I’m the great-grandson of the illustrious Sun Yat-sen by a previously unknown pre-teen marriage arranged by my great-great-grandparents, so now you’re all most certainly under arrest. All kidding aside, me and my fellow flyboys here, well, we were over China not to spy on her but to seek asylum in her, when one of our country’s most effective anti-asylum missiles caught us in our contrails, knocking us for a few unaeronautical loops though not hitting our plane in time to stop us from landing it on your munificent soil. The truth is, and I see no reason to lie or joke around about it anymore, we were on a spying mission for China against American fleet forces in the Pacific when Vietnamese naval batteries, thinking we were scouting for an expeditionary brigade of Japanese to reestablish military imperialism in Asia by Asians, gunned us down. Okay: our sole reasons for transgressing your territory was to end the border dispute between Indonesia and Malaysia, return Sabah to the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia to the Khmer, reunite the Koreas under the Silla kingdom, Japan under the Yamoto priest-chiefs, Burma under the Toungoo dynasty and China under the Kalmucks, and really get things moving again in Asia, really get the job done. The absolute truth now? I want to go home. I miss my mad Aunt Rose, I adore my loony Uncle Sam, I’m even a little crazy about you, China, wherever you are, whatever you might be.”

I stay in prison for three more days, sitting in Ep’s elegant office chair and giving the most extravagant orders imaginable to a thousand functionaries, sleeping in his bed with a photograph of his beautiful wife, smoking all his Cuban cigars and drinking his plum brandy, cooking up wild tasty dishes in the officers’ kitchen and working myself back to pre-prison shape in their pool and gym. But I’m very lonely and also curious to know what’s going on outside, so I fill a knapsack with food, canteens of water and a blanket and go through the main gate and head south, thinking that with a lot of luck and muscle I might reach Kowloon, walk across the bridge to Hong Kong, and sneak onto a ship leaving for some country like Japan or Australia.

I’m on the road for a day before I see another person. The man’s walking toward me, but seems too frail and old to get any intelligible information from, so I salute him and walk past, but he yells “You there, Yankee fan, you part of occupation forces blitzing south instead of west as I past heard?” I run back and hug him and say how happy I am to speak to someone in English again, “though I haven’t a clue as to what you’re saying to me.”

“Suspect it’s my English then, which I haven’t spoken since one New Zealand missionary lady learned it to me in Nan-ch’ang some thirty years ago. Name of Dot Gentle, a Mrs. — you know her, familiar with her good looks and name?” I tell him I’m not and ask why the road’s so empty. He says he’s surprised I haven’t heard about China’s newest and perhaps greatest disaster. It seems that American bioresearchers were testing a new nerve agent in a Taiwan proving ground when, because of an unforecasted storm, several chemical gas clouds blew across the China Sea. Once the gas reached China it was discovered it had no effect on the nervous systems of Chinese inhabitants but worked with unintended superlative results as a herbicide, for in a week this agent acting as a multiplying virus spread so fast that most of the arable land in the Fukien and Kwantung provinces were made infertile and the crops were destroyed. By the time American bioagricultural scientists could come up with a counterreactant to the herbicide, a civil war had started between the more reactionary political faction, which insisted China declare war on America for its chemical invasion, and the group in power, which said that war with America would be national suicide for China and so it was the reactionary faction that had to be crushed. Diplomatic relations between China and America were once more restored, arms and food were sent in from the States, and the two countries were now fighting side by side against the rebels. A new era in international peace and cooperation will begin once the war ends, world experts have said, though by the time it comes most of China’s cities and farmlands and maybe a quarter of its people might be destroyed. Right now twenty million homeless Chinese are plodding this way from the ravaged South, eating everything in their path like twenty billion locusts.

I give the man half my provisions and head back to the prison. With its solid walls and vast food reserves, it’ll be the safest place to stay till the Americans come; and where I know I won’t starve.

It takes me a day to get back, but the prison’s locked. I ring, and a caged window in one of the gate doors opens and the eyes of Commandant Ep appear.

“You leave something behind?” he says, and I tell him I want to get back in, since I heard that living’s going to become extremely hazardous outside.

“Can’t do. Orders from loyalist command state that I and my soldiers return from the front, where we had previously been ordered to go to fight, to occupy the prison against all possible enemies of China and also against the expected onslaught of the landless millions migrating north. This prison will soon be of indispensable use to China and even more so when the war ends, and the government doesn’t want it recklessly torn down. Besides, you’ve no right requesting entrance here, as officially you’re no longer a prisoner. I, myself, once ordered to do so by loyalist command because of American material help and armed intervention on our side, pushed the button that released the doors of the ten American cells. Why you didn’t leave with your colleagues, or more like it, why they left you behind, is something I didn’t understand. Fleeing as I did to fight the rebels, I never had time to find out, but it was probably because of your disagreeable pushy nature, which even now you so openly employ. What you and your colleagues did with this new freedom was of no concern to me, till I learned several days ago that you’re all, by far, not thought of as free men in your own country. On the contrary, very important American leaders have recently denounced you for lying, for the purpose of making prison life here easier for yourselves, about being on a spy plane over China. For this crime you’ll each, when caught, receive a reported prison term in America for many years.”

“We told the truth about that flight. Each of us, in fact, was given a few hundred dollars extra a month because of the risks of that flight and many others, and you know that as well as anyone.”

“Let me be frank with you, Soldier Namurti, although later at your trial say I told you this and I’ll deny it with a rage. One of America’s quick bargain-table conditions for its material help and entry into our civil war was that loyalist China retract all of its espionage charges against America, as America didn’t want to ally itself with a country that on record still considered it a liar. Naturally, the charges were withdrawn — I understand that the rebels, once the war had begun, would have agreed to the same conditions for similar American assistance — and now your country accuses you of giving aid and comfort to what at the time was its enemy.”

I walk away while Ep is deciding out loud whether reimprisoning me for the oncoming Americans is worth having to feed me during these food-shortage times, and head north. South is where the famine and refugees are. And from the east, the old man told me, American forces are moving west to join with the loyalists to smash the rebels for good, and I don’t want to be captured by them, flown home for a treason trial and maybe put away for life or possibly even executed.

I walk for days till I come to hills that seem to have plenty of woods for protection, and climb the hill that has the best view of the valley. Two Chinese are living at the top — a girl of about seventeen and a boy who’s around five. They’re frightened when they see me and hide behind a clumsily built lean-to for two days. I make no attempt to befriend them, though do make a point of exhibiting my dried fish and seaweed and bag of rice. When they come out and walk hesitantly toward me, she says “Lin,” and touches her chest, and I touch my chest and say “Jamie.” We shake hands, the boy hugs my waist, and I give her the rice to cook, since what I forgot to pack is a cooking utensil. She later accepts my offer to rebuild their lean-to, and the day after I give them my blanket for the cold nights, she asks me to sleep inside.

A few days later we see an army of refugees on the road that takes a week to pass. In a month, the American troops pass, and the month after that another American army comes from the east. The war must be over, because the second army brings materials and equipment instead of weapons. From our hill cover we watch the Americans repair the road, the Chinese refugees in the backs of trucks return to the south, and then the Americans widen and repave the roads into highways and level the trees and huts and farms along the highway and replace them with American-style ranch houses and then suburban track developments along with shopping centers and malls, trailer courts, industrial parks, a sports complex and an oil refinery, and farther off we see a six-lane freeway approaching. The smaller hills around us are cut down to bumps, and more developments rise on them and also on the planed-down steps of the larger hills.

One day two non-Chinese climb up our hill with surveying equipment. Lin, her brother Chu, and our baby Sun Goddess and I hide behind a clump of trees and watch the men eat lunch, take lots of land measurements and then discover our two-bedroom cottage and garden and chicken coop. When they start walking in our direction I throw a rock at them and shout “Don’t come any closer or I’ll drop a few grenades on your heads.” One of them says “Hey, you’re American. Well, nice surprise, brother, and welcome; we’re Americans too. The war’s been over for three years, haven’t you heard? Nothing to be worried about anymore — this country’s been pacified. The whole of freaking Asia’s been pacified. China and Stateside are the greatest of buddies now. And any man who can build that shack with just the material he found lying around and who knows with what tools, should have no trouble tying in with the big boom going on here. So come on out, fella, we’re your best friends.” I yell that I’ll give them to ten to get off my property or I’ll start zeroing in on them, and they leave.

They return the next day with about a dozen American and Chinese soldiers and three other Americans. The three new civilians present themselves as diplomats with the embassy in Beijing and ask me to come out peacefully as I’ve no reason to be afraid. Everything’s okay in China again, they say, but this hill has to be surveyed for a road and housing development that are going to be built on it with American help, and I’ll be amply compensated for my house and land which are directly in the builders’ way.

We’ve been so happy and healthy up here, and now I don’t even know why we brought another child into this world. But I have to act quickly before they come into the woods and corner us and break up my family and send me back to the States to stand trial, and Lin, Chu and Sun Goddess to live without me in that ugly emptiness out there for the rest of their lives. I give the signal and we start to run, Sun Goddess light and laughing in my arm and Lin and Chu right behind me, running fast as we can. We dart around the soldiers, who don’t seem able to make more than lazy attempts at trying to block us, and after a long sprint we stop to catch our breaths, and hear the diplomats shouting down to us. “You’re making a grave mistake, buddy — you’ve no idea what you’re doing. If it’s a psychiatrist you think you need, well, hey, we have all that free for you now also — free for everyone in this country, including the Chinese. Come on back, pal, as there’s just no reason to run.” But we’re already a third of the way down the hill, safe and free from them for the moment, and they’re not going to get their hands on us without one good hell of a chase.

SHE

She called and said “Can I stop by?”

“Sure, what’s up, how are you?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there, all right?”

“Of course, see ya, goodbye,”

and two hours later she rang from downstairs

and I buzzed her up,

my room cleaned, floor washed down but not ammoniated,

as I didn’t want to give the scent I was doing

it for her.

New sheets — fresh, I mean, and bed, which is also

my couch, remade twice till it was right,

most of my books out of sight or in place in my

one bookcase,

books on my table and desk turned cover-side down

so I wouldn’t seem pedantic,

everything on my desk stacked and aligned,

my new eyeglasses opened on top of my typewriter.

If she asks “Those yours?” I’ll say “Yes, for reading,

and only nineteen ninety-five at Cohen’s, Delancy and

orchard, and that includes the eye examination,

bathroom and kitchenette cleaned too and everything put away.

Two croissants bought in a run so I’d have time

to do all that cleaning and tidying up,

old clothes thrown into the closet,

but what should I wear?

I had that thought: Which turtleneck jersey, blue,

green or black? They’re all clean,

and which pants of the five pairs I found in a pile

on a garbage can on the street the other day

and washed in the Laundromat down the block,

even the gray wide-wale corduroys that said

Dry Clean Only,

all of them my length and waist and no cuffs,

the way I like mine.

Shoes and sneakers and flipflops paired and lined

up at the end of the short hallway by the door,

bedspread flattened out again in my only room.

“Your tomb,” she’d said a number of times,

but not for a while.

Then my face shaved, hair brushed back,

anus, genitals and underarms cleaned with a wet

washrag, the washrag then folded neatly over

the bathroom towel rack.

She might comment approvingly of my new headhair

curls which have formed in the two weeks since I

last saw her, painting on the wall also picked up

on the street since then: large studio oil of chair

turned upsidedown on a studio cloth with many folds,

draped sidetable with teapot, several birthday

candles in their holders and can of Ajax on top,

and she might say “Where’d you get that

— off the street like most of your furniture?”

and I’d say “Yes, a studio portrait, appropriate

for my studio apartment, and the chair sort of

symbolizing my life right now,

and also the way I acquired it:

that somebody would just toss it out.”

“You writers,” she might say, or something like,

if the conversation came to that.

So she came — knocked on my door and never mentioned

the painting or my hair — and tells me what I knew

she would and had prepared myself for,

and I told her why I hadn’t called her the

last two weeks and that I’d been thinking the

same thing: “We just don’t click together anymore

after almost three years. And it’s not that I

don’t love you, but—

Actually, I do love you, but like a croissant and

some tea? The croissant’s fresh.”

“I’d love to but I haven’t time and am meter-parked.

I’m glad you’re taking it this way and not getting

angry as I thought, and was a little anxious,

you might. But you know, I’ve always said,

from the first time we met, that I needed a complete

year of freedom, for I went from my first husband,

and that was for ten years, right to you,

and because I was so young, he was the first

man I knew. Let’s face it: I just haven’t done

what I’ve wanted with my life — you have to understand,”

and I said “I do.”

“So that’s it. Nothing more needs to be said,

I think. And you never know what the future

will bring. Gigi”—a good friend of hers—“broke

up with her boyfriend once — severed their relationship

irrevocably, as she put it — and two years later

they resumed, though a few months after that she

broke it up for good, but anyway, we’ll see,”

one arm in her coat sleeve—“Why’d I even take

this off? The boiling heat in this apartment”

— other arm trying to shove past the lining of the other sleeve.

“By the way,” she said, “the camera I left here.

Can I have it back?” and I said “Bottom drawer

on the right, under the T-shirts, to perhaps forestall it being burglarized.”

“You New Yorkers. I’m so glad I don’t live here.”

She stood the whole time, even when she laced her

shoes right after she came in.

She found the camera, briefly looked at her face

in the small Mexican mirror above the night table

— something I’d also found on the street — checked

her permed curls—“I wish mine were natural like yours,”

she once said — flicked the front ones with a finger

and said “Don’t get up. I’ll see you,” and blew me a kiss and left.

I was still on the bed, and after she left, I said

“Okay, I won’t get up if you insist.”

We’d pecked lips when she first came in.

She didn’t try to dodge me or anything like that,

so I thought it was a good sign. When I’d pressed

down harder on her lips, she pulled back and said

“No, that’s enough. Things are different now.”

Shortly before she left I asked if she’d read anything

interesting lately, and she said The selected letters

of Joyce — it recently came out and was reviewed,”

and I said “Oh? Me too. The one with lots of heretofore

unpublished erotic if not masturbatory letters between

Nora and Joyce when they were still fairly young,

right around your age. What a coincidence.”

“Not much of one. You got me started with him

— I’d always resisted, thought he’d be too difficult

— and now my passion for his life and work is out of control.”

“I get blamed for everything…something my father

used to say about himself,” and reached across the

bed to the night table and turned over the book.

The letters, see? Just so you wouldn’t think I

was lying to accrue some advantage with you.

Hardbound or paper?” and she said “Same as yours

— what do you think? I only have so much money,

so even six dollars was a sacrifice, but I had to have it.”

Her last words before she told me not to get up,

she’ll see me, and blew a kiss and left.

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” I’d wanted to say, and

what would she have answered? Probably just a shrug.

I’d also given her a book due at her library in a

few days and which I’d checked out and was going

to mail back. She said she’d read a few pages of

one on artistic creativity I’d left behind and was

a couple of weeks due, and found it very dull.

“What do I owe you for the late fee?” and she said

“Grace”—the librarian of her town’s small library

—“said you have your own card, something I didn’t

know — I’d always thought you were checking them out

on mine — and that she’d collect from you next time

you’re there. I didn’t say anything.”

Made coffee, read today’s Times in bed while I sipped

from the mug, tried to stay calm but couldn’t.

Stripped down to my boxer shorts and exercised—

pushups, situps, swinging from the chin bar between

the bathroom’s door frame, running in place.

Drank several glasses of water.

Ate carrots, celery, raw cauliflower florets, peanut

butter on crackers and thin slices of Swiss cheese.

Squeezed the croissants in their bag into the

refrigerator’s tiny freezer. Never cared for them,

or haven’t since I lived in Paris and had one with

jam and café au lait almost every morning in the

back of a café while I read the Herald Tribune.

Walked across Central Park. Bought her daughter

a beaded necklace for Christmas from a jewelry crafts

stand in front of the Met on Fifth.

Walked downtown in the park thinking “I don’t feel

too bad. A little better than I thought I would,

in fact. So she’s gone; so what? I’ll see. Could

lead to something good. New woman I might even be

more taken with, and she with me and with greater

constancy. Someone who lives in the city — maybe even

on the West Side, so I won’t have to go so far to

see her — and who’s marriageable but never married,

or if once married, no kid, much as I adored hers.”

Wished we’d had the baby she aborted without my wanting

her to. “Are you kidding?” when I said a year ago

“Let’s get married and keep the kid.” Oh, if only

she’d wanted it too, but the hell with it. “Do you

hear?” I said in my head. The bloody hell.”

Saw places in the park we’d walked past, commented

about, rested at. Zoo Cafeteria we’d sat outside in

the cold, pretending it was a ski lodge, though I,

unlike her, had never skied, and had hot chocolate

and shared a warmed-up roll.

Tonight I won’t feel so good. But with a little

vodka and a lot of wine, I’ll be much better tomorrow.

And day after that, not great but just fine, and

every day after that, always better.

I exited the park at Central Park West and 72^nd,

headed to a liquor store near Broadway for a bottle

of wine. When goddamn, on Columbus near the corner,

she was unlocking the driver’s door of her VW bug.

I ran up to her while she was putting a shopping

bag on the front seat, and said “Do I know you?”

and tried to kiss her.

“No way,” she said, swiveling out of my grip.

“I know you too and have read your stories. You

and your surrogates never stop with a civilized kiss.

By the way, I never asked — how’s your mother?”

“The same, the same, but do you mind if we don’t

start that how’s-so-and-so talk today, okay?

I’m sort of fed up with it.”

“I thought you wouldn’t get angry,” she said.

“Who the hell’s angry? I’m not. Say, how about

a coffee for old friends’ sake?” and she said

“Got to go. Only came down to quickly see you

and do some Christmas shopping. Now I have to get

back to correct papers and prepare next week’s classes.”

She got in her car, door was still open, and I said

“Boy, you’re sure not going to suffer.”

“What about you? You’ve said yourself you only

give your suffering over somebody three days.

Then they’re out of your mind, which I find healthy.”

“That was two months after I first met you and we

split. Not three years, and half of it living together.

Screw it,” and I waved with my back turned to her,

and instead of going to the liquor store, I headed for home.

Few seconds later, I heard footsteps running up

behind me. I turned, but it wasn’t her. Some young

father pretending to run away from his young son.

BURGLARS

Something’s wrong. I unlocked the door to my mother’s apartment as I do every night to check up on her and take her garbage out, and a breeze blew past me into the public hall. It’s winter and very cold out and during this time of year she always keeps her windows closed.

I go in and see from the foyer, papers floating to the kitchen floor. I run to the kitchen. Her pocketbook’s on the floor, has been turned inside out and its personal papers and coins are scattered about.

I yell “You sonofabitch, I’ll kill you,” and open a kitchen drawer for a knife, but right away know I’ll never use it on anyone. But I can hit a head with a hard object if I have to, so I grab a candlestick out of a cabinet and bang the base against the counter and yell “You better get out the way you got in here or just peacefully identify yourself to me and leave through the front door, or I’m going to beat your thieving head in,” and go into the breakfast room.

A window to the backyard is open and two of its bars have been pried apart. The backyard door is locked and I open it and go outside, and nobody’s there. I check the downstairs bathroom. The light’s on, there’s a cigarette in the toilet bowl and a faint odor of cigarette smoke. I flush the toilet, then think I shouldn’t have — police might have wanted to examine the cigarette — and go upstairs.

The ceiling light in the girls’ room is on and all the dresser drawers have been pulled out, nothing inside them but clothes of my five brothers and sisters from ten to twenty years ago. I look under the bed, inside the closet, throw open the door of the bathroom right outside the bedroom and shove the shower curtain aside.

My mother, and I run to the front of the apartment, turning on the lights as I go and glancing around, and listen at her door. I hear breathing, she seems to be sleeping. I turn on the night light in her room. She dozed off in her house dress, closed book on her chest, afghan she’d knitted, covering her. I make the same quick search: closet, bathroom, under the bed, candlestick ready to come down on the burglar’s head, though I’m almost sure he escaped through the breakfast room window and over a backyard fence right after he heard me open the front door.

I put the book on her night table and turn off the light. I search the baby’s room next to my mother’s, the linen closet, living room, boys’ room, which is now unused like the baby’s and girls’ rooms and where I slept with my older brothers in bunk beds for about fifteen years.

I phone the police from the kitchen, then yell from the backyard “Attention, neighbors who have backyards on these streets. A burglar, about ten minutes ago, broke into my mother’s apartment here and climbed over one of the connecting fences to get away, so turn on your yard lights and all your rear room lights and make sure your rear doors and windows are locked tight.”

I repeat the message and then return to my mother’s room and shake her shoulder. “Mom, it’s me, don’t worry,” and I tell her what happened. She puts on a robe, is very shaky and I have to hold her arm when she walks downstairs. I make us both a drink. We sit in the breakfast room while we wait for the police. It’s now her sitting room of sorts, where she embroiders and reads and watches TV. There used to be a table and eight chairs in here when the family had breakfast together every Sunday and dinner together almost every night.

She says This never used to happen on the block when you kids were growing up.”

“I know, I know.”

“We used to keep the front door unlocked during the day because of all you kids running in and out, and nobody but someone we welcomed or invited ever came in.”

“You started locking the front door about twenty years ago, when all of us were grown up or could be trusted with keys, but I get your point.”

“But double bars I didn’t have on these windows till three years ago, and only because a couple of neighbors got burglarized from the backyard, but the thieves still break in.”

“I’ll get more bars put on. Stronger ones. Maybe even gates, if you can overcome your aesthetic distaste for them, but you’ll be safe.”

“It’s not my safety I’m worried about. At my age, though I don’t want them here, they can come and go, so long as they don’t do it while I’m asleep. It’s just that I hate to see these things deteriorate the way they have, for everybody’s sake.”

“Your safety is important. You’re just talking like that because you’re flustered and upset. You’re healthy and can live lots of years yet, so we’re going to make it extra safe for you here. Unless you want to give up the place and come live with Marion and me.”

“Never. I like my privacy even more than you do. And we’d end up barely tolerating each other after a few months, and I’d probably sour your marriage a little besides. You will sleep over tonight, though, won’t you?”

“Sure. In the boys’ room. Marion would want me to. Then early tomorrow I’ll call the locksmith.”

The police come, write up a report and give us a prediction and statistic: we’ll never again see what was stolen and this was only one of an average of ten burglaries a day in this precinct.

One of the policemen picks up the silver candlestick and says This what you made your noise with to chase the kid away?” They already determined it was a strong man with a crowbar who pried the bars apart and a small wiry kid who slipped in. Think you would have used it on him like you did on the countertop?”

“I don’t know, now that you say it was a kid.”

“Even if it was a kid, you think he came empty-handed and wouldn’t have used his weapon on you, and believe me, he had one.”

Then I suppose I would have had to protect myself with this stick, though I wouldn’t have liked myself later on for doing it.”

“No,” my mother says, “I wouldn’t want you hitting any child, even if it meant he took everything from me.”

“Even if it meant he’d bash in your son’s brains protecting you?” the policeman says.

There are ways. There have to be. Talk, for instance. He was a junior high school teacher, so he knows how to talk to boys and girls.”

“Talk. That’s years ago. When I was a boy, and I’ve got at least ten years on your son. Anyway, you’ll have to take it to a silversmith to get the dent out, if you can find one these days. Looks like an antique.”

“It is,” I say. “A wedding gift to my folks from my mother’s parents more than fifty years ago.”

“You want the truth after all this time?” my mother says. “I only told your dad that’s where they came from. It’s fifty years old, all right, but I bought the pair of them in a department store for myself so he’d think my parents were even more generous than they were.”

“He never knew?”

“Why would I have told him? It was only a harmless fib. Now it comes out because of this robbery and I don’t want to tell real lies for the policeman’s report. Otherwise, I would have kept it to myself for life.”

THE LEADER

Hitler was coming to town and he wanted one of us girls. Young, he liked them young. “How young?” I asked the prostitute who told me this.

“Young like you,” she said. That’s what I heard from a friend of mine who’s still a prostitute in Berlin. She was in a house that Hitler went to — oh, that was a long time ago. Now he doesn’t go to houses. We just go to him and he or one of his aides selects. Anyway, he specified young — at least twenty years younger than him. That was ten years ago when he was first becoming our leader. Now it’s maybe thirty years younger than him — who knows? So you got a good chance to be the winner, sweetheart.”

“Did your friend say what he’s really like in person? Because I don’t think I could take doing it with such an incredibly powerful and famous man.”

“He’s all right.”

“She say that?”

“She didn’t say much. Just that she didn’t get him. She was already too old. And that he took the youngest girl in the house, who also happened to be the prettiest and best built, so nobody was sure if he picked her only for her being young or pretty or her build or what. She had big boobs, that’s what my friend said. Big and high and a tiny waist and hips that were in proportion to her breasts and long legs. And she was blond.”

“He prefers them blond too?”

“It’s difficult to say what he prefers. Remember, this is all secondhand. I don’t know what other houses he’s been to or if he’s changed his taste much in women since then, but he’s seen plenty of women, I understand. That’s what a general friend told me. Not a friend — a client, a one-shot deal. He came in here a couple of years ago for a supposed quickie and said before we did anything ‘You know what?’ I said ‘No, what?’ He said ‘Did you know I’m on Hitler’s personal general staff?’ I said ‘No kidding, that’s great.’ What else was I to say? He said ‘Wouldn’t you like to know what Hitler’s really like?’ I said ‘Yeah, yeah, tell me,’ because I could see he was aching to say it. I didn’t actually care then or now, but you do?”

“Well, yes, in a way. After all, he is Hitler. The leader of the entire continent. Maybe one of the greatest men ever.”

The hell with Hitler, and you know it. And the hell with all the continents he conquers — though don’t breathe a word to anyone I said any of this. Oh, go ahead. Tell the world — what do I care? I’ll say I never said it. No, that never works anymore. But I couldn’t give a toot what Hitler’s really like. Just give me my money, get your cookies, and go — next customer, please, know what I mean? But he was a general and, if he was telling the truth, on Hitler’s staff. And he had plenty of money to throw around also, so I said ‘Of course, I’ve always been eager to know. But he’s very nice, though, am I right? Sort of like a god.’ I said that to make sure he knew whose side I was on. He said ‘He’s a god like you say, but a real god.’ I could see he was having second thoughts, as if I might be an informer or so patriotic that I’d run out and blab if he said the least thing critical of Hitler. ‘You would like him,’ he said. ‘He goes for girls like you and makes them excited with his godlike qualities, and I’m not just talking about the spiritual and moral, you understand?’ ‘Not exactly,’ I said. ‘Because maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, General, but I heard from a prostitute friend who’s now dead that he likes girls much younger than me — half his age, preferably — and with big parts in all the important places, no disrespect meant, is that true?’ He said ‘The cut of the female figure doesn’t matter to him so long as it’s perfect for him.’ Now that can almost mean nothing or two things, which can also be nothing if you can’t or don’t want to figure it out, so I dropped the subject. After, which is way after, for that was a weary old general who I think fought his greatest and maybe last battle on me and in the end won at an enormous sacrifice to himself, he said ‘Want to know what Hitler’s really like?’ I said ‘Didn’t you ask me that before?’ ‘Did I?’ he said, and I quickly said ‘No, it must have been someone else,’ for he seemed angry. He said ‘Who? You know people who are talking disparagingly about our great leader?’ ‘No, just some harmless lieutenant in the tank corps I saw a year ago.’ ‘You go to bed with lieutenants?’ he said. ‘No, I only overheard him downstairs when I was wandering through the main room looking for a lost brooch. Me, I save myself only for colonels and higher.’ Anyway, Hitler’s coming to town to check the military base, I suppose, and his first stop after he detrains is the Forest Hotel. We’re all to be in a room there when he or his aide comes in to make the choice. And no men for any of us till after the selection, as he wants the one who’s picked to be, at least for the time being, pure.”

Two hours later the madam, Mrs. Dorfer, came into our room and said “Knock knock, darlings. Get your finest finery and most daring undies on, as we’re going to Hitler’s hotel.”

We all get into a couple of officers’ cars Hitler sent over. Seven of us girls packed in to each one, which was almost the entire house. Lotte and Ilse were left behind. They were obviously too old — girls Mrs. Dorter saved for soldiers and townsmen who had drunk or gambled too much and were down to their last marks. During the ride I asked the girl next to me “Excited?”

“For what? None of us has more than an eight percent chance of getting him. This was also supposed to be my day off, and besides that I’m coming down with the sniffles, so with my luck it’ll probably be me.”

“But Hitler. Just that you might see him up close.”

“Yes, Hitler. Maybe you’ve a point. Truth is, till now I didn’t even think there was a real Hitler. He’s so easy to impersonate and look like, and that voice — even my brother fooled me with it once on the phone. I thought there might be four to five men dressed like him making speeches and shaking their fists all over Europe — something thought up by some military and industrial geniuses to get our economy rolling again, and knowing the national mentality, what better way? But real or not, I was never one of his bigger fans. He comes in like hailstones and thunder, and thinks we’re going to take over the whole western world? You ever read world history? I did — before, when I was becoming a teacher, plus all the best literature there is. In the end, we got to lose. You can only stick it out so far and for so long before choppo, you get your head and hands cut off and, if you’re not looking, your behind too. So big deal, I quietly say in my own way — Hitler as a client. No, I thought it over. Years from now if I’m alive and I tell people that, they’ll say ‘That miscreant and baboon? He brought the great German nation to its lowest ebb yet. You had the devil himself in you.’ But believe me, if I wind up with Hitler I don’t move any more for him than I would for any other man, unless he puts a cocked gun to my head. And with his responsibilities and heavy worries and past decisions, you think he’s going to do any amazing tricks in bed? That’s for the newsreels. Like all deep thinkers I’ve had, it’ll take everything he has for him to get started and then stay with it, so I suppose I will have to move a little more for him than with others, just to get the job over with.”

“Well, I’m excited at the prospect,” the girl on my other side said.

“It’s like a fantasy come true. When I was a young girl — I am not old — I fell in love with him right after they jailed him for that putsch. His face — so sensitive and brooding, yet sweet. And his presence, defiance and physique. That was then. Maybe now his body’s a little changed. But I wrote him a letter, even. When he got out of prison he wrote me one back. He said ‘Your faith in my cause inspired me and inspires me still. We will win.’ That was very nice. I kept the letter, knowing it would be valuable one day, but my ancestral home was bombed early in the war and everything went up in it — I won’t even specify what people were inside. But from that prison sentence till now I have adored him. If I was chosen over all you girls it would be like for some other women making love with the world’s most famous movie star who they’ve been writing about in their diaries for years. And he’s still very handsome and gallant like one, wouldn’t you say?”

“Very,” I said. “Do you know anything about what kind of girl he prefers? I heard he likes them extremely young.”

“I don’t know, though I’m sorry to hear what you said. Perhaps if he’d succeeded with that putsch and we were in the same situation now, only ten years earlier, my chances would be better. But I wasn’t a prostitute then, so I guess I lose out no matter what.”

“I’ve a good idea what he likes,” a girl on one of the jumpseats said.

“Helga, the cleaning lady in our house, told me he only likes girls with big derrieres. She said years ago she was a girl in the most elegant house in Hamburg, and Hitler, who’d just become chancellor then, came in with Goebbels or Göring — though I know those two don’t look alike, I always get their names mixed up because of the G and O. They were some pair, she said, Hitler and the other one. Joking, playing the piano, throwing money in the air. You should speak to her. She has funny stories to tell about them just from their one trip. But Hitler took the girl with the biggest buttocks. She was also very young, chunky, and kind of happy-go-lucky, and had short black hair.”

“Someone else thought he liked tall blondes with tiny waists,” I said.

“I’d heard that too. So I asked Helga again, but she said Hitler definitely picked the stubby black-haired and Göring or Goebbels chose a tall blond. But you got a nice derriere — not fat, but just big and broad enough to qualify. Mine? Too small and firm, I think — coconuts, which lots of men prefer. If Helga’s right then I guess I should count myself out too. Though I’d love to be the one selected. Not just for the money involved but because it’ll be one hell of a story to tell for the rest of my life.”

“Did Helga say what kind of man Hitler was like?”

“Only the girl he was with saw him. But she did say something quite strange happened soon after Hitler left. The girl fainted dead away in the room she’d used. They thought she was overcome with being with the new dynamic chancellor, and maybe he also had something unique going in a physical and amorous way to have had such an effect on a young pro. They revived her with salts, but she said she couldn’t speak about what happened, nor could she work anymore that night. For two days after, all she could speak was gibberish — his stress, his anxieties, how it isn’t easy guiding an entire nation and maybe becoming the future number one leader of the world. They got her a doctor, but the third day after she saw Hitler and without allowing herself another man, she really cracked and had to be taken away.”

“She must have been very immature,” I said. “I know I wouldn’t let myself go like that if he picked me tonight.”

“You never know. Have you ever had a truly great man?”

“You mean a powerful figure — world famous, like a great artist whose name everybody knows? Once; Johann the tightrope walker.”

“You had him? Out of the air I’d think he’d be ungainly and tense.”

“Sort of. But he’s called the best ropewalker in Germany and so maybe the rest of the world, we can say, can we not?”

“We might.”

“Even still, he fell. Two weeks ago — I read it in the paper. Broke both legs and his spine entertaining our troops. He was the most famous man I ever had, and just average in bed. Wanted things done, wouldn’t do much, peter out, come back, give him a few wiggles from below and you’re done with him. Nothing out of the ordinary. Normal.”

“Maybe that was a bad day for him, or a very good one. Maybe all aerialists and the like only think they have to come to us, but don’t do well because they get most of their fulfillment on the ropes and bars. And like our leader, just think of all the tensions they come to you with. Everybody watching them, one false move and so forth, some people even hoping they’ll fall because that could be more exciting than just his high-wire walk. But Hitler’s problems are much different than any other man’s, so I don’t want to prejudge him too hard. Though I do think he’ll be an experience to make love with just because he is who he is and all those pressures he has to release.”

The cars stopped. “Everyone into the hotel,” an officer said. “Leave your pocketbooks and accessories in the cars.” Soldiers all around — naturally, security was tight. So many flags above the entrance, and the lobby never seemed so clean and bright.

We were led into the dining room. Only now, nobody was there except maybe fifty soldiers on guard. The middle of the room had been cleared except for fourteen chairs in a row for us girls. We were told to sit. A few minutes passed. Then the commanding officer said “Everyone rise.” The soldiers stood at attention, and all the girls rose. The door from the kitchen opened, and out first in front of a group of officers was Hitler, who walked quickly and was in full uniform and knotted tie and holstered pistol and with his hat and swagger stick under one arm, but instead of those riding boots I’d always seen him in photos and newsreels, he wore highly polished black shoes. He walked past us with the commanding officer, as if we were this officer’s troops he was inspecting. He was taller than I thought he’d be, and he didn’t look well: pale and fleshy in the face and with big bags under his eyes. His hair style and mustache were the same as always, and his paunch and the way his body drooped were no different than most men his age. He also looked a little annoyed, as if with just one glance he knew that none of us were what he’d had in mind and that he was wasting his time here. Then he smiled.

That one,” he said, pointing the stick at Vera, the girl who’d been wanting him since the Putsch. “No good. Sorry, my dear,” he said, sort of bowing, and the officer snapped his fingers and a soldier escorted her out of the room. Vera, who threw her hands to her mouth and screamed in delight when she’d thought she’d been picked, left sobbing. Hitler walked past us all again and kept shaking his head.

“Stand straight and tall, girls,” the officer said.

“No, that’s all right,” Hitler said. They’re standing fine. That one,” and he pointed the stick at Gretchen, who had the biggest buttocks and maybe the best shape of any of us. “She’s quite charming looking, but her age is against her. Please,” he said to the officer. “To save them this embarrassment, you should have left behind the types I asked you to. Excuse me,” he said to Gretchen, and the officer snapped his fingers and she was escorted out.

Of the twelve girls left, maybe only Reni had a behind that came close to being as big as mine but still compact, if that was what Hitler liked most in a woman. She also had a bigger bosom and tinier waist and was blond and almost as young as me, so I thought he’d pick her. Then, maybe Hetta next, who was the real beauty of the bunch though perhaps too tall and slim for him and like me a brunette, with maybe long-legged Frieda and me coming in third.

“You,” he said, pointing to me. So I was out too. “I would like her. She has a bit more sparkle in the face than the others and a seemingly cheerier disposition, though you are all so nice for taking the time to come here today and Colonel Beineman will see that you are adequately recompensed. Thank you,” and he saluted us with the stick and left.

The rest of the girls crowded around me. “Oh, Gerta, you are so lucky,” they said. “You clever girl. I bet you winked at him and showed him a peek of what you had, isn’t that so?”

The winner and new champion, perhaps,” Clothilda said, raising my hand above my head. “You will be fantastic. He will adore you and be fantastic. Play your cards right, my darling, and you can take that other whore’s place and give orders in all his castles and feed his huge dogs.”

“Just be careful and return to us safe and sound,” Mrs. Dorter said.

The rest of you please return to the cars you arrived in,” the commanding officer said. “Mrs. Dorter, see Colonel Beineman, and you, please,” he said to me, “come with me?”

I got into the hotel elevator with him and two guards. “You have nothing that can be construed as weapons,” he said. “Barrettes, nail-files, clippers — mind if I search?”

“And if I did?”

“I’d have the matron do it. I don’t take liberties with women, madame.”

“Search me.”

He searched me during the elevator ride. “You’re clean. Now be good to the leader, you hear? He doesn’t need to be counseled or consoled, just relaxed. Say only pleasant and reassuring things to him. Beautiful day today — words to that effect. He won’t find them rude or dumb and he will understand your unease. And don’t be aggressive or suggest anything unless he asks you to. He likes politeness and warmth. In other words, do what he says to do, and you will be amply rewarded, and if he comes this way again soon, you’ll be his choice for a second time.”

“How long do you think it will be?”

This is between you and him. And I forgot: be responsive too. Whatever he does, say you like.”

Though I know he’s not like anybody else, I do that with all my clients unless they’re suffocating me with their weight or trying to murder me. Any other advice?”

“None I can think of. After it’s over, he’ll tell you so by leaving through the door to the adjoining room, and probably without saying another word. Then you get washed and dressed and see me outside your door.”

We walked down a hotel corridor where a lot of soldiers were. “Can I ask you one more thing? Why do you think he picked me?”

“He already said. He liked you. Your disposition and sparkle and such.”

“Some of the girls said they heard he only likes us young and with big buttocks and larger breasts than mine and maybe blond and a very narrow waist, which mine — though flat — is not. Any of that true?”

“He likes all kinds. Young, maybe, but most men do. But you with your brown hair and others with red or black or even dyed to those. But no more of this. Here is his room. Just go inside and undress and get in bed under the top sheet. He’ll be in soon.”

I went inside and undressed and got in bed. There was an uncorked bottle of Moselle in an ice bucket by the bed. I’d like a drink but didn’t know if I should take one. I’d wait. There was fruit too. And tiny cheese and wurst sandwiches on a silver tray. Truth was, I was getting nervous and would like something to eat and drink to calm my nerves. For what would I say to him? How was I to act? He’d see through any pose I put on. La guerre goes well, mon general, n’est pas? No, that wouldn’t do. Whatever I’d say: no jokes. And suppose he didn’t like me nude? My simple little appendectomy scar might put him off. Then he’d say so and I’d leave if he wanted me to, easy as that. I don’t think he’d get angry. And he had so much power. That was what frightened me. I must be on my guard what I do and say. People who it seemed hadn’t done or said anything had disappeared. Not anyone I knew, but friends of friends. All for a good cause, I’m sure, but some say no. But who was to say what was the good cause? A man with so much power could establish his own good cause. That was true. Just keep the words functional and complimentary and wait for the signals from him, that was the best way.

The door to the next room opened and he came out. He didn’t say anything, just looked at the ceiling, blinking his eyes as if the light there was too bright for him, then looked at me. He was in slippers and a bathrobe. Very nice one too. Velvet. Red, with black piping and a thick braided rope. Stern, though, and it didn’t seem a smile would ever come.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello. You’re a very attractive young lady — you know that, don’t you?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Hasn’t gone to your head yet, has it?”

The Moselle?”

The Moselle? Oh, the Moselle. No, not that. You want some? Maybe you’ve had some.”

“I haven’t. I thought I’d wait.”

“You should have felt free and helped yourself. I wouldn’t have minded.” He was still standing by the door he’d come through, bathrobe still tied. “Did you think I would have got upset if you’d taken a glassful?”

“I thought it would be politer and more respectful of me to wait till you got here. It’s your wine. I’m your guest and these are your rooms. I would wait till you offered it, that’s what I felt.”

“It’s the hotel’s wine. They gave it to me. The best Moselle, they said. Let me see.” He came over and read the bottle’s label. “Good, but not the best. So now it’s our Moselle and I will only drink a glass if you’ll have one too. No, that’s not so. But drink a glass or two. Don’t wait for me.”

“Do you want some? I’ll pour it for you.”

“Yes, pour it. Why not? And I’ll offer you sandwiches. That way, we can be polite to each other and give each other different things.”

Thank you.” I poured the wine into two glasses, held his glass out for him. We clicked glasses. He first, then I clicked his. I drank all my wine. He only sipped from his.

“You drank so fast,” he said.

“Because I’m a little nervous. Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Nervous of me? Don’t be. And say anything. I am in here like all other men. And you are young. And have nice breasts. I like them.”

Thank you.”

“I won’t tell you why. That might embarrass you. You’ll have to guess. All women’s breasts are nice, but yours especially so. But I still won’t say why.”

“I’ll think about why you think they’re nice later on.”

“Do. It’s good to have something to think about later on.”

“You mean after you leave?”

“No, always. Always to have something to think about but not always to think about it. Activity. Physical and of the mind. Both you can’t do very well together at the same time, now can you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t say so or agree with me unless you believe it.”

“I won’t.”

Then what do you really think about it?”

“About what?”

That physical and mental activity can’t go hand in hand together very well. And then, not too much of only one without the other coming soon after it, and on and on and on and interchanging themselves like that till you sleep. Thrust yourself into experience and then reflect on the meaning of it. But all reflection and no experience makes us mad. The opposite, and we are nothing but brutes. Now who previously said that?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Guess.”

“Goethe?”

“Very good. You’re educated. Or look straight at me and tell me you didn’t read my mind.”

“I didn’t.”

“Something happened. Or perhaps it is that you’re just plain smart.”

“I went through your schools. And almost became a nurse.”

“You should have. And I’m excited by you, you know? Educated, or a mind reader. Both would do.” He sat on the bed. “Oh, I completely forgot.” He offered me the plate of sandwiches. “Eat, go on. You’re young, maybe still growing. And you’ll grow bigger, stronger, and wiser and maybe even telepathic if you take the headcheese.”

I took the headcheese sandwich, though I never liked it because it’s gelatinous and all those foot and mouth parts.

“Don’t take it just because I suggested you to. What’s your favorite tea sandwich here?”

“Headcheese.”

“Truth now.”

“Actually, I prefer an unadorned cream cheese, but they don’t have any here.”

“What they didn’t supply for us here is not what I asked you.” He seemed miffed.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I was being selfish. Out of all these, the hard cheese on the black bread there. I like that best of all.”

“Then put down the headcheese.”

“Headcheese is nice too.”

“No, put it down. Eat what you like. You don’t get that many opportunities for that now, am I right? Food is generally scarce. Not for me — I won’t lie to you. But I’m sure it is for you. So here you have a choice. More than a choice — you can have all these sandwiches when you leave. Tell the commanding office that I said so.”

“He’ll believe me?”

“It’s what I usually do. He knows. You only don’t get them if you don’t tell him.”

“I’ll tell him. Thank you. All the other girls would probably like some too, so we’ll divide them up.”

“Do that. Very generous.” Then silence. He sipped his wine, was looking away from me. I didn’t think I should say “Don’t you want to remove your robe?” as I would have with any other customer by now. No: wait for the signals. He was paying more, for one thing. And he was who he was and would do it at his own time. And I’d made too many mistakes already. Though who could say — maybe he wanted me to take the lead. Maybe he was shy and unassertive in bed…but someone would have said, or maybe they hadn’t heard. And maybe the commanding officer also didn’t know and was only guessing at the right approach when he said don’t be suggestive or aggressive.

“Would you like to come under the covers with me?” I said.

“In time.”

“Of course. In time. I’m sorry. I knew you knew better what to do. I think I said it out of force of habit. That’s the truth now, even if my saying that about habit and all it alludes to might also be the wrong thing to say. But I’m getting in deeper and deeper, but I also have to admit I’m feeling more than a little nervous in your presence and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Calm yourself. As I said, I’m not unlike any other man in many respects. Act natural. I want that. Not fright or anxietude. I chose you because you seemed the one young woman downstairs who’d be least afraid of me and so would do what I want her to.”

“I’m not too different. A few of the other girls would have been like that too.”

“Yes, but I chose you.”

Thank you.”

“Come all the way out of the sheets this time and I’ll sit on the bed more.

We did.

“Very nice breasts. Strong body. You are very nice. And you will be very nice to me too, all right?”

“Of course.”

“Lovely hair. Kiss me.” I kissed him. A little kiss. “Soft lips. Lovely lips.” He stood up and untied his bathrobe. He still had all his clothes on underneath except his jacket and belt with revolver. He got undressed, touching my thighs and forehead every now and then. Nude, he looked his fifty or so years in physique. He sat back on the bed. “I’m tired, though not much.”

“I’ve time. Really. And energy — all you wish.”

“Touch me. Hard if you like. Don’t worry. Everyone can take a little hurt.”

“Down there?”

He nodded. I held and rubbed him.

“Now I’m going to lie on my stomach and I want you to do something.”

“I think I know what it is,” I said.

“No, you don’t. Not even with your educated guess. I want you to urinate on me.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you can. It’s easy. And you must have done it to others. And everyone can urinate a little at most times. So do it.”

“Where?”

“Waist up, but principally on the top of my head. Now, please.”

I stood over him. “It’s not as easy for us to direct it,” I said. I urinated on his shoulders first and then made it up to the top of his head.

That’s good. Thank you, Now defecate on me.”

“I could never do that. And I never have.”

“It’s harder, but try.”

“No.”

“You don’t want to?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I’ll do all the other things you want.”

“You can sleep with twenty men in succession in one evening — that’s true — that’s maybe an exaggeration — so you can’t do this for me once?” He was getting angry again. “Please, dear — what’s your name?”

“Gerta.”

“Please, Gerta, be nice. You said you’d be very nice, And you had the face of a nice girl, which is also why I chose you. So you do it once in your life. What’s that? Once, and it’s done. What is it even having it done to you once? And after, you can run to the bathroom without making an excuse. I don’t ask for this all the time, I swear. Now, I’m ready.”

He put his head face down into the pillow. I got over him again. “It might take time,” I said.

“All the time you need.” His head was now right below my behind. A funny thought I had was that I suddenly felt like one of his bombers circling over an enemy town. His head was the town center — the primary target, where the enemy’s command post and warworks were, and maybe I sprayed it and a little of the town’s outskirts before with my urine like bullets. If I told him this now, would he laugh? No — no jokes. Serious business with him, bombing, and I better get serious too. But a town eager to get bombed — pleading for it, in fact? Enough. Must concentrate. I tried. Nothing. His head turned a little to the side and one of his eyes was now visible and looking up.

“How are you doing?” he said.

“Soon.”

“Good. If you need another glass of wine, take one. Take two.”

“I think I’ll be all right without it.”

“Better to take it, and fruit.”

I drank standing up on the bed with him still flat below me. Poured myself another glass and drank that one down too. I reached over for a pear, bit into it and threw it back into the bowl, but I missed and it fell to the floor. He didn’t stir. I got over him again.

“I think you should be ready,” he said.

“I just about am.” It came. First direct hit on the town center, and he moved his face back into the pillow. He made noises like a man making noises during the sex act rather than at the end. Then it was over. The enemy town was totally destroyed. Mission accomplished and with a first strike also, or whatever the expressions are that air force people use. “Excuse me,” I said.

“I understand.”

He was still on his stomach with his face in the pillow, though you’d think he’d want to get out fast too. I got off the bed and went to the bathroom and cleaned myself. I looked in the mirror. Hitler, I thought. Nobody would believe it. Or rather: for my own sake, nobody was ever going to have a chance to believe it. He didn’t have to tell me that. The woman he lives with: she does it to him too? Has he always done it this way and only with young women? She isn’t that young. Nice figure, though: I don’t know about her behind. But he said no—“I swear,” he said, “not all the time.” But that girl who cracked up after being with him. Having someone like him plead for you to do such a thing must have been too much for her to bear. Suppose she once worshipped him. She might have been to rallies or at least seen newsreels of rallies with him speaking to half a million cheering people. If only she could have been like me. I’m not tough but I’ve been around long enough to take the healthy way; in many respects he’s inferior, a crazy pathetic pervert, simple as that.

I left the bathroom. He was gone. And the soiled linen was gone and a perfume had refreshened the room. I dressed and left. The commanding officer was waiting outside the door.

“So everything went well?” he said.

“I think he was satisfied. He didn’t complain. I treated him as nice as I could, just as you said.”

“If the report back from him is a good one, then I hope we’ll see you again.” He snapped his fingers. The same two guards came over.

“Drive her home in an officer’s car or to wherever she wants to go.”

“Home,” I said. “And thank you.” We shook hands. The guards and I walked to the elevators. “Wait,” I said, “there’s something else. Hitler said I could have all the sandwiches in the room.”

“Forget the sandwiches,” one of the guards said.

“But he said I should ask your officer for them.”

He ran back and knocked on a door. The officer came out. “She says he told her she could have all the sandwiches in his room.”

Then get them for her.”

“You must come with me, sir. I’m not allowed in unless with you.”

They went into the room I was in with Hitler before. The guard came out carrying the tray of sandwiches and gave me it. The officer went back to his room.

“But it’s silver and belongs to the hotel,” I said. “Hitler only said the sandwiches, nothing about the tray.”

“If my officer says it’s what I should give you, nobody will mind.”

I held the tray, offered each of them a sandwich as we rode down in the elevator. They each took one. I thought maybe one of them would ask me what Hitler was like in the room. As a test of my silence, perhaps. Or maybe because of his curiosity on the subject concerning such a man, he might lose his head for a moment and ask. If one of them did, I’d say “I’m sorry, it’s something you know I can’t talk about, and if you insist, I’ll have to report you to your officer.” That would be the right answer. I also thought that maybe one of them, if he didn’t know what Hitler was like in the bedroom, would want to pay to be the first one to make love to me after Hitler. But, that too, neither of them asked.

THE GOOD FELLOW

“Help.”

Lenny said it to himself, though for a moment he wanted to say it out loud.

“Help,” he said softly. He looked around the Student Union cafeteria. Thank God nobody had heard him. His voice was normally deep and resonant and carried much farther than he liked.

A novel was opened in front of him on the yellow table. Underneath it was a cup turned upside down, as a prop. He was getting a headache. He was astigmatic and had broken his glasses a month ago, but hadn’t replaced them because Student Medical Service didn’t cover eyeglasses and a new pair would set him back thirty dollars. He gently massaged his eyes through the lids.

He’d been on the same sentence for the last five minutes. For sure, he didn’t want to read. He looked through the all-glass wall to the outside: there were no windows in this ultramodern room, which was about the size and as brightly lit as a big city’s airline terminal. The moon was nearly full tonight, and low, so low it seemed caught in the eucalyptuses in the distance like a helium balloon. If he were with someone now, he’d ask why.

“Question,” he’d say. “Why is the moon so frigging low tonight?”

This person could tell him it had to do with the time of year or the vernal equinox or something. But a simple answer, which he should have known and this person might have picked up in a high school or college general science course. People remembered so many more things than he. He wasn’t a well-informed person in anything but literature, and even that, mainly twentieth century fiction.

“Question,” he’d say to this person beside him or even a group seated around the table. “What do you say we go to the Dunes for a burger and beer?” The Dunes was the most popular off-campus hangout. There you could get dark or regular beer in huge pitchers and a real California hamburger, which was grilled and came on a warm sesame roll with tomato slices, onion slices, shredded lettuce, relish, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, spices and a bag of tortilla chips or garlic-flavored potato chips on the side. Lenny was from New York and was used to having his hamburger broiled and stuck on a cold bun with only a single pickle round on top.

“Question,” he’d say. “What the hell am I doing back in college after graduating six years ago. Forget it; I know.” He was here on a much-coveted creative writing fellowship for a year that carried with it a three thousand dollar stipend and a chance to meet book and magazine editors from the East, scouting for new writers. He’d also come to meet female students, all tanned and blond and built for the beach. But he hadn’t had much opportunity to meet them. The English Department parties he’d heard fantastic stories about before he got here, were almost nonexistent, and the one he went to — the first one he futilely drove around looking for in the hills above campus for an hour — was boring and stuffy and he felt totally out of place. And because he wasn’t going for a master’s like the nonfellowship students in the graduate writing program, he only had one three-hour class a week. Each of these workshops the past two quarters was composed of intense-looking and opinionated students and some professors’ wives. The exception, this past quarter, was Miss Prettyface Louise, a senior — she was allowed into the class because her fiction and criticism was on a level with the graduate students, the teacher said — who sat with her thighs locked and breasts high and eyes demurely down. He could go for her and would call her now if she wasn’t betrothed.

“Question,” he said to himself. “Why’d he drive to campus just to sit in this cafeteria for two hours? You really want to know? I haven’t met any women at the Dunes — they all seem to come in with guys or in groups of women that want to be left alone — and I thought this place would be a good one to, since I’d also been told writing fellows were considered choice company and prize catch by a lot of the unattached literary-minded women on campus. If I met one, or really anybody here to talk to, and I could convince this person to come with me, then on to the Dunes for burgers and beers. For you see, I’d become almost a nightly regular there and want to show the bartenders and barflies that I don’t always have to come in alone.”

Maybe he should call the other writing fellow and invite himself over. B.J. Aimlace was married and quite sympathetic to Lenny’s loneliness out here and often said he had a standing invitation to visit them anytime he liked. They lived more than an hour’s drive over the mountains, in a rented house facing the beach with an ancient redwood growing out of the living room roof. Lenny had been there once, during the first quarter. B.J.’s wife, who after dinner shared a hashpipe with her husband, which she said always made her feel more congenial if not beatific, suddenly swung around to Lenny and said “I loathe you.” Just like that. “I truly loathe you, Lenny Polk. You’re so infuriatingly straight.” Mercedes was English, and her long articulated drawl on the word “loathe” made her opinion of him seem that much more virulent. B.J. lit up some more hash, shrugged when Lenny again declined to take a toke — he’d told them he was frankly afraid of drugs like these and could never see himself driving home along winding roads turned on — and passed the pipe to Mercedes. Lenny didn’t say anything to her about her remark; he only smiled helplessly at both of them as if there were no excuse for his loathsomeness and lack of courage. Then he whispered to B.J. if she’d been serious. “She’s more likely just after your ass,” B.J. said. “I am not,” she said. That’s a big fat lie.” “Believe me, if she truly loathed you she would have fled to the bedroom and singly sulked.” Little later, Lenny said he was getting tired, thanked them for a delicious dinner and great time, and sat embarrassed while they stood waving goodbye to him from their porch for the ten minutes it took to start up the car.

He stared at his book for a few minutes. Then he turned the page, though he hadn’t finished it yet, just in case anyone was watching him. At the next table, which was a flaming red, a very attractive girl sat down with a mug of tea. A heavy girl with bad skin sat across from her, biting the top off of a tall chocolate freeze.

“So what did you think of him?” the attractive one said.

“Who?”

“You know — him, the lead, the one with the brows.”

“Oh. I thought he was cute.”

“You mean great.”

“Yes, great. That’s the word I was looking for. I also liked the way he moved.”

He wondered what movie actor they were talking about. Or maybe it was someone in the university’s graduate theater program. If it was a movie actor — brows? Doesn’t immediately register — then he’d probably seen the picture. There were four theaters in town and he went to just about every movie they played. Movies were an effective way to horn into people’s conversations, mentioning from the next table he’d overheard them and apologizing for what could be considered eavesdropping, but he’d seen that movie and enjoyed or had some problems with it too. He also always tried to toss in something clever and perceptive so these people would have more of a reason than similar moviegoing to ask him to join their discussion and perhaps later their fun. He’d done it successfully last spring in a Paris bar favored by Americans. A Smith student who’d just sat through two straight showings of Dr. Strangelove in French and was dying for someone to clear up a lot of what she obviously missed in the film. She thought his comments elucidating and brilliant, especially when he explained the more hidden scatological meanings of some of the characters’ names. Later that night they made love in his cramped hotel room, which he’d been living in for several months while he tried to find a job and learn French, and the following morning she left with her college chorus for a concert in St. Paul’s in London. If she’d given him her correct American address and last name he would probably go home now and write her a long funny letter or lonely poem.

The heavy girl finished her freeze, snapped the plastic spoon in two, and stood up. The other girl stood up too, glanced past Lenny as if searching for someone in particular, and they walked away. She hadn’t touched her tea.

He’d call Louise. Her dorm was nearby and they’d already met for coffee three times in the evening, though never for more than twenty minutes. He was at the stage where he thought he might take her hand and hold it. Through one ridiculously juvenile pretext or another — There’s something there that needs to be brushed off”—he’d touched her wrist and once even her cheek and kept his hand there a few seconds, and so far she hadn’t objected.

A girl answered the phone.

“Is Louise Robbins in, please?” he said.

“Nope. This is her roommate Penny.”‘

“Louise?” It suddenly sounded like her. “Is that you?”

“Daddy? Uncle Rootie? Father Travers? Who is this? Penny Wolfgang, speaking.”

“It’s me, Louise, Lenny Polk. What gives?”

“Oh, hi, Lenny. That routine was for someone else. How are things?”

“Just fine. I was around campus and thought you might like a quick coffee at the Union.”

She laughed.

“You see, I was first going to see a film at University Aud,” he said. “Part of that Ukrainian film festival they’ve got going every Thursday night. And then I got caught up in a book, and thought—” but she was still laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, why?”

“You were laughing. Listen, Louise, if you can’t meet now, would it be too past your curfew to meet me in the next couple of hours?”

“I can stay out till two if I really have to.”

“I thought eleven was the latest.”

“No, two. If I really have to, I can sign out for three and have a friend sign me in by morning. As it is, you caught me in bed.” She giggled, as if she’d said something naughty. “What I mean is, I’m in my jimmies and about to sleep into bed. I mean, sled into sleep. I mean — I’m high.”

“High?”

“Hi, Daddy. Hi, Uncle Rootie. Father Travers? Grandpa Wolfgang? What I meant was that I’m high on life, Grandpa. Life’s what intoxicates me. Solely, life’s what makes me high.”

“You don’t think you can have coffee, then.”

“Not tonight, Leonard. Thanks.”

“How about us driving to San Gregorio Beach sometime this weekend. I hear it’s rough and rustic and gorgeous.”

“I’m going to my future in-laws this weekend, though I don’t know which day.”

Then the day you’re not going.”

“I better keep both open.”

They keep a close tab on you, no?”

“I suppose, because Hank’s in New Zealand, they think they have to.”

She laughed. He also laughed and figured it was for the same thing. It amused him when she spoke about her fiancé being in New Zealand. He’d gone there half a year ago to get his Ph.D in abnormal psychology. She was to follow him out after she graduated, four months from now. Lenny suspected she was a virgin. She’d spoken about “perhaps a certain sexual inexperience for a California girl my age” when they talked, over coffee, about a Henry Miller novel he’d read as a college freshman in the smuggled-in version from France and she was reading for an American literature course. And she’d written explicitly about the inhibitions and frustrations of a virgin heroine who resembled her in looks and read that story in class, but refused to answer — and the writer-professor who ran the program said she was “within every realm of her rights not to”—when one of the male grad students pumped her on whether the protagonist was herself. Lenny had never made love to a virgin. He didn’t think he’d ever even had a chance to the past ten years, not that he’d know what to do, though he was eager to test his delicacy in such an event. He felt that with Louise, whom he felt tender to, it would be extraordinary, though maybe not for her.

“Well, I guess that’s it then,” he said. “See you Monday.”

“No class Monday, didn’t you know? It’s Washington’s Birthday — or Lincoln’s. I forget which.”

“Ronald Reagan’s. To celebrate the good governor’s fortieth year in show business. But one or the other’s all right with me. So long as it means a day off from class and I can get in another afternoon to write.”

“Oh, I don’t feel that way yet. I guess I haven’t been writing that long, but I love our seminars and everybody in it. But I’ll be signing off now, Len. Little Louise Robbins, now flying away.”

He went back to the cafeteria table and finished reading two full pages, but they were mostly dialog. Nathaniel Vest was one heck of a writer, he thought, and I’m probably one of his few readers to take an entire week to complete half of Miss Lonelyhearts. He looked at the moon again. It was still pretty low, though seemed to have risen a bit. Or maybe he was just sitting lower in his chair than before, so the moon was actually higher than he thought. Today is Thursday, and there won’t be another class till a week from Monday. At least in class he talked and joked and could look at Louise and got into an occasional literary argument. And after the seminar he always had a coffee and pastry here with B.J. and sometimes Louise would come along with a few of the tuition-paying grad students, who read very well though wrote rather poorly and usually criticized his stories he read in class more severely than he felt they even overexaggeratedly deserved. “Hang Washington,” he said. There were classes on Lincoln’s birthday this year so why not Washington’s? Another thing he didn’t know the answer to.

He stuck a napkin between the pages and closed the book. He got up for another coffee, stretched and yawned and looked around. It was getting late; not many people here, and he didn’t recognize anyone. If he did, he was sure he’d ratchet up the guts enough to walk over to that person’s table and ask if he might join it, even to someone he’d only met briefly or to a girl he’d never met but was sure she was in some way connected to the creative writing program. But he didn’t recognize a soul.

THE TALK SHOW

Enraged, the writer walks off the stage and out of the television studio.

“Where’d he go?” the host says. “Hey, Mal, where you going? God, that guy walks fast. Come on back, will ya, and let’s be friends. Then let’s have a walking race. Okay, we’ll just stare at each other while the announcer reads sonnets. And you didn’t sing that old Irish ballad you promised us. Sure, you can go. Made a mint with his last two novels — not that I’m knocking it, you understand. It’s the international way, comprendo? Nicht so? Bet you didn’t know I spoke Chinese. But me? Walk off once like he did, and that, my friends, would be show business, as they say — forever. And bestsellers I don’t write. Some people will even say I can’t write, and there won’t be many who’ll take issue with them. Because anybody here read my last book? Come on, don’t be ashamed. Stand up if your belt and garters are on tight. Say, let’s not all rise at once. Anybody even remember the title? What was that? Be brave and shout it out. No, it wasn’t Gone with the Wind; but thanks, Mom. Huh? No, not Madame Bovary, either — but Flaubert, right? And you people thought I never went to college. Crime and Punishment? That’s what the readers thought I inflicted on them. War and Peace? A good description of what went on between the editors and me. It was…Madame Bovary Returns, the hopeful horticulturist in the front row says. We’re all quipsters here. No, I said horticulturist. That’s a hearts and flowers man with brains. Swann’s what? Never heard of it. Oedipus Sex? Never saw it. Be a Wolf? Who even wrote it? And is that a nice thing to advise a married man? Dead Souls? — you said it, brother, not me — is what I think I have in devoted readers here. The Trial? What this guessing game’s getting to become. But Wild Walter’s World. There it is. My autobiog. Born with a silver spoon and golden locks in my mouth, which is why I talk this way. My mom never took them out because she thought they might improve my face. Someone once suggested it be retitled to Crazy Publisher’s Catastrophe, because you know what that book sold? How many fingers you got on your hand? Not you. Our orchestra leader just held up six fingers on his right hand and seven on his left — but the fiddler next to you. The one who got his hand caught in a giant metronome the other day and had to have a few fingers removed. Well, his hand — the one that was operated on. Count how many fingers he’s got left. Subtract two. That’s how many copies my book sold. I still got it home. Under a broken kitchen chair leg. In the same brown paper bag they sold it to me in. My wife didn’t want it on the bookshelf because we already had a book there. And our youngest daughter refused to sit on it to reach the dinner table and our mutt still thinks it’s the oddest-looking fire hydrant around. Truthfully, it sold pretty well and in more languages than I knew existed. And starting this month, any one of you out there and in this audience can be one of its two million paperback owners. Wild Walter’s World. I said the title too low? That was Wild Walter’s World, folks. Not Wild Walter’s World Folks, but just Wild Walter’s World. Okay. Now, did our guest really leave? He’s not back there smoking a cigarette somewhere? Daphne, you checked? Nobody? Dashed out of the studio with our library prop and ordered his chauffeur to drive him home? Well, this is a very intellectual show tonight. And before introducing our next eminent author — and it beats me how we’re going to carry out our literary discussion format if it’s now just going to be me and him here. Or ‘I.’ All these brilliant writers around the joint are making me unsure with the language. Maybe we could bring up some members of the audience to join in the discussion. They’d like that, right? Yeahhh. Anyway, before we do that, time for plugs. Have you always had a deep-seated yearning to write great novels and story articles and lead the happy enriching life of a successful author, but everyone said you had to have a household name, like Ivory Soap, or your work would never sell? Well, the Westport Famous Writers Correspondence School — I’m joshing. But this all but indescribable product I have here and which is really something to write home about, folks, as it can literally do the magical polishing work of a thousand and one genies…”

DREAM

Paul tries to remember the dream he just had. In it he was sitting at his New York desk in the home he and his ex-girlfriend Tilly rented for three years in California, writing the story he’s currently writing about another woman who recently broke up with him. His brother John entered the room. John’s been turning up regularly in Paul’s dreams and began doing so about five years after the small plane he was in disappeared over a jungle and was never found. Paul asked him if he’d done any writing since he was away. John said “Quite a lot, but I haven’t let anyone see it and for the time being I won’t be sending it around.” Paul didn’t tell him about the feelings he was suddenly having that John’s writing would turn out to be much better than his own. He did say “One language can never seem to support two brothers close in age as serious writers, and maybe that holds for the world as well. And when it becomes known you’re alive, I’m sure book and magazine editors will be pounding on your door to get you published, while with me, after so many years of a thousand submissions and few acceptances and no notoriety or catchy news story about a derring-do life, it’ll continue to be just the opposite. I also think how silly the stories I’ve written about the impact on a young man whose idolized writer, doctor, composer, explorer brother was lost on a freighter, blimp, space module, single-prop plane over a desert, rain forest, mountain range will seem to readers now that you’ve reappeared and your writing, once you let it get published, becomes known. Where have you been the last eight years?” John said “How are Sis and the folks?” shook Tilly’s hand and patted her son Ezra’s head as he left the room. During the entire dream, Ezra stayed beside Paul, his cheek pressed against Paul’s thigh while his arms were wrapped around his leg, even when Paul was bent over the desk correcting his story or striding across the room to greet John. Ezra looked the same as when Paul last saw him two years ago. Tilly looked about ten years older than she is, wearied, scrawny, captious, mordant, lined, riled, severe. She was with her new boyfriend, who was squat, hirsute, jumpsuit, shaggily bearded and nattily haggard, and he seemed dismissive of Paul and every so often said “Bah” or “Ah” to him and busily scribbled in a notebook a story he was writing. Ezra never loosened his hold on Paul’s leg, his sad silent face gaping forlornly into space. Tilly’s parting words to Paul were “So nice to see you again, and wait till you read the breakup story I’ve written and is being published about us.”

“Send it to me when you get the galleys,” he said, and went back to his correcting, thinking why should he finish this story when no doubt Tilly’s and her boyfriend’s stories will also prove to be much better than his own? Without taking his eyes or pen off the page, he placed his hand on Ezra’s head. “My boy…”

P

Now, he would like to, in this day and age, right here, on this very spot, today, not tomorrow, this time at present, from these moments right now till he says stop, oh don’t be ridiculous, come off it, who would have thought it? let the gentleman speak, I’m truly amazed, he’s saying he’d like to, what are you talking about? where do you get that stuff? will wonders never cease? I declare, does he ever, I’m truly amazed, poppycock, baloney, you slay me, horse manure, beans, where does it all come from? be with a woman like the woman in the story he wrote who was, act your age, grow up, don’t make me laugh, how you do come on, big joke, stop kidding yourself, breaks me up, laugh a minute, or as he thought the young woman he saw on the street every working weekday morning was, oh yeah, go on, pull my other sleeve, no thank you, oh you kid, that’s what you say, maybe I’m wrong, in a pig’s eye, bless my heart, it’s got bells on it, what a crack, a crock, soft, warm, loving, sweet, sensible, strong and kind, come come, now I’ll tell one, like fun, well I’m a monkey’s uncle, do you feature that, better you than me baby, tell it to the Marines, it beats the Dutch, funny as a rubber crutch, get off my foot, ouch you’re killing me, as I live and breathe, I’m truly amazed, pshaw, sheet, shucks, I’m from Missouri, you don’t say? it’s true, says you, I’ll be jiggered, what a nerve, shut my mouth, clap my trap, shiver my timbers, blow me down, strike me dead, for crying out loud, what now? dog my cats, tickle my willies, goodness, gracious, my stars, heaven and earth, dear me, for Pete’s sake, what do you know, twaddle, indeed, zounds, fiddledeedee, gadzooks, gad so, good lack, the devil you say, t’ain’t so McGee, pile it on, blimey, bushwah, hogwash, hooey, hoopdedoodle, nibbledenoodle, my word, bilge, bosh, bah, balderdash, pishpash, pashpish, what piss, rubbish, raspberries, horsefeathers, hominy grits, sticks in your throat, in your hat, don’t give me that, bullcrap, far be it from me, I see, oh brother, let’s hear another, hind, wind, string, tweet, tensible, hoving, soft, sift, saft, shift, insensible, reprehensible, findensunable, ope sopperer, mope slopperer, nope whopperer, op cropperer, plop, flop, clop clop, now now, there there, warm warm, simmer simmer, down down, cool off, go slow, steady as she blows, easy there mate, calm yourself, come to your senses, smarten up, get hep, be wise, mind out, relax, take a seat, load off your feet, watch your step, look sharp, here comes cookie, you’ll be okay, thataway, I believe you, sure we do, what rot, enough of that.

Not someone like the woman in the story with that Italian or was he an Englishman? Certainly someone like the woman in the story who nursed him and then bussed them through barriers from one to another enslaved land. Not someone like the woman aloft on the trapeze who licked his lips, eyelid and forehead as she let his wrists go. Maybe someone like the woman who stayed imperturbably beside him in their apartment building the revolutionaries or reactionaries were about to blow up. Nor someone like the woman he and their son stalked to make sure the jazz musicians she favored didn’t beat on her face. In the story Terry said “Do you mind if I go, Po?” and all he had to do was say no and she wouldn’t as she wanted to stay while he preferred her away and didn’t care where or with whom as long as she averted getting hurt and returned before he left for work so he said “If that’s what you want, have fun, one on me, whatever that might be, double entente, trouper disentendering,” nigh about the turn in their tie when he was proroguing his own going owing to Oz. He should call Oz now to explain some things. “Oz, it’s Dad, I’ve got to squeak past for x-reasons I plant cain.” Better a letter dispatched to friend Helen Elmen’s house with a note attached saying “Pleez geev this to Ozie as a surpreez.” Oz wants a sprise. Set a purise for I’s, Pi? Lap, sid to read, Up, God be raised. Arms, snoogle and cud. Now Oz’s turn to read. Words downslide up. I know what that picture means. High, farrer than the sky. Down, em tie or uv gah to may. Wraah, doe wanna go to beg. Swish off de lie, turn on dee on. I doe wan de be in de dar alo, so key bo begroo door oen. I luf you. Police, whir all my haar. Hey you, Poor, you’re so bear en me t’me. Dearest Osbert, I still think of you as one of the wisest, slyest, hippest, flippest, slickest, wickedest, stingiest — Dear Oz, I feel you’re now old enough to understand that the reason I left so suddenly two years ago wasn’t as a result of anything you or your mommy did but — Back, give me piggypack. Glass, let’s click-click. Wipe, my milk slight spilled lips. Run, I’m won. I’m faster. Going to be strongaller. Dear Sir, prior to our phone conversation on or before the evening of September 4^th, I spoke with your mother, Mrs. Wong, who during the same call, but in advance of our own dialog, broached what I think is a particularly important subject re our mutual concerns and one which I believe should be more thoroughly developed in our future written conversation. Most Reverend Master, may I humbly beseech your indulgence for the callous indifference and ofttimes deplorable inattention I’ve displayed in relation to — Your Grace, Reader of Ghosts, Liver of Kings, Nero’s Pleasure Peeper, Detector of Gearls, what explanation could I afford to put forth, without the most diligent distortion of truth and ensuant likeliness of a good garroting, that could enucleate any further what you have undoubtedly discerned through my absence and all but silence. Buddy, Chum, Crony, Confidant, Partner, Best Friend, Bosom Pal, greetings, salutations, hail, hey, hi, hiya, ullo, halloo, hoo-hoo, hist, pist, yo-ho, oh-le-ee-oh-lei-ee-yoo, howdy do, how de do, how d’ya do, are you? I’m fine, long time no see, miss ya, kiss ya, love ya, wanna be with ya, what can I say? maybe one fine day, try to understand, so hard to explain, though know full well, realize straight out, be aware of to the very end, that O, ah me, woe betide, poor dear, alas, lackadaisy, have mercy, what a pity, so sorry, but do me a favor, just one thing I ask, bear in mind that, regardless of whatever else happens, despite anything anyone might tell you, needless to say, remember too, take care, Godspeed, look after yourself, best of health, peace be with you, don’t want to hear any bad reports, be good, keep in touch, stiff upper lip, compliments to your mom, kind remembrances home, fond memories from afar, with all due respects, excuse the liberty, in deference to, best wishes, most affectionately, I remain, friendly yours, may God bless you, through thick and thin, through years on end, till hell freezes over, sincerely, always and forever and a week of Sundays and month after month and year in year out, yours truly till the cows come home again for a dog’s age faithfully, Paul, P, Pi, Po, Pum.

STORIES

This afternoon—

Yes, what this afternoon? What?

Just a second. This afternoon I, uh — let me see; it started like this.

Like what?

Let me think. That’s right. I was out walking and—

So what happened when you were out walking?

Give me a chance. I’m telling it. You keep butting in.

Butting in how?

Like that? Like saying “Butting in how?” Like saying “Like what?” Like saying “Yes, uh, what this afternoon? Um, well, tell me, come on, what happened, don’t hold it in, what, what, what?”

I don’t remember saying the last of those things. The “Like what?” and maybe some of what went before it, I admit to saying, but not that “Um, uh, well, what, what” stuff.

I was exaggerating. For effect. To show how much you butt in. But you don’t expect me to remember everything you said all those times you butted in.

No, I don’t. That’s true. But go on. Where were you? Something about the other day—

This afternoon.

Right. Doing your three-mile daily run.

Walking. I said I was out walking. And I don’t run that far anymore. Six miles a week total. Mile a day. Sunday I take off.

How come? You used to do three to six miles a day without taking a single day off.

I’m getting up there in years, man, what do you think?

That shouldn’t stop you. Look at those guys who are fifty-five, sixty-five, even seventy-five. The women too. Let’s not forget the ladies. One’s around eighty. I see her lots of times when I’m in the park. Running. Well: walking-running. Maybe not even that. Maybe only walking fast, if that. But going. Arms pumping. And not walking a little faster than normal just to look at the birdies and trees. She’s out there for good healthy exercise, and has the exercise suit to go with it: light blue with a white stripe down the jacket arms and trouser legs, and a sweatband around her forehead. Eighty, if a day.

You want me to go on or not?

About what you were saying before? Sure, why not?

Because suddenly you’re telling a story about a running-walking woman in a blue and white exercise suit. Really, who cares?

And who cares about your story, if you want to know?

You did, it seemed. I came home, you said “What’d you do today?” and I started to tell you, and probably would have been finished by now if I didn’t have this slight speech problem which—

And what’s that, by the way?

My speech problem which enables you to butt in.

I meant, what exactly is this speech problem you say you have?

You’re saying you don’t know by now?

Would I have asked if I did?

Yes, you would have. To distract me. To butt in again. Because you know what speech problem I have. My problem with speech. I go “Uh, um, what, oh, this afternoon I was, well, uh, walking”—like that.

You’re not doing it now. I mean, you were in imitation of yourself, and before that in your exaggeration of me. But just now you spoke clearly, precisely, uninterrupted — by me or yourself — and articulately. Definitely articulately. For example, the way you said “Yes, you would. To distract me. To butt in again. You know what speech problem I have. My problem with speech.” I think those were your words, minus or plus one or two. And amazing how I remembered them, no?

They sound like the words I used. And you’re right: I did speak clearly then. But that’s my point. Which is—

What?

Will you let me finish without any more “Whats”?

Okay, what? I’m sorry — I mean, what? Damn, I can’t help myself. I’ll be quiet. I will. So, speak. Go on. Oh, God. I’m really impossible.

You’re intentional, not impossible. You were having fun on me, intentionally, or making a joke of me. But something. What were you doing, and why? Don’t answer that. Two questions? I’ll be here all night. Let me just finish my story. Then, if you wish, we can talk about other things.

Is that what you really want?

Yes.

Then go ahead. Your story. I’ll just listen. But let me find a good place to sit first. I don’t think I can stand another second. I know I can’t. It’s been, well — if I say it’s been some day, and emphasize the some, you’ll know what I mean. That’s the kind of day it’s been.

I see.

An incredible day. Unbelievable. First I get lip from the chief exec; then, from the one right under him. Then another exec comes in, not as big as the first two, and gives me lip, and all for different things. Three lips in a row and the day isn’t even an hour old. That’s a record for me. For all I know, maybe a record for all working mankind for the first hour of a working day. Then I get a phone call. Who do you think?

Let me guess.

Ross. Ross wants this, Ross wants that. Ross says I didn’t do it right yesterday and to do it right today. Ross lets me have it. Ross, if you want my opinion, is a louse.

If you say so.

I’m definitely saying so and have said it, and not just today have I said it, because not just today has he been a louse. He’s almost always a louse. Or close to being almost always a louse as any person could be. Ross, in other words, is an A-1 louse. Then I get another call.

Don’t tell me who from.

You’re right the first time. Benjamin. Benjamin also with the barbs and complaints. Not as much of a louse as Ross, but he’s closing in. In a year or so he’ll be solid competition against Ross for louse-of-the-year award. In ten years, the way he’s going, and the way I know Ross will stay or even get worse, they’ll be the sole competitors for louse-of-the-century award, or at least the decade. Yes, the decade. Louse of the decade. So far, Ross had that prize wrapped up, but Benjamin could give him a run for it. An A-2 louse, Benjamin is, know what I mean?

One and two. Ross is one, Benjamin is two.

Right. A-2 louse. He said to me “Remember last week?” I said “Last week?” He said “Yeah, you know, don’t kid me: last week. I wish I could forget last week also,” he said, “forever, because you really cost us, kid, you really did. Don’t do it again, damnit — don’t,” and he hung up. I’m in big trouble with the company; big, big trouble.

Sounds like it.

Three of the top hotshots and two of their underlings, all down my bed? But that’s not even half of it. Or it is half, but there’s plenty more. I go out for lunch today and who do you think I see?

Um—

You got it. The one and only. And oh, still so goddamn beautiful. I died when I saw her — a hundred times. She walked right past me. Didn’t say hi — not a peep. Didn’t say zero or even look at me — nothing.

She must have it in for you.

She hates my guts. It’s been how long now? — and it’s interesting when you think how different our feelings are for each other. Love and hate. Love and hate. If a cup of hot coffee had been near her, she would have dumped it on me and then hit me over the head with the cup. A mug? Even better, because it would have been heavier. Good thing I was standing by the entrance when she passed, away from any food. Know why she feels this way about me?

No, why?

Because — Haven’t I told you before?

Come to think of it—

Because of everything, that’s why. Everything I did and she didn’t and the other way around. Everything I said and she didn’t and the other way around. That last week we had. That last month and maybe that entire last year too. I thought she’d get over it. Well, it’s obvious she didn’t. What could be more obvious, am I right?

From everything you’ve said—

So that’s lunch. But it’s not over. I haven’t even sat down yet. We’re still waiting for a table, Hesh and I. Then it’s our turn, the woman who seats the customers says. Maitre d’? Nah, place isn’t fancy enough for that. Hostess or host. She points to our table. We start for it when a waiter comes tearing down the aisle shouting “Hot soup, hot soup.” I don’t know about you, but to me that had always meant “I got food of any sort on my tray or in my hands and I’m in a rush because I’ve too many tables to serve or this one customer’s been kvetching like mad that my service is too slow, so let me by fast,” or something like that. Not necessarily hot soup, is what I mean, right? A warning for people to get out of the way. A blinking red light for them to stand back if they’re going to cross his path. A verbal word to the wise to “Watch out, I’m barreling through and nothing’s going to stop me, so if you get hit it’s your own damn fault.” So we step aside. The expression’s always meant the same to you, hasn’t it?

Sure, I suppose so, though I don’t know. Yes.

Of course, yes. Hot soup. What else could it mean? So we’ve stepped aside, but no, this guy actually has hot soup on his tray, two big bowls of it, not cups, and he trips over his own feet or something, and it goes all over me. Hot soup. Not a drop on Hesh. Just me.

That’s terrible.

Scalded — my wrist, my neck, the creep. They had to take me to the hospital.

No.

No, they didn’t. Just wanted to see if you were listening. You were, though I did get a little burn on my hand and greasy noodles and crap on my jacket and shirt. I’m suing the joint. Captain Brey’s might have the best lunch in town for the money and a reputation as long as — well, as long as anything; one of the best. But to me, from now on it’s just a joint I’m going to sue, and you watch me, buddy, I’m going to win.

Where will you eat lunch now? You go there almost every day.

What does it matter where? Their waiters should be more careful. But that’s not all.

There’s more.

Would I say “But that’s not all” if there wasn’t more?

That’s what I meant.

Don’t tell me.

It’s true. You said “But that’s not all,” and though I said There’s more,” I said it uninterrogatively because I knew there was more. It’s just an expression I use. Doesn’t mean anything more than that.

Well, there was more. Plenty more. I left that joint with the stained jacket and shirt and also a stained silk tie. I forgot to mention that. My tie was destroyed. I went straight to Tabor’s — without having lunch, you understand — and bought a new jacket and shirt and tie and brought the other jacket and shirt—

The dirty jacket and shirt.

The stained, ruined, probably forever-useless jacket and shirt to the cleaner’s to see if they could be salvaged. The tie I kept in a bag for future proof against Captain Brey’s. Wait till the judge sees that tie when I pull it out of the bag. The stained jacket and shirt I’ll have photos of. Someone at Tabor’s — the stockboy. It’s his hobby, photography — always carries his camera with him — and he took them for a small fee. Buying the jacket, shirt and tie went smoothly enough. Chose the clothes, gave my charge card — easy. I’m wearing them now — what do you think?

Oh, nice, nice.

Cost me a pretty penny, but I’ll get it back. But the cleaner’s. To make a long story short — to abbreviate it, in other words, because I realize I’ve been running at the mouth too long, and you’re getting to look uncomfortable standing there. Why don’t you take a seat?

I like standing.

Someone standing while I’m sitting and talking always gives me the feeling that person’s about to run away. Come on, sit down.

No, really, what happened? I’m not tired and I won’t run away.

Then your day couldn’t have been too rough.

Actually, that’s what I was about to tell you when—

Before you go into your story, let me finish mine — especially at the most harrowing part. I was robbed. It’s the truth. At the cleaner’s. Cleaned out at the cleaner’s. Taken to it. You know the expression.

Yes.

Well, I was, and so was the cleaner — Mr. Samet — and so was his tailor, Archie, and his presser, Nat, and his seamstress, or whatever she does with her sewing machine in back. What’s her name again?

The woman, around fiftyish, with blond hair?

Redhead. What blond do you think works there?

So I’m a little colorblind. I thought she was a blond.

That’s not being colorblind; you can’t see. Her red hair is a light red, yes — almost orange — but several shades away from being blond. Anyway, we were all robbed. Hesh, the lucky stiff, walked me part of the way there and then ducked into a luncheonette to eat. Two hoods came into the shop with guns out and emptied the cash register and took everything we had. Wallets, pocketbook, watches, rings, change — even my new fountain pen. The one Lillian gave me.

The one for your birthday?

That one. A hundred dollars it cost her, she said.

She told you the price?

I asked her. When she gave it. I wanted to know how valuable it was, just so I’d take better care of it.

A lot of money for a pen.

Did you ever see the way it wrote? And it never leaked. I wanted to have that pen for life. I’m so mad.

I can see why. It’s been quite a day.

But I’m not even finished with it. See what I mean about it being unbelievable? I went back to work penniless, though they did leave me my keys. I thought of calling you to come over to bring me money to get home, but one of the women at work loaned me a twenty. But the cabby couldn’t break it — wouldn’t, is more like it — nor would he let me out of the cab in front here till someone walked by who’d be able to break it. I didn’t want to fool with him. He was insane. Wouldn’t listen to reason. Ranted, raged — I thought he was going to kill me. Tell me, how does a man like that get a hack license?

I suppose the Taxi Commission doesn’t give them the tests they used to years back — police checks, things like that. I hope you got his number.

I got it, all right, but think I’m going to use it? He said he had a club and I wasn’t to leave the cab till someone — but I told you that. I even told him, keep the twenty, but he wouldn’t hear of it — said that would be as if he’d robbed me. No, I don’t want him coming around and clubbing my head if I pressed charges against him. He was an A-1 psychopath. All I eventually told him was “Anything you say, sir, anything.”

Good thinking, and just the right tone.

You bet. And someone did come by who could break the twenty. I gave the cabby the fare and a big tip, so he wouldn’t go crazy if he thought I didn’t give him enough, and left the cab, came into the building and took the elevator up. It worked fine, for once — no bumping and then stopping between floors. Put the key in the door lock. It slid right in — sometimes it doesn’t and gets stuck. And everything seems fine here. I see Angela did a good job cleaning up.

We pay her enough.

Do we ever. So?

Yes?

So, what about you?

Your day finished?

If you mean was that everything — no, I didn’t tell you all. Something very strange did happen at work when I got back after being robbed. And there was also something one of the policemen at the cleaner’s said when I told him “You mean you’re not going to fingerprint the glass counter both robbers put their hands on?”

What did he say?

No, I’ve talked enough. You. What happened today?

Really, when I think of it, nothing.

Come on, tell me. I think I’ve a few minutes before I have to start getting ready to go out. Lillian’s picking me up here. What time is it?

Five after six.

Five after? Oh God, she’s supposed to be here at six. Your watch accurate?

I set it this morning off of the radio clock.

There you go, then. Sorry. I have to shower and shave.

It’s all right. Your stories are always much better than mine anyway, and you tell then much better too.

Do I? I wouldn’t say that. And you’ll keep her company if I’m not out in time, okay?

NEXT TO NOTHING

Once more. I want to try it once more. I don’t want to be told I can’t. I don’t want to be held back in any way. Verbally, physically, whatever, no. I want to try it again and will try it again and I’m trying it again right now and I don’t know just yet whether it works.

It doesn’t. I can see that. I don’t know why I tried. I tried because there was nothing else to do but try. I don’t know how true that is, but I was in my house. There was nothing to do. I’d read the papers and finished a book. I cleaned up the house and did my exercises for today and for tomorrow too. I ate for two days too. I tried to sleep and dream but I couldn’t. I was, in a word, restless. In two words, very restless. I walked around outside and in and told myself I was doing nothing. Then said aloud: You are doing nothing. And I was, though I was really doing something. I was saying out loud you are doing nothing. But that was almost doing next to nothing. I wanted to do something more than that. I wanted to do something. I wasn’t. All I was doing was saying I was doing nothing. All right. So I sat down, which still wasn’t doing anything much more than nothing, and thought about what else I could do, which was doing something a little more than doing nothing or next to nothing. But how long can I think that before it too becomes doing something that’s just about nothing? So I got up and walked around thinking about doing something more than just next to nothing, but I’d covered that thinking when I was sitting. So I went into my study, sat at the typewriter and began typing this. It is something just a little more than doing next to nothing, but if I continue doing it, though I don’t know what I’ll continue doing if I do, it’ll be something that’s just about next to nothing. To avoid doing that, I’ll try something else.

I write — of course I write — and of course I write, though maybe not of course for both, because someone else could be writing this, or I could be dictating it, even if I say I’m not. But I am writing and not dictating this, I swear, though I also swear I’m a good liar, but I’m writing this and what I write, which would be the start of the first paragraph I write if I deleted, as I think I should, everything that precedes is:, is: Up you go, there you are, now you help me, and I stick my arm up, she leans over and grabs my wrist and helps me up. I get on top of the wall where she is, say Ready? and she nods, and we both jump down to the other side.

So what do you think (I say)?

That we go right back over (she says). I don’t like it.

You don’t like what?

It here. This place.

What about this place, or why?

We don’t belong here. We’ve heard terrible things about it. We might be trespassing; it could be dangerous. I don’t know, but let’s go back.

We’ve come to explore, that’s why we’re here. We’ve seen the wall countless times from the other side, said several times we wanted to see what’s on the other side. Now we’re on the other side for the first time and we see what’s on the other side, which looks almost like the side we came from. Let’s go further in to see what’s further in.

(To me that’s almost writing nothing at all, or worse than nothing, though writing next to nothing could be worse than nothing if I keep it. Maybe I should chuck it all from the start. Or go back over the wall when she first asked us to and continue from there. Or climb over the wall for the first time with or without her but try to forget I’ve been over this wall before. Instead I’ll just go a little farther in from where we are now over that wall and see what I find. For sometimes things just happen, like a wild dog might appear and try to bite off my leg. What I mean is how will I know what I can or can’t find if I don’t look for it and give myself the time? Of course by continuing from here I’ll be stopping myself from finding what I might just find if I started from a place farther back or completely over again, so what it boils down to is my wanting to go on because I normally wouldn’t and because I am here and don’t expect to be here again, even if I realize this can be worse than doing nothing at all. I should delete this entire paragraph, or at least cut or correct certain parts, like the “of course” that starts the previous sentence and “so what it boils down to” and such. But because that’s also what I’ve always done — cutting, correcting, retyping, making better, maybe making worse — when all I want to do is go further in and see what happens and explore, this time I won’t.)

A dog appears out of the woods. Look, a dog (she says). Here, doggy, doggy, here. It seems like a nice trained dog.

I don’t think it is (I say).

The dog growls, barks, Lucinda jumps. (I am not Lucinda. My name’s Hank, in real life and in this what I write. I also see I didn’t have to say who Lucinda wasn’t, because this being a first-person piece, Lucinda — at least in this country — obviously can’t be me. But I now see why I felt I had to say something about who Lucinda wasn’t: Lucinda could have been the dog. But I’ve never seen that dog before or known its name. Instead of saying I wasn’t Lucinda, I should have said the dog wasn’t, since I didn’t want to give the impression it was the dog who jumped. I know there’s some flawed logic in there or whatever it’s called if flawed logic isn’t it, but I’m not going to go over it and delete or correct it or any of the other flawed logic and possible grammatical mistakes that precede and might follow this paragraph, since all I want to do is go further on and not get sidetracked so much.)

Go home (I say). I think Lucinda thinks I said it to her, because she runs to the wall.

Help me over (she says).

I didn’t mean you when I said go home (I say). But I’ll skip sticking the “I say” and “she says” in parentheses. I don’t know why I started it; I’ve never done it before. I’m sure I did it for pedantic literary reasons: that it might come out meaning something more than if I wrote it in a more normal way. I’m frequently trying for something new and most of the times it doesn’t work. But I’ll keep the parenthesized “I say” and “she says” I have in so far, even if I know they didn’t work. But where was I?

I didn’t mean you, I say, but the dog.

I’m going home even if you didn’t mean me, as I don’t want to deal with dogs or anything else here. I’ve seen what’s on this side, or seen enough, and now I want to get back over to the other side, not so much to go home, although I just might. Now help me over.

Wait; let’s go further in.

Help me over, I said.

And I said just a little further in.

Dog barks and snarls and then rushes at me, and I don’t move. I read to do that some place, or rather, I once read to do that and not show any fear. So I stand still and say to the dog without what I think is a sign of fear in my appearance and voice: GO HOME! Or rather: GO HOME, the exclamation point being redundant and unnecessary, I think, just as I think the word redundant or unnecessary is redundant or unnecessary if I use one or the other. And I put the command in caps because I of course yelled it, which is why the exclamation point was redundant or unnecessary: for how loud can I seem to yell on a page without my having to say I yelled very loud or I yelled so loud I must have been heard a city block away? In other words, for I didn’t explain that well, I don’t think an exclamation point adds anything to the capital letters when I’m yelling. And why the “of course” from above, since if it was of course, why say it was? There’s probably a good reason, or just a reason, forget the good, the reason being idiomatical, I think. Anyway, the dog snarls again and snaps at my pointing finger — I’m pointing at it but not too close to its open mouth, and that arm of the pointing finger is the only part of my body that moved — and turns and goes. Dog does: disappears into the woods.

Come on, Lucinda says. I also don’t see why I don’t use quotation marks for dialogue. I don’t usually like it when others leave them out. You have — I do — the writer does — more flexibility with quotation marks. For instance, if I write a line like — Come on, Lucinda says (or: Come on, Lucinda says), but with a period after says rather than a comma, it could seem as if I want a character to say aloud “Come on, Lucinda says,” rather than just “Come on,” which is what I intended up there. I think I’ve almost made a case against quotation marks with my example, so let me give a clearer one. I’ve time? Because I usually like a tight piece, and these explanations and examples are dragging this one out. But last one and then I’ll try to go straight through.

If I write, and I’ll put the example on its own line to make it even clearer:

— Come on, Lucinda says, giving him his hand, how do we know I’m not having a character say “Come on, Lucinda says, giving him his hand”? It’s possible, and so is her giving him his hand. His hand might have been torn off by the dog and she picked it up and gave it to him to take to the hospital, while she fought off or distracted the dog so he could escape, to get it sewed back on right away. Or else she might have found his hand somewhere, or the dog dug it up and brought it over to her — an artificial hand, perhaps — and given it to him because she knew it was his. Or she might have taken his left hand, we’ll say, and put it in his right hand when he still had both hands attached to his body, artificial or not, or because he had no control of his left hand because it had been permanently maimed during a war. Or the control he didn’t have might have been when he touched her when he knew she didn’t want to be touched, and to show she didn’t want to be touched, she put his touching hand into his other hand, whether the touching hand or the one she put the real hand in was artificial or not. Or both his hands could have been artificial, and she didn’t want to be touched not because they were artificial but because she simply didn’t want to be touched by him, or at least not on the place he touched her.

It’s obvious I still can’t explain this properly now, or correctly, not properly, or clearly, which is just another example, or two of them, that I can’t explain this clearly now. Nor do I want to go back to try to correct or delete all or part of what I’ve written since Lucinda said “Come on.” As I said, and if I didn’t, I’m saying it now: I just want to push on.

Lucinda says (but in the new way) “Come on.” I say “No, you come with me.” She says “Please, help me over the wall. I have to get away from here. It’s too spooky, dangerous. Foreboding — that’s the word. There are signs all around that say do not enter. (Or Do Not Enter.) We’ve heard awful things about this place. There’s a couple supposed to live near here who eat any children who wander over the wall — exaggerated, perhaps, but just that people say something as horrible as that must mean something about what kind of people the couple are. So, help me.”

No, I say.

Now that’s the example I should have used before. Not that “Come on, Lucinda says” or “Come on, Lucinda says, giving him his hand.” And I didn’t intentionally leave out the quotation marks around “No” just to make a better example, but now that I did, I think it is. Because by saying “No, I say,” which that No, I say above could have meant, it could have meant I was saying both “No” and “I say”—the “I say” to emphasize how much I was saying “No.”

That explained it only a little better than my previous examples explained what they were supposed to be explaining, and I said I wouldn’t get sidetracked again from whatever my intention was in doing this piece, which after getting sidetracked so much, I forget. What was it? To let something go? “Going to let my mind go,” I think I said, whatever that means. What does it, if that was it, the intention, for if it was, exact or otherwise, that “Going to let my mind go,” I now don’t know. I read back but can’t find it. I know it’s there, but I read back too quickly, maybe because I just want to push on, not back, which also might have been my intention, or the only one. Sounds familiar. Was it? My intention, sole or one of? I ask Lucinda if she remembers if I mentioned what my intention was in starting out to get here, other than just to climb over the wall and be here, and she says “What?” “Nothing about my wanting to just push on or letting my mind go, or something else?” and she says “Not to me you didn’t.” “Didn’t mention it, you mean?” and she says “Far as I can remember, yes.”

Hell with it and the woods. I’m not going to push on if I don’t know why I’m pushing on, though I don’t see why I can’t if I don’t, but hell with it as I said. I realize all that could be an alibi of sorts. How so? That I just don’t want to go through these woods yet, out of tiredness, disinterest, lack of courage, etcetera — normal reasons, in other words, so there it stands. What does? The issue, the issue.

“Let’s go over,” I say, and she says “Where?” and I say The wall, of course,” and she says “Finally, because I thought you still might have meant the woods.” I say “To go over to the woods? What the hell would that mean if I’d said it?” and she says “Don’t get testy again. I thought you might have meant it as another word for through them,” and I say “Why? Have you ever heard me use the word ‘over’ that way before?” and she says “You never made up words that I know of, or used words in any way other than what they were meant for and people could easily understand, but I thought this time might have been the exception. It’s obvious I shouldn’t have thought that.” “You shouldn’t have,” and she says “All right, so I shouldn’t have and won’t anymore, if it’s going to irritate you so much, but let’s go over in the way you said.” We go to the wall. I give her a boost. She makes it to the top, gets on her knees and stretches down and gives me her hand and I clasp it and she says “Ready?” and I nod, and she pulls me to the top.

We jump to the other side. She takes a deep breath and says “Don’t you like it better over here?” and I say “No, I don’t think so.” Then go back over, but without my help this time,” and I say “You know that anytime I want to, I could, because I don’t need your help.” She says “Catch me,” and runs toward home, and I chase her and she lets me catch her and we roll on the grass and laugh and kiss and make love and then go home. At night, I come back and stare at the wall.

THE PHONE

“Answer it, Warren,” she yelled through the partly opened bathroom door. “Warren, you there? Answer the phone and tell whoever it is I’m busy and I’ll call back.”

Warren was in his bedroom down the hall. He ran to his parents’ room, picked up the receiver and said hello.

“Hey, there, fella, how are you?”

“Daddy, that you?”

That’s me, sure, who else?”

“Where are you?”

“In a hotel. Away. How’s everything home? Your mother?”

“Fine. Today we went to the park and I fell off the swings, I didn’t get hurt, but Mommy said she won’t let me go on them anymore.”

“She’s probably right. You’re getting too big and fat for those things. If the clothes don’t fit — I mean the shoes, don’t buy them, which I suppose can be applied to you and your swings in some far-off way. Say, Warren, you want to get your mother on the phone for me?”

“She’s in the bathroom and says whoever it is she’ll call back.”

“Tell her if she calls back it’ll cost her two dollars station to station. Tell her that now.”

Warren dropped the receiver on the bed, ran across the room, stood, pressed up against the full-length bathroom door mirror and breathed heavily on it, leaving several moist clouds on the glass. He knocked on the door, yelled through the opened part of it when he got no response, his voice high above the shower splashing, “Mom. Dad’s on the phone and says to hurry or it’ll cost you dollars to call him back.” He fingered a wavy streak through the runny mirror blotches. “Mom? I said Dad’s on the phone and he wants for you to hurry.”

She turned the shower off. “Tell him I’ll be there in a minute. I have to dry myself.”

He took two large hops and made a bellywhop on the bed. The receiver jumped up when he landed and fell to the floor. He walked two fingers across and down the bedspread to grab it, while his father was saying “Hey? What in God’s name is going on there?”

“I dropped the phone. I’m sorry.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“Getting dried. Where you calling from, Dad?”

“San Francisco.”

“Where’s that?”

“Where’s San Francisco? What do they teach you in school? In California. In America.”

“How far’s California?”

“A long way — too far to walk. About three thousand miles from you, but you’ll learn all about that when you get up to geography.”

“I’m in geography.”

Then maybe you haven’t come to it yet or you learned it and forgot. What’s holding up your mother?”

“She said a minute. When you coming home? Mommy said she didn’t know.”

“Soon, probably — depends on a lot of things. Look, do me a favor and ask your mother to really hustle.”

“I think she’s coming.” He ran to the bathroom door, listened, ran back. “Yeah, I can hear her putting on something. How come you didn’t day goodbye when you left? I didn’t see you.”

“No time. You know me when I have to make one of my flights. Rush-rush. Besides, what are you talking about? — you were sleeping. You’ve been good, though — not giving your mother any backtalk?”

“No.”

“Good.” Silence. Warren wanted to end it in some way, to speak of something interesting that had happened to him the last few days, but he couldn’t think of anything that his father wouldn’t get angry at or think too dumb to even be worth talking about. He heard him light a cigarette — that snap-snap-snap of his old silver army regiment lighter he’d said was almost no use to him for all the trouble it gave but which he’d never give up because of the great memories it brought back. Warren felt rescued when his mother came out of the bathroom. She was in a bathrobe and had a towel around her head.

“He’s three thousand miles away,” he said, handing her the receiver.

“In San Francisco.”

“Ken?” she said.

“I’m fine and dandy, thanks, and you?”

“Oh, just wonderful. Never better. Where are you?”

“San Francisco. Didn’t Warren just tell you?”

That where you headed the morning you snuck out, or did you make a stop in Vegas first?”

“Who snuck out where? And why would I go to Vegas? I put some duds in my bag and sort of stole out of the room so you wouldn’t wake up. Considerate, in my abstract silent way, you can say.”

“Listen, did you call to be the funnyman or tell me your travel plans, or what?”

“I called — and notice how serious my voice is now — to find out how you are, and of course Warren too. And then, when I get the true picture of our latest falling-out, and also the business side of my trip out of the way, I thought I could better make up my mind about the whole thing.”

“What do you mean true picture?” She looked at Warren, who was sprawled on the bed, listening to her part of the conversation and whatever he could pick up from his dad’s.

“Excuse me, Ken. Warren, could you leave the room?”

“What for?”

“Don’t give me the ‘what for.’ Just do as I say.”

He shrugged, as if her last words had sounded more reasonable, and shut the door behind him.

“Warren was listening,” she said. “It isn’t good for him — learning all about our difficulties this way.”

“Don’t worry so much about him. He’s capable of accepting these things much better than you think.”

That still doesn’t make it right. Jesus, he’s only eight.”

Then maybe it’s inevitable that he knows. And maybe, also, if you’d listen a little more closely like him—”

“All right, what is it you really called to say?”

“Part, I told you. Also, that I probably wouldn’t’ve rushed out like that or even be here, for that matter — because the business could’ve waited — if it wasn’t for you. You know, in the things you do that burn me up so much and what you say and all.”

“Come off it.”

There you go again — you see? I knew this call wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel for all I’d get out of it.”

“Because you’re not making sense, that’s why. If you used your brains first before you said something, you’d get somewhere.”

“And somewhere I haven’t got by using my brains?”

“I’m talking about the phone.”

That nice apartment and car and all your clothes and your fur piece and my job and your forty to fifty pairs of slacks and everything else I got just by sitting around on my ass?”

“You know I wasn’t referring to your work…or that you’re not a good provider. You are. That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s pretty clear what you meant. But look, I called up with a nice gesture — to make things right. But if you have other ideas…I’m saying, if you don’t want things right again, or you don’t think things can ever work out between us again after that last fight, then fine. That’s just fine. That’s really fine and dandy with me.”

“Oh, stop with all this defensive nonsense why you called. I’ll tell you once and for all why you called and save you the trouble. First of all—”

“Now cut it right there, Bobbie, I’m warning you.”

“You’re warning me what? Reason number one is you want me to apologize for our last battle as I’ve always done in the past, right?”

“Wrong. I called because—”

“Reason two is—”

“Will you give me a chance to speak?”

“—after I get you off the hook by saying it was my fault and I want you to come home, you’ll want me to phone your mother — just so the dear woman should worry none, know what I mean? — and tell her everything’s hunky-dory between us again, as I finally realized, sweet sensible repentant Barbara finally realized she was in the wrong. Number three—”

“Enough with your stupid numbers. Are you going to listen to reason or not?”

“Whose? Yours? That’s not reason. I don’t know what it is. It’s doubletalk. Because I’m sick and tired of kowtowing to you every time you’re in the wrong and refuse to admit it or you’re feeling sorry for yourself because you’re in the wrong and refuse to admit it. This row you’ll have to smooth over by yourself — and that’s with both your mother and me — because I’ve taken all I can from you.”

“Who the hell’s asking you to call my mother? Why are you blowing this thing so out of proportion for?”

“Because I can see it. Your standing there acting like you always do — like a spoiled pouting child waiting for an apology.”

“When, always? Name one time before.”

“August 2^nd, 1969, at eight-fifteen in the afternoon. How the hell do I know, but there were plenty. My point is you never admit when you’re wrong, and I do.”

“Now that’s a lot of crap if I ever heard any.”

“Now that’s a lot of crap if I ever heard any,” then thinking how ridiculous it was mimicking him and how silly she must have sounded. She set the receiver down and ran her hands up and down her face.

“What’d you say, goddamnit?” his voice muffled in the bedspread.

“Bobbie?”

“Excuse me a minute. Ken, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Can’t it wait?” but she placed the receiver on the bed and went into the bathroom. She splashed water on her face, stepped on the scale, stepped off it and threw her robe and the head towel over the sink, and stepped on the scale again. She stared down and waited for the arrow to stop jiggling. Oh, give it up, she thought, her weight still fluctuating between 105 and 110. She put on the robe and went to the phone.

“Sorry, it was urgent,” she said.

“Urgent? You could’ve had two drinks at the 21 and gone to the John there for what your little urgency just cost me.”

That’s right, you’re calling from San Francisco, aren’t you.”

“Yes. And it’s not eight at night here and special low-evening long distance rates, either.”

That’s right. I believe there’s a three-hour difference in our time zones, which means you still probably have light. What can you see from your window?”

“Other windows.”

“No great big beautiful bay and mountains and ocean and ships going to Tokyo and Bangkok and places?”

“Windows. Actually, a curtain. I drew the curtain because of all those other windows. Come on, Bobbie, what do you say we cut out all this sarcasm and biting remarks for a while, okay? Let’s just say we’re both in the wrong as we were for our last squabble, and begin something from there.”

“So now we’re both in the wrong. My, we are making progress. I’m sorry, Ken, but I’m not accepting any compromises.”

“Okay, so I admit I was compromising — but only to get you off the hook this time.”

“Just try unhooking yourself for a change, all right?”

“Do me a favor? Forget I called?”

“Whatever you say,” and she hung up. She went into the bathroom to dry her hair.

The phone rang. Warren, reading a comicbook on his bed, waited for it to ring five times before he ran to her bedroom to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, sweetheart, how come you didn’t answer sooner?”

“Hi, Granny. Mom’s in the bathroom with that hair dryer going on. I’ll get her. Ma?” he shouted. “Grandma Ruth’s on the phone.”

“How is everything at home?”

“Fine. Dad called. He’s in San Francisco. Ma?” he said, interrupting her next question, “Grandma Ruth wants to speak to you.”

“I said, Warren, your father called? How long ago?”

“I’m not sure; not long. Ma?”

“Did he mention anything about when he’s coming home — or your mother? Warren, are you listening to me?”

Just then his mother pushed open the bathroom door and took the receiver out of his hand.

“Hello, Ruth, what can I do for you?”

“My God, Barbara, right away I can hear how angry you are.”

“It might sound like that, but I’m not. How are you?”

“But I can hear.”

“All right, you can hear, you can hear, but how are things with you?”

“Wonderful, thanks, but I’d like to know what’s this I hear about Kenneth and you. I haven’t the exact story, of course, but whatever it is, it can’t be more than a little fuss.”

“It’s much more.” She waved Warren out of the room. He gestured he’d sit on the bed and wouldn’t speak or listen to anything said on the phone, but she continued to shake her head for him to leave, and he stamped out.

“Why is it more than that?” Ruth went on. “A spat, like everyone has spats, and then it’s over. Be smart — make up. I know something about how a wife should act. She thinks she’s in the right — and even if she is, she should forget it or maybe just believe she’s right but not say so. For if it makes them happy and builds up their ego, why shouldn’t you give in sometimes, am I right?”

“No.”

“Don’t be a little girl, Barbara, angry for nothing, holding malice till it hurts. Do what I say and everything will work out fine.”

“You honestly believe that?”

“Answer it yourself, dear: what else could happen?”

“Well, there’s always what I think of myself after that lie — there’s always that. And then tell me one thing that’s gotten better between us after I’ve given in to him because you said I should, my own folks said I should, just about everyone I know said it.”

“If everyone’s said it, then it must be the right thing to do.”

“Oh, artfully answered, Ruth, but I can’t believe you believe that deep down. Haven’t you been reading the papers? We’re wearing our own fashions, breaking down all the discriminatory practices. Women shouldn’t sell out to men anymore.”

“Please, you can’t change him. That’s how he is, was, and will always be, so accept it.”

Then it’s never going to be good again between Ken and me till he does change — and you can tell him that when he phones you.”

“He said he was going to phone me?”

“Also tell him not to constantly kick me in the face as to what the call’s costing him when I’m trying to talk over some very important personal things.”

“He said that? That’s not like him.”

That’s just like him. Your son’s the big sport when he wants to make an impression. Just come over here and I’ll show you all the nice things he’s told everyone we know he’s bought me.”

“I can’t come over today, but thank you.”

“I was only kidding — never mind. You’ll probably be speaking to him soon — I mean, grant to me that I know by now how he operates — so tell him where I stand, all right? Also tell him — let’s see; what should you say? That this time it’s different. That I often think it’s not worth the trouble being married to him anymore. And for sure he can’t come back to the apartment till he takes responsibility for these fights and separations and that he’s going to do something to prevent them in the future.”

“So he’s responsible, so you’re responsible — what makes the difference in the end? After all, you’re husband and wife, married almost ten years and with a lovely home and a son to consider, so you’d think one of you would be big enough to accept the blame and then forget it. Because listen, Barbara—”

“Ruth — please? No more,” and she said goodbye and hung up. She figured Ken would call within the hour. He’d walked out on her three times the past two years, after calling her the worst names possible, and always Ruth later called her begging for a “beneficial to both” reconciliation brought about by Barbara’s willingness to accept the blame. And always she said she couldn’t but would ultimately, just to end the matter and for the sake of their son, say something like “Okay, maybe it’s a little bit more my fault than yours; so it’s over; come home.”

She had a good idea what would happen next. He’d call his mother, who’d tell him only a little of what Barbara had said and certainly none of the tough talk and give him advice how to handle this tricky situation. Then, nervously picturing the call he still had to make, he’d light a cigarette and smoke it down slowly. Finally — feeling emboldened by the cigarette and the shots of scotch from the bottle he always carried in his suitcase — he’d tell the hotel operator he wanted to place another call to New York. His approach would be like the ones he used in the past. He’d say he knew he wasn’t totally innocent for this most recent rupture, but could she tell him with a straight face that her hot temper and insults and inflexibility weren’t mostly to blame? It was always so easy for him, she had always made it so easy for him, that she could just puke when she thought of all she’d given up in herself since she married him. She lay on the bed, thought of taking the phone off the hook so she could avoid the inevitable ugly scene, decided against it, as he was going to call sooner or later so be done with the damn thing no matter how bad it might turn out, and tried dozing off for a few minutes and only reopened her eyes when Warren tiptoed into the room.

“You sleeping?”

She shook her head.

“What are you doing lying down then?”

“Resting, can’t you see?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No — I’m sorry. I’m actually just lying down here waiting for your father’s call.”

“He say he’ll call again?”

“No. But I have an intuition about such things — a feeling.”

“What things?”

Things like that. About what people will do who are very close to me like your father and you. That he’ll call.”

“How long you think he will?”

“I can’t predict it with any great exactness, not being the expert in these feelings that some people claim to be, but I’d say soon.”

“Will you let me speak to him?”

“You know it.” She inspected her nails. Most were jagged, uneven, the nails on the right hand bitten down so far the last few days and the cuticles looking such a mess, that she had to turn the hand over. She got out her manicure set from the night table.

“Why’d you send me out when Granny called? She say I did something she didn’t like last time she took care of me?”

“Why, did you?”

“What did she say?”

“Now you’re doing a bit of conniving like your father sometimes does, you know? Even at your age, which I’m not sure is so cute. I had personal things to discuss with her — nothing about you.”

“What personal things?”

The phone rang. Warren lunged for the receiver, said “Daddy, that you?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“He says, how’d I know?”

“Tell him I had an intuition,” she said.

“A what again?”

“Here, give me it. Ken?”

“What’s going on there?”

“I was only telling Warren to tell you I was feeling slightly intuitive tonight.”

“About what?”

“Ask your son.”

Warren stuck out his hand for the receiver.

“What in the world’s that supposed to mean?” Ken said.

The phone, Mom, the phone.”

She mussed up his hair — he grabbed the receiver while she still held it to her ear — and said “Wait till I’m finished and I’ll call you to it,” and pointed to the door. He shook his head, slapped his hands against his sides when she continued to point and smile, and slammed the door behind him.

“Now you made me get him mad,” she said.

“Get who mad — Warren? What the hell were you two doing there, talking riddles?”

“All I said before is that you should ask your son because he knows. In fact, he knows too much already for an eight-year-old.”

“You know, I don’t want to appear dense — it’s a very unattractive pose for a man my age — but you’re really making a lot of sense to me, you really are.”

“What I’m saying is that if you don’t want Warren to know too much about our difficulties, well, then I don’t have the solution. Maybe we should get a housekeeper or maid — somebody, at least, who will occupy him during his more restless moments and occasionally answer the phone. It’s just every time I’m left alone with him or the phone rings when I’m in the shower, let’s say, he uses answering it as a pretext for barging into our room and asking me a lot of embarrassing questions.”

“So slap him down then, that’s all.”

“Brilliant. No, I think the nanny idea is the best one.”

“What nanny idea? You might not believe this — you probably never thought you had such a schnook for a husband — but I think I lost a little of what you’re saying.”

“It’s all quite simple. What I want is for us to have someone look after Warren weekday afternoons and to answer the phone when I can’t, or maybe the alternative is to get a phone extension in the kitchen.”

“Why an extension?”

“So Warren can answer it there and then tell me I’m wanted on the phone, without him having to come into the room to answer it. We can call it Warren’s personal phone — something he’ll like.”

“His personal phone — right, I see.”

“But it’s important, Ken.”

“I know it’s important, but enough’s enough, agreed?”

“But it sounds as if you don’t think it’s important. You’re not worried about the extra charges for the extension, are you?”

“Now don’t start up on me again, Bobbie, and I’m not kidding anymore. And let’s stop all this silly jibberish, as I’m just not up to it now.”

Then I don’t know, Ken. If we’re ever going to get any privacy around here with that boy…I mean, the only way I can see his personal questions and overcuriosity letting up on us is if we—”

“Okay. For the seventeenth time — I heard, I agree. You say you want a nanny for the kid, fine, you’ll get one. We’ll bring her all the way from Ireland if we can’t find a good one here, and not steerage, but good accommodations on a plane or ship. And what else was that — an extension? You want a phone extension? Fine again, great, even two or three or as many as you think we need, and all push-button Princesses if you like, and any color you want, even pink. But now, you going to listen a moment as to why I called?”

“I’m listening, dear, I’m listening.”

MR. GREENE

It was a beautiful day, clear and dry, the orchards soaked by the early-morning downpour and smelling of fallen fruit and fresh buds. Life fantastic, I thought, when something hard was shoved into my back and a voice said don’t turn around.

“Don’t turn what?” I said, turning around and seeing a man holding a handgun.

“Didn’t I say not to?” and he split my head open with the gun butt, and while I lay on the ground howling for help but not sure if my words were coming out, and trying to divert the stream of blood running into my nose and mouth, he shot me twice in the stomach and once in the head.

I woke up. Usually when I have dreams like this I’m somehow able to startle myself out of sleep before the bullets come, though not before I’m clubbed. But this morning I was awakened by the sounds of a sanitation truck being fed garbage. My wife stirred on her side of the bed and asked what time it was, though she knew as well as I that the city sanitation truck made a punctual seven o’clock visit to our apartment building every weekday.

“Seven,” I said, and she said “Oh,” and shut her eyes for another ten minutes. Then we got up, washed and dressed and started preparing breakfast.

“I had an incredibly creepy dream this morning,” I said at the table as she set before me my Wednesday breakfast of poached eggs on buttered toast and half a tomato. “A man hit me so hard that it feels as if my head still aches.”

“Sounds like the dream you had two nights ago, or was it three?”

Three. But this time I was shot. Twice in the stomach and once in the head.”

“Ug,” she said, “I’m glad I sleep peacefully,” and wrapped my lunch sandwich in aluminum foil and stuck it in a paper bag with an apple and lots of vegetables. “You’ll be late.”

I kissed her on the lips goodbye. “Be careful,” she said. “And please don’t run for the local again. I don’t want you getting another heart seizure, as this place gets very lonely without you.”

I was sort of hustling like a marathon walker to the subway entrance when a man said “Like to win a free ticket abroad just by answering a few questions, sir?” I stopped and this well-dressed young man approached me carrying a briefcase. “I’m with the Transiberian Travel Service,” he said, “and we’re conducting a very essential poll.” I told him I was in a hurry to get to work, but remembering my wife’s advice on the subject and curious about the free trip abroad, I told him I could spare only a minute. “Wonderful,” he said, and reached into his briefcase for what he said was his short question and answer sheet concerning potential intercontinental travelers and transoceanic flights and pulled out a very rusty Luger.

“In broad daylight?” I said, and he said nobody was around but if someone did come by before I stopped stalling and handed over my wallet, he’d be forced to shoot me. “You can’t do that; this is supposed to be a civilized society. Hasn’t there been enough violence in the world already?” Just then a woman turned the corner and headed our way. I quickly reached for my billfold to give the man, but he said “Too late.” He pulled the trigger; the bullet grazed my arm. I begged him not to shoot again, but a bullet tore through my throat. The man ran off. I was on the ground, dying, no doubt. A few people kneeled and stood above me, first asking me and then one another what they could do to help. Then two hands stroked my head and the voice belonging to them said that someone had gone to call for an ambulance. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll come out of this alive. I’ve witnessed three street shootings this year and the victim has always lived,” and I passed out.

The radio alarm buzzed. It was 7:50—fifteen minutes later than I usually got up. “Jan,” I said, “it’s 7:50. You set the alarm for too late again. Get up; I’ve barely a half hour to get out of the house.”

“I think you were the one who said it,” she said, turning over and shutting her eyes.

I touched her back; she felt so soft and warm. I snuggled into her from behind and fondled her backside.

“You feel so soft and warm,” I said.

“Can I sleep another five minutes?”

“You can if you let me lie close to you like this. In fact, sleep for another hour. I’ll make sure Frilly’s all right and get out of the house by myself.”

“You’re a love,” she said, and made a kissing sound. I lay close to her for a few minutes. Then I got up, checked our baby and saw she was safe and asleep, made two poached eggs on buttered toast, a dish Jan always complained was too much trouble making for breakfast — and after sticking a container of yogurt and dietetic cookies into my attaché case for lunch and again peeking into the baby’s room to see that she was all right, I left the house.

I started down our quiet suburban street to Charlie Ravage’s house at the corner, as this was his day to drive us to town. “Say, Mr. Greene,” a man said, signaling me from the passenger seat of an expensive new car, “do you remember me? I used to be your next-door neighbor in Lumpertville — old fat man Sachs.” I walked to his car and told him his name was as unfamiliar as his face, but maybe he’d gotten a little thinner since the time I was supposed to have known him.

“I’ve actually gained twenty pounds.” He opened the door and pointed at me what looked like a sawed-off shotgun and invited me to step inside the car for a business conference, “No fuss,” he said, “and you’ll be able to leave with your good health intact.”

“How’d you know my name and where I used to live?” I said, sitting beside him when he moved over.

“Oh, Mr. Greene, I’ve watched you numerous times coming out of your garish pink house, all fresh with your darling wife’s adoring smells still on you and with your low-caloric breakfast in your gut. I know all your history and comfortable habits, especially the precise time you leave for work every day. Eight-fifteen, am I right?” and I nodded and asked what he had in mind doing with me. “You’re the vice-president of the town’s most prominent bank, aren’t you?” and then described the relatively simple bankrobbing plan he’d devised. He would drive me to town, I’d get the bank guard to open the front door, he’d follow me in, disarm the guard, I’d open the bank’s safe and in a matter of minutes and before the bank officially opened, he’d be gone with about fifty thousand dollars in untraceable cash. “Not bad for a half morning’s work, wouldn’t you say?”

We drove to town. I was let in the bank, George the guard was disarmed, bound and gagged. I opened the safe, the man took all the paper cash in it and then bound and gagged me. I could have set off one of the many hidden alarms before I was tied up, but the chance of saving the bank thousands of insured dollars and getting a bonus if not a promotion wasn’t worth the risk of being shot. Just as the thief was about to leave through the only side door, George freed himself and ducked behind the tellers’ counter. The alarm went off; the entire bank lit up, and customers waiting outside for the bank to open began banging on the windows and door. The man tried the side door, but because of the alarm all the exits were automatically locked from the outside. He shot out a window and was about to leap through the opening when a police car pulled up in front. He reloaded the gun, said This is what you get for hiring loyal but dumb bank guards,” and while I pleaded for him not to shoot by shaking my head from side to side, he pulled the trigger and in an instant it seemed I’d lost my chest. Someone ungagged and untied me, through darkening eyes I watched the man gassed out of the president’s office and taken away; then I was lifted onto a gurney and slid into an ambulance. I was given blood, and just before an oxygen mask was put over my face I asked the doctor if she thought I would live.

“No question about it,” she said, but by the tone of her voice and the look of the attendant next to her, I knew I’d never reach the hospital alive.

“Dad,” someone said — my son or daughter. “Dad, get up.” It was Ford, my six-year-old son, who since his mother died four months ago when some madman seated behind her in a movie theater shot her, woke me up every morning. “It’s past eight. Dad, and you’re going to miss your first class.”

“Eight? Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

“My alarm didn’t go off. You set it wrong again last night. But Frilly’s already making your breakfast.”

Frilly, my ten-year-old daughter and a lookalike for her beautiful mom, kissed me when I came into the kitchen. My regular workday breakfast was on the table. Two five-minute eggs, just as I liked them, not boiled for five minutes but spooned into the saucepan and covered after the gas under the boiling water had been turned off, and corn muffins that Frilly had made the previous night. “Get your math homework done?” I said, and she said “Math’s a snap. I can whip through it in the short ride to school.”

The school bus honked twice, and the kids kissed me goodbye, I walked them to the bus, told them I hoped they’d have a gloriously happy day at school and that tonight we were going to dine out fancy for a change and later catch the concert at Civic Aud.

“Morning, Mr. Greene,” the driver said, and I said “Morning, Will; great day out,” and waved at my children waving at me till the bus was out of sight. I got my briefcase, which Frilly had laid out for me with my lecture notes and a bag lunch inside, and rode to campus on my bike. The air was chillier than I was dressed for and I was sorry I hadn’t taken a sweater, which I usually throw over my shoulders and tie the sleeves at my chest.

“Cooler today,” Sam Rainbow said, cycling past me from the opposite direction and wearing a sheepherder’s coat.

“Hiya, Professor Greene,” one of my former grad students said, a pretty, intelligent young woman in a short skirt and high boots. She had such gorgeous legs. I stopped, said “How are you, Roz? Magnificent morning, isn’t it? Listen, if you’re not in a hurry, how about a quick coffee with me in the campus lounge?” and she’d just said she’d love to when I heard a barrage of gunshots and she flopped to the ground.

“Oh, no,” I said, “not again,” as people were dropping all around me, some hit by bullets, others dodging behind bushes, cars and trees. Roz had been shot in the head, part of her brains on my sleeve. There was nothing I could do for her, and I was still out in the open. I ran for a car parked about thirty feet away, but the sniper in one of the top floor windows of the Arts and Sciences building cut me down with a bullet in the foot, and while I was crawling the last few feet to the car, another bullet in my back. I regained consciousness after the shooting had ended. “We got him,” a man told me. “Some overpressured poly sci student who went nuts. Don’t know how many got hit, but that dead bastard sure’ll serve a good lesson for anyone else thinking of using a repeater against innocent people like that. And don’t fret about yourself, Professor. Doctors here say you’ll be up and walking again in a matter of weeks,” which, when I began heaving blood and feeling as sick as I ever felt in my life, I knew was a lie. “Have somebody pick my kids up at school,” I said, and he said “Sure, sir, anything you wish.”

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Daddy, happy birthday to you.”

That was what I woke up to this morning after all those disturbing dreams. My wife and two kids singing the happy birthday ditty on my fortieth. Thank you,” I said. Thank you one and all for reminding me what I most didn’t want to be reminded of. And now, if you can bear with more of my impoliteness, I have to hurry and get dressed.”

I took off my pajamas and grabbed my underpants. “Aren’t you going to shower first?” Ford said, and I said “Why? Do I smell so bad that you don’t think I can wait till I get home tonight?”

“It’s not that. We’re all meeting you at your studio later where Grandpa’s coming to treat us to dinner and a show.”

“Has that been agreed to by your mother?”

Jan said “On your birthday, Saul, you know your father always takes charge.”

“Agreed, then,” and I got in the shower. My family undressed and got in with me, and though it was crowded and we each did our share of horsing around under the spray, we did manage to get our bodies soaped, and Frilly even got in a shampoo.

We sat at the kitchen table for breakfast. Frilly lit candles, and when I said “At breakfast?” she said “It’s a special occasion, did you forget?” and handed me a box wrapped with the front page of today’s newspaper and decorated with quartermoons and tentacled suns and stars. Inside were two nylon brushes, a number 14 and 17, which I needed badly. I hadn’t sold a painting in months and I was again starting to put the touch on my closest friends. Ford gave me a pound tube of Mars black and Jan presented me with twenty-five yards of the best unprimed duck canvas. “You’re all saints,” I said, “and I worship you as others might worship the great god Moolah, but now I gotta get going and live up to your faith in me.”

They walked me outside. I unchained my motor scooter from the building’s fence, hugged my family and headed for my studio, which was in a municipal-run building of artists’ lofts in the poorest section of town.

Once there, I promptly began the completion of a huge painting I was calling The Birth of the Earth,” and was working feverishly, laying on heavy long strokes of the Mars black with my new 17 brush, when one of the other artists in the building knocked on my door and said I was wanted on the pay phone downstairs.

It was Jan, saying don’t worry, everything will be all right, I should prepare myself for some pretty rough though not totally catastrophic news — while I was practically screaming for her to come out with it already — but a boy had entered my father’s junior high school classroom without a late pass and when my father told him to go to the guidance office to get one, the boy shot him in the hip. “But Dad’s okay,” she said. “He’s going to live; be thankful for that,” but my knees wobbled and I fell back against the wall and slid down to the floor. She said, when I told her where I was sitting, to stop acting like a wimp and meet her at the hospital right away.

I went outside and signaled for a cab. One stopped, and I ran to it, but a man beat me to the door. I told him that not only had I hailed the cab first but that it was possibly a dying father I was going to see, and he took out a handgun from a concealed shoulder holster. I feinted left, sprinted right, but the man shot me in the leg and, after I bounced off a car fender to the street, he stared straight down at my face and cursed me before putting a bullet into my head.

“Saul, Saul, what are you still lying there for? You have to get up,” my wife said, leaning over me and looking distressed. Had I really survived? I thought. Was I in a hospital or still on the street? “And what about Dad?” I said.

“What about him? Because if you aren’t out of bed and dressed in half an hour, we’ll miss the 11:15 to Morganburg Lake, and the next train doesn’t leave till three.”

I got up, began dressing, told Jan about these scary repetitive dreams I had overnight, and she said the rich food she made for dinner last night must have affected me. “My stomach didn’t feel too good either when I woke up.” I asked if the kids were all right and she said “Sure, why shouldn’t they be?” I didn’t want to alarm her with the very real fear the dreams had left in me, so I said “Because of the food. How are they feeling?”

Those two? They’ve stomachs like a shark’s. That’s because theirs haven’t been tampered with years of cocktails and cognacs.”

We all sat down for breakfast. Frilly already had her swimsuit on under her sundress, and Ford, while eating, was stuffing his school-bag with books, sports equipment, and little action figures. Then we cabbed to the station and boarded the train.

I was looking out the train window at the fields and farms we passed and feeling a lot more peaceful than I had this morning, when a woman shrieked at the front of the car. Another woman screamed, a man yelled “Turn the damn thing up,” a radio was made louder and a newscaster, trying to hold back his sobs, said There’s no uncertainty about it now: Senator Booker Maulson, without question the nation’s leading spokesman for the underprivileged and poor and its most ardent activist for world peace, was shot in the back of the head while making an Independence Day speech to a picnicking crowd of thousands.”

“God help us,” Jan said, and started crying. Frilly broke down also, and Ford pulled my arm and asked why everyone was so excited.

I went to the front of the car where most of the passengers had gathered around the radio. The newscaster said Maulson was killed instantly and his murderer beaten to death before police could pry him away from the outraged mob. Many of the people in the car were now weeping uncontrollably. The woman beside me said she was sure Maulson’s murder was part of a worldwide conspiracy: “People just don’t want peace, that’s all.” Two men who seemed to be traveling together told her Maulson had got what he’d been asking for, with all his peace marches and speeches against big business and the military and war. The man holding the radio said these men were talking cruelly and stupidly, and out of respect for Senator Maulson, his grieving family and the millions of people around the world who will mourn his death, they should shut their mouths. The men said they didn’t have to, this was still a democratic country where freedom of speech was accepted as nearly a sacrament, and this man was an ignorant liberal patsy who maybe ought to be shot in the head himself. The man handed the radio to his son and jumped at the two men. He knocked one of them to the floor and kicked him in the face and was beating up the other one with his fists when the man on the floor shot him in the back.

I pulled the emergency cord. The train stopped and I led my family to the rear of the car, where I forced open the door and we jumped out. We’d follow the tracks to the last station we passed, about six miles away, and from there take a train back to the city. Then, Jan and I would decide on doing one or two things: buying a used car and finding a quiet, remote part of the country to live and work in, or using all our savings to fly across the ocean and settle in a much safer and saner land.

We’d walked a few miles when Jan said we should stop: she and the kids were exhausted. We rested on a shady hill near the tracks. I felt tired and tried to fight off sleep because of the dreams I might have, but I soon dozed off. Someone was shooting BB holes through the windows of our new house. “Come on out or we’re going to come in and drag you out,” a boy yelled through a bullhorn.

The telephone rang. The woman who answered my hello said They’ve just killed your son at school, and because he’s the son of yours, we’re all glad.”

Our neighbor, Mrs. Fleishman, yelled from her window across the narrow airshaft. “Two army men smashed down our door and shot Mr. Fleishman and then threw him down the stairwell. Help me, call the police.”

I called the police. The officer said Mr. Fleishman deserved to be killed and so did I. “Without doubt, Mr. Greene, your family’s next. None of you people can think you’re safe anymore,” and when I asked for his badge number, he said “Shove It Up, Nine One One.”

Mrs. Fleishman screamed for me again from her window. They’re coming to get me now, Mr. Greene. Hurry, call the police.”

My wife came into the bedroom. Three state troopers are at the door. Should I let them in?”

“Of course, let them in. What did we do that we have to be afraid of?” Right after she left the room, I shouted “No, no, Jan, I was wrong.”

Frilly was being dragged out of the apartment when I ran into the living room. I started after her down the stairs, heard a gun discharge, and covered my eyes. Jan demanded I go to the window to see what had happened. Frilly had been shot by a firing squad as she stood against our building’s courtyard wall.

“Six soldiers and Marines are at the door,” Jan said. They say if I don’t let them in they’ll shoot the doorknob off.”

“Where’s my gun,” I said, “where’s that damn gun?” Jan said I didn’t have a gun. “You’ve always been firmly against even holding a gun. You don’t even know how to load or shoot a gun,” and I said “I’ve got one, all right,” and searched frantically through our dresser and pulled out Ford’s cap pistol and aimed it at the front door and pressed the trigger, and real bullets came out, I had firing power in my hand, I kept shooting at the men Jan had said were behind the door and yelling “You’re all dead, you bastards; I’m getting back at every last one of you; you’re all getting exactly what you deserve,” and the door crashed to the floor, the men fell in after it, about ten of them, half of them dressed like soldiers and state troopers and police, and all dead, I had killed them all.

They’re dragging Frilly away again,” Jan said.

“Ford, where’s Ford?”

They’re dragging Ford away also. Stop them, Saul. Do something before I go crazy right here.”

They’re killing my dog,” Mrs. Fleishman screamed. “Help me, Mr. Greene. They’re murdering my dear Dovetail with bullets.”

“Dad,” Frilly said, “you’re sweating something awful. Mom’s awake and says we should get a move on.”

Police cars and ambulances with their sirens going were speeding on the country road paralleling the tracks, no doubt heading to the train we’d been on. I asked Jan how she was and she said “Still sad and frightened but not so tired anymore. I slept also and also had bad dreams.”

I told her I’d carry her to the station on my shoulders if she wasn’t so tall and big-boned, and she laughed, said she could make it on her own, that maybe we should have stayed to help that poor wounded man and his son, that she supposed we shouldn’t feel too guilty, as there must be several other people on the train, including a doctor and nurse or two, who could do a much better job than us. Then the four of us resumed our walk to the station, calmer now, on probably the worst day of our lives.

PIERS

He dials the California number Chloe sent him last week when she wrote that she and Lucia had finally found an interim home. She also said they’d be driving east for a vacation in a few weeks and was Pennsylvania before or after New York? He hasn’t seen them in three years. He wrote about that last afternoon with them in a story that opens with Chloe saying she’s pregnant by him, though she was living with her husband at the time, and closes around two years later with Chloe and Lucia driving onto the San Francisco freeway on their way back to L.A., though in real life the cities were reversed, as he wanted the story to end with the letter A because it began with the woman’s name Zee. Nobody noticed the alphabetic artifice or the twenty-four others he planted in the story, as they haven’t in the story where all the men have names that could be women’s, like Robin and Dale. Or in another where all the city names start off with Saint, San or Santa and the women are named after ores, alloys, metals, gems and semiprecious stones.

“Chloe’s on the property but a half mile through the woods from here,” a man says. This long distance? Give me your number and we’ll have her call you back on our magic free telephone.”

Last commune she lived in was vegetarian, Chloe wrote, and so authoritarian that when they found her and five-year-old Lucia sharing a beef jerky, they forced Chloe to eat six bowls of cold porridge made from organically grown hand-ground oats, and Lucia three. Lucia became so hysterical after the third bowl that she had to be injected with a tranquilizer, and they were evicted the next day. Always mistakes, she wrote in another letter, all but the last he’s included in an epistolary story composed solely of edited versions of the letters she’s written him the past few years, with all the people’s names switched around and the same dates and locations other than for the exact building, RTD and box numbers reproduced.

This year she fell in love with a junkie, she said in the letter and story, and the year before that with an alcoholic, and she hoped both would say “Ah, at last a woman who turns me on, someone to communicate with, to be with; now I can throw away my junk, my gin, my jive, forget my literary critiques and satirical cartoons and great American hovels and go off with her and start a farm and finally do something worthwhile.” One man she recently met at a psychodrama, the incident he closed the story with. “Everyone was putting him down. So I said to him ‘What you want and need most is to mount a woman and really jam it all the way in there, am I right?’ Everyone hooted at me to sit down, but the man said ‘Lady, you just knocked the nail on the nose. But no chick will let me do it because they think I’m too horny or homely or both.’ ‘Well, let’s first end this pressing need you have, and after that we can get down to the weightier issue of why you think you’re homely or have to be horny, but not in front of these unfeeling creeps.’ The rest of the psychodrama participants began beating up on me when I refused to be mounted in front of them, and when the man tried tearing them off me, they broke a few of his teeth. They only let us go after they’d ripped, bit, scratched and clawed most of our clothes off and some of our hair and skin, and later in my place we went to bed. He turned out to be leery, weirdy, a bad lover, a born loser, I think syphilitic and infanticidal, maybe even sapropelic and homosexual, certainly sadistic, sodomitic, satanic, septic, scabietic, scrofulous, carious, dystonic, dyspeptic, dysuric, the worst. Mistakes. Always mistakes.”

She calls an hour later. “Piers?”

“Hey, Chloe, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks, how are you?”

“And Lucia?”

“Fine? Family’s doing fine? You know I’m untalkative on the phone. What do you want?”

“Um, glum…to hear you say you’re untalkative on the phone?”

“Very untalkative on the phone.”

“Lots of untalkatives on the phone.”

“Can’t we stop with the untalkatives on the phone?”

“To find out if you’re still writing your journals?”

“Daily. I was in fact logging today’s account when they said you wanted me to call back, which I also wrote down. And now, as I’m talking to you, I’m trying with my other hand to transcribe everything you said before, as this is an unusual event. So far I’ve the journal question, your untalkatives on the phone, ‘Um, bum,’ and ‘And Lucia?’ and ‘Hey, Chloe, how are you?’ Verbal equivocals and punning abound in your talk, Piers. Despite everything I’ve done and might do in my life, do you think I’ll post-Chloe be known wholly as Lucia’s madonna and your occasional chronicler and letter recipient and one-time mistress as Ka'a’s Milena now is? But we’re starving and haven’t any food and neither does the main house, so we have to drive down the mountain to the supermarket. Lucia wants to speak to you too.”

“I don’t think I’m prepared.”

“You need a script? It’s all right — she doesn’t know who you are. And unlike me, she likes to speak to anyone who calls. Here.”

“But I’ve never really spoken to her before. Help me out if it gets rough. And don’t forget to come back. Chloe? Chloe?”

“Could you repeat that for my journal jottings starting from ‘to her before’?”

“Hello,” a girl says.

“You speak,” he says.

“I speak. Lucia speaks.”

“You wouldn’t remember me, Lucia. I’m Piers. Did you, about a month ago, get a postcard from a person named Piers?”

“Postcard?”

“Do you know what a postcard is?”

“He says postcard,” she says away from the phone.

“Tell him they’re neither made from recycled paper nor nourishing.”

“Lucia,” he says, “did you ever get a postcard over the phone?”

“I know a postcard.”

“Good. Because, you see, I’m a long ways away. So far away from you that if you got on a plane to fly to the city I’m in, it would have to be in the air for many hours to get here. And a regular postcard takes days and days to get to you, so to speed things up I’m going to send you one over the phone instead. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, then; here goes. A postcard for Lucia over the phone. ‘Dear Lucia.’ That’s your name, right?”

“Dear Lucia Maria Dorn.”

“Good. ‘Dear Lucia Maria Dorn. I’m sending you a postcard from a place far away that takes hours to fly in the air to and I hope you like getting my card very much. Love, your friend, Piers.’”

“What?”

“I just sent you a postcard over the phone. There’s not much room to write on a postcard, so I had to keep it short.”

“He’s sending a postcard on the phone.”

“Lucia, how old are you?”

“Five.”

“Five. I see. Do you like to go swimming?”

“What?”

“Swimming. Do you like to run through the forests with the animals?”

“Are no animals here. No pets allowed.”

“No wild weather-wise animals like woody woodchucks in the woods?”

“No.”

“Skunks, chipmunks?”

“No.”

“No raccoons, baboons?”

“No.”

“Goose, moose? Grouse, mouse? Cockatoos, kangaroos? Chickadees, wallabies?”

“No, no, no, no.”

“Well, then, do you like to fly in the sky with the magpie and other birds?”

“Are no birds here.”

“Do you like to swim in the ocean with the fish?”

“No fish.”

“Sure, there are fish.”

“He says there are fish here.”

“In the ocean, I said. I didn’t mean in fishtanks. And you’re near the ocean. I know where La Honda is. I used to live around there. And you and your mom and I once built a whopping bonfire on a beach nearby that burned through the night, but that was too far back for you to remember.”

“I remember.”

“You remember the potatoes we roasted? The wieners as big as big bed pillows we toasted?”

“We have to go for food now.”

“She’s right, Piers. We gotta go.”

“She speaks; does she read?”

“Only the words ‘flash’ and ‘cards’ on the giant flash cards I hold up. ‘Giant’ she only knows by my accompanying drawing of one, and ‘I’ she thinks is a bed on its headboard, and the flash card set doesn’t have a card for ‘hold up’.”

“I also wanted to know when you’re driving east.”

“To…know…when…I’m…driving…east. Got you. To that I say ‘I don’t know if I am.’”

“You can stay with me. There’s enough room.”

“In the unlikelihood that I even start out from here and then get past my friends in Pennsylvania, I’ll stay with you if I don’t get stuck in New Jersey, yes.”

“And if I flew out tomorrow on a twenty-seven-day excursion flight, would I be able to stay with you?”

“My camper’s too small for us all.”

“No double sleeping bags or available space in the main house?”

“If he…means…he and I…then I…tell…him—”

“Stop that.”

“I’m with someone else.”

“No one else. You and I. Someone else you can always be with. You and me. Woman and man. Man on woman, woman on man. Side by side, grunt to grunt, stomach to stem, my woman, my man.”

“To fall in love?”

“We’ll see. But just to be with me.”

“For two weeks?”

Three weeks. Past the excursion flight mini-maximum into the unknown beyond. I don’t know. That’s the unknown. I don’t know if that’s the unknown. What do I know? What I knew? What I know now? That’s it, no. Even what I knew as the well-known turns out to be unknown again and again. What I know is that I can’t say I don’t know anything, as that’s not implicit in my saying I don’t. Nah, maybe not even that. But you’re with someone else. A man?”

“He is. I am. Quote he is, I am, unquote. I’m sorry. It’s exhausting enough chattering this stuff over the phone. And my despicable compulsion to write everything down simply because I began doing it when I was six. For you, I’ll tear up this journal page. Book 85, page one twenty-two, lines nine through eighteen. I tore it up. Eliot’s piaculative and I’m not sure about Pound’s, but now mine. Did you hear the tear? There’s a lit fireplace a hand’s toss away from here and the expiatory ultimate would be for me to throw in my hands. The penultimate would be this entire journal’s death fire. Naturally, not my other eighty-two books, as throwing them in has no estimable sacrificial grading and is less likely to occur than self-immolation, and I’d also sear my arms pulling them out as Nora did with Stephen’s Arsonist, and then I couldn’t drive. And Lucia can’t both reach the floor clutch and steer. And we’ve really got to go. I hate belaboring the point, but the all-night supermarkets in the valley don’t stay open all night. There was a suit to that effect and the county ruled that ‘all-night’ means only till midnight. The stores could stay open past then if they liked, but they couldn’t put ‘all-morning’ on their signs unless they meant to stay open till at least noon from twelve-o-one on. ‘Bye.”

“Don’t go.”

He turns on the TV. The movie is about a young writer who trains to New York from Texas with a huge novel and falls in love with a rich woman twice his age. His editor is secretly in love with him and warns him about the older woman and her circle of culture hounds. They have a single gift and unsparing craving of preying on talented writers and transforming them into puny hacks in half the time it takes me to edit their hulking novels. Leastwise with me the author has every right to reject my deletions and corrections, which if stubbornly done to excess could mean the manuscript’s rejection no matter how fat the advance. While none of her young men have had the grit to resist being regaled and eventually devoured for new meat by the insatiable Hazel Brawn and her highborn ravenous friends.”

“Since I’ve the lifelong incurable disease of cacoethes scribendi,” the writer says, “they’ll either find me stuck in their throats or be suffering from my cramps and blocks, but massively incapacitating.”

“I still think you’ll be what they eat.”

One of the commercials ends with Anne Hathaway saying to Shakespeare, who’s slavering over the cardigan sweater she bought him after he fretted about being chilled at his desk and unable to finish Richard III, “As someone once said, Bill, ‘All’s wool that wraps Will.’ Or was it ‘Ill’s Will no longer with his garret chill’? No, I think it was ‘All’s better in belles lettres with a swell Metre sweater.’”

“You mean,” Shakespeare says, “‘All’s ill that rends Will’s.’”

“Aye,” Anne says.

“‘Neigh,’ I should have the beleaguered Richard say.”

While watching the movie, Piers writes Lucia a letter. He folds the writing paper into quarters and with magic markers draws a picture in each square. The top right one’s a self-portrait, the caption beneath reading “Hello, Lucia, I’m Piers, the man you telephone-talked to the other night, remember? I decided to send you this letter instead of a postcard — think back. As you can tell from that think back. I don’t like repeating words like remember in so short a space made even shorter by the little space I have to write, and I’m sorry not only for this long sentence, which could have been broken up with a period in place of a comma twenty or so words and a contraction ago, but also for using plurisyllabic words like repeating, remember, shorter, little, sentence, contraction and maybe even sorry, broken, period, comma, using and maybe even maybe and even even and surely surely and plurisyllabic. I’m sure I left out one or two but not one and two, as they’re not plurisyllabic words. Though if I hadn’t used all those underlined words in that sentence before the last (please turn over and continue reading in box 1), the sentence would have read ‘As you can tell from that I don’t like words like in so short a space made by the space I have to write, and I’m not for this long, which could have been up with a in place of a or so words and a, but for words like and and and and and.’ Not that I couldn’t find any meaning in that quoted sentence no matter how unwittingly it was written, but I would have used an an instead of a in front of in place of. Anyway, I promise not to write any more big words like anyway and promise. But since I don’t know if you can read these big words I promised not to write, I’ll just write them without assuming you can’t read them or that they can’t be easily taught to you. By the way, I don’t have yellow hair but felt I should use that color in my self-portrait, since I already drew my face red and neck blue.

The above drawing in square B is my dictionary. I don’t think you’ll be interested in seeing it, but a book is an easy thing to draw.

“Above is my typewriter. I write stories and letters on it. This letter to you, though, I’m writing by hand. I could write it by foot, but I have slippers on. The man in the first joke tells bad squares. Turn that sentence around a bit and you’ll see what I mean when I say ‘Maybe that’s what makes his red so face.’ Turn red so face around and you won’t have a proteron hysteron. Keep turning and you’ll get dizzy. (From now on TPO means turn page over, so TPO to box 2.) Getting back to the more rollicky topic of sad jokes and bad oxymora, I guess in my second letter my face will have to be purple, which might be your primary art lesson, though I won’t tell you what I heard or said to make my face that way.

This is my room with me lying on the floor in front of a television set. The figure on the screen’s left is a woman. The one on the right a man. Now the man’s on the right and she’s on the left. Now they’re falling together onto the bed. Now a blanket’s on top of them. Now a cat jumps on the blanket and snuggles in between them. Now the light fades till the screen’s dark. (TPO to box 5.) I can’t draw all these movements and different shades of light in the little space I have for the TV screen in my drawing, so I’ll leave the figures the way I drew them: two vertical sticks, the ganglier one standing for the man, the small tire surrounding them being my TV set, which is on loan from my parents so I could see the presidential debates tonight: I don’t own: do you? One day I hope to see you where you live or where I love, which as I told you on the phone is many hours away from you in New York by plane. That’s bad English (please continue on page 2), but the only language I know well enough to illiterately know. The man in squares A and D on page 1 makes veriberi bad jokes, or tries to joke, as he just tried to, and unfailingly fails, as he just succeeded in unfailingly failing again, and again. What is the color of dumbness, which is the color I’d draw the man’s face in those two pictures if I hadn’t already drawn them read I mean red. That’s even worser English, and what I just wrote then the worsest, and there can’t be any worse English more than that, except maybe that, if I hadn’t capitalized the E in anguish and made it i. By the way, what I seem to be poking with a big stick in my self-portrait on page 1 is this letter I’m writing to you.

“P.S. The movie I’m watching ends with this rich lady getting sick from a strange disease known as kakemonomania scribbledibblebe, and the fiction writer in the film, ten years younger than I and much better-looking and whose name I think is Dom, saying, as she lies asleep in her hospital suite, ‘I’ve had enough of you and your lowdown friends for a lifetime, Mrs. Brawn, and I just wish I had the guts to say it to your face,” which he actually is doing, since he’s standing over her and she’s lying on her back. The young woman editor, which to make a long story short is a worker who makes short sentences and large spaces out of toiled-over compressed passages and long paragraphs, loves Dom or Rom or some hom-nom like Strom or Pom but only one of thom, comes to the hospital room, and she and the writer kiss and hug. The unedited editor says ‘You were truly in love with her, weren’t you, and there’s nothing in life worth living for more than that, in spite of it often ending in agony, fiasco and utter distress,’ and he nods yes-s-s. ‘Will you two idiots get the H out of here,’ the older woman says. ‘I’m exhausted with you both and want to get some shuteye before I die,’ and they smile at her, she at them, they leave the room and race downstairs and through the lobby. She whistles for a cab and they run to it hand in hand, while the doorman yells after them ‘That sure must’ve been a quick recovery,’ for you see, Lucia (as the closing credits and cooing music come on and the cab pulls away with the couple visible through the rear window kissing to beat the band), when the two of them came to the hospital separately a few minutes ago (TPO), the doorman saw they were very sad.

“No, no, all wrong. Say, who do I think I’m writing this letter to anyway? I’m about as adept at sending off epistles to bissles as I am missles. I mean missives to missies as I am apostles. But there again: too much effort. Too many wisecracks, lies, cricks, tricks, and gimcracks. There again. Never ends. In edition t’ ill wit y’ll git whit I premised mit (pleez T to new P last time),” and he draws a fullscale facsimile of the message-address side of a picture postcard, writes her name and address underneath a canceled stamp of a straddle-backed Don Quixote attacking a tilted windmill, and on the left side of the meticulously printed “Made in Spain (reproduction prohibida)” he writes: “Dear Lucia: Here’s the picture postcard I said I’d send. Having fun. Hope you are too. Wish you were here. Wish I were two. That heroic grave structure on the card’s front is not the posh posada my apartment’s in but this country’s largest bibliocrypt photographed right after the heaviest snowfall in a hundred years. Warmest regards to your mom. Love Piers.”

He goes out and mails the letter and calls Chloe an hour later.

“Hi, is it too late? Lucia and I had such an enjoyable talk before that I thought we could do it some more.”

“She’s in the camper, not feeling well. I shouldn’t have even taken her to the store with me.”

That was sudden. What’s it, something serious?”

“Hey. It’s presumptuous getting anxious over the phone when you can’t in any way help. It’s an earache, which she woke up with today. Painful, yes, but she’ll be out extroverting tomorrow morning after tonight’s antibiotic kicks in, so don’t be unnerving me with your concern, okay?”

“Suspension points.”

“You must have a fat roll to make all these calls.”

“Last term’s teacher savings — want some?”

“No,” she says. “I’ve always felt that once a person’s given material things, he resents the receiver and feels cleared of any emotional responsibilities he might have had. And I never felt you were obligated to give and don’t want you to feel you are.”

“I’d like to. I promise to remain emotionally sniggled and spiked. And you can’t be doing too well.”

“We’re always short. Now we’re on Welfare, but it provides. There is one think it won’t take care of and which I’d really like to do. Primal therapy. If I’m accepted, they can’t take me for a year, and then I’d have to have the two thousand to pay for it, money before words. If you care to contribute when the time comes, I’d be very grateful.”

“What is it?”

“What two of the Beatles went through.”

“Next will you be jetting to the Maharascal’s Indian ashcan for a real treat?”

They did that before Primal — all four. But don’t be superficial. Till now you’ve suppressed it and we could talk.”

“My transmisanthropicization tonight.”

“I don’t know what you mean. And if you’ve that much money to throw around, apply for Primal.”

“Have I never given you my views on psychotherapy for creative writers? It mars their handwriting and reduces their typing speed.”

This has to be what happens when someone talks to you twice in one night. And you say you want to fly out and nestle with us a spell?”

“Mit out mein hurts.”

“And if Lucia wasn’t here?”

“Why shouldn’t she be? Just the holy family we of us, campering in your damp hamper or in a fleecy sleepy caul in the copse. What do you say?”

“Same. A man who left me a year ago, and last month wanted me desperately back. Or my back desperately. Either way, I was alone, so why not? It’ll probably end with my heart efflorescing and then picked, plucked at and scrunched underfoot, ‘Keep Off The Grass’ and ‘This Vegetation To Be Regarded Not Discarded’ signs not worth standing. Another heavy relationship fraught with ambiguity and me once more forsworn against men per se and fi-dy till the sun god hisself sweeps me off his feet, seats me on his stick and streaks me to his utility closet. Not now. He’s here. In this very room searing marshmallows while his ears roar. You know I can’t leave a man but the reverse. Man a leave can’t I know? What I’m waiting for is one who will swear his everlasting love and positive intentions to me. Would you ever do that?”

“I could.”

“You might, as a device, in again, out again, win again, but I doubt I could really count on you. But if you do come out here, we’ll drive down to see you. Lucia and I. In short, I’d like us to at most remain friends.”

“No,” but she’s hung up.

KNOCK

He knocked, I went to the door. Or she knocked, I went to the door. First I said “Did someone knock?” Then I listened as I stood in front of my chair to see if anyone behind the door was going to say something after I said “Did someone knock?” But first I listened as I sat in the chair to see if anyone was going to say something after he or she knocked. No one did. Then I said “Is anyone there?” No one answered. Then I got up.

I was sitting in the chair I’m sitting in now, wearing the clothes I have on now, my right leg crossed over the left as it is now, a book in my lap as the same book’s in my lap now, reading, which I’m doing now. I was in the middle of a sentence when he knocked. Or she knocked. For it could have been one or the other who knocked, or even both. First he could have knocked, then she could have knocked. Or the other way around: first she, then he, but each knocking once and her knock coming right after his or his right after hers, for there were two quick knocks in succession: knock knock, like that. Or both could have knocked at the same time, each holding back the force of his knocks to about half a normal knock to make it sound like one person knocking twice.

Or it could have been two men or two women who knocked, instead of one and one. And he or he or she or she could have knocked, once, and right after that the other person could have knocked once. Or both of either couple could have knocked, twice at the same time, though each holding back the force of his knocks to about half a normal knock to make it sound like one person knocking twice. Or both of them could have knocked a half knock the first time, then one of them could have knocked a full knock right after that. Or the other way around: first one of them with a full knock, then two of them with a half knock, but in either case the sound made would be that of one person knocking twice.

Or it could have been any one of a number of other possibilities of two knocks made in quick succession on my door. Such as three or four people knocking twice at the same time, but each person holding back the force of his knock to about a third of a normal knock if it was three people knocking at once, or about a fourth if it was four, though in the end sounding like one person knocking twice on my door.

Or three to four or more people knocking once, with each person holding back the force of his knock to the fraction of the total number of people knocking. And then one person knocking a normal knock right after that, making it sound in the end like one person knocking twice: knock knock, like that. Or the other way around and all the numerical possibilities of three or four or more people knocking twice on my door. Such as two of them knocking once at the same time, each holding back the force, of his knock to about half a normal knock. And then three to four or more people knocking right after that at the same time, each holding back the force of his knock to a third or fourth or fifth or whatever fraction of the total number of people knocking at the same time. Though in the end this double knock sounding like one person knocking twice on my door.

Or it could have been a half to a full dozen people who knocked on my door and all the numerical possibilities of their knocking and whichever way around. But each person, if let’s say all twelve knocked at the same time for the first knock, holding back the force of his knock to a twelfth of a normal knock or as close as a person could get to that. And then each person who participated in the second knock, if let’s say the door this time was knocked on by nine of these twelve people at once, holding back the force of his knock to a ninth of a normal knock or thereabouts, with perhaps from one to eight of these nine people making up in the force of his knock for what the eight to one of these people lacked in force, though in the right proportions to everyone who knocked at the same time so it wouldn’t come out sounding in the end like anything more than the second half of a person’s normal double knock.

More than a dozen people I don’t think could have fit around my door to knock on it, unless a dozen or so people had stood by the door and another dozen or so had sat, crouched and lain on the hallway floor within reach of the door. Then the dozen or so standing people could have knocked all at once for the first knock, each holding back the force of his knock to about a twelfth of a normal knock or as close to that as possible. And right after that the dozen or so sitting, crouching and lying people could have knocked at the same time for the second knock, each holding back the force of his knock to a twelfth or thereabouts. And again, if it was necessary, with from one to eleven of these dozen or so people making up in the force of his knock for what the eleven to one of them might have lacked, though in the approximate right proportion to everyone who knocked at the same time so that this double knock by about two dozen people would come out sounding in the end like one person knocking twice: knock knock, no more than that.

I don’t think more than two dozen or so people could have stood, sat, crouched and lain around my door and still have been able to reach it to knock. Though about three dozen people could have lain on their stomachs on top of one another in five or six even piles facing the door and knocked that way in whatever combinations they’d decided on beforehand and in all the right proportions to one another so it wouldn’t come out sounding like anything more than one person’s double knock.

And I suppose some four dozen or so people could have fit around my door to knock on it if about three dozen of them had lain in those five or six piles and the fourth dozen of them had suspended themselves from the ceiling around the door and had themselves fastened to the walls on the sides and above the door and to the ceiling upside down above the door. But all of these people facing the door or at least within a knock’s reach of the door. And every workable numerical possibility of these four dozen or so people knocking on my door, and whichever proportion of knocking they chose, or perhaps someone standing behind the piles but not in reach of the door, chose for them. Though in the end their knocks on my door, directed or not directed in any way by someone else, sounding like two normal knocks in quick succession by one person: knock knock, not much more than that.

For instance, the double knock I heard could have been done by two of those four dozen or so people making the first knock, each holding back the force of his knock to about a twenty-fourth of a normal knock, which could be possible, or something close to it, if well worked out beforehand. Followed right away by each of the second two dozen or so people knocking his one twenty-fourth of a knock. With perhaps both these knocks having to be made up in force by one to a few knockers for what some to many of the knockers lacked. Or even reduced in force by some to many or almost all the knockers if one to a few of the other knockers couldn’t learn to hold the force of their knock to even a half. But in the end the sound coming from these five to six piles and the dozen or so people hanging from the ceiling and fastened to the ceiling and walls would be that of one person’s normal double knock on my door.

Or all five or six piles around the door could have knocked the first knock, each person in each pile holding back the force of his knock to the fraction of the fifth or sixth of the total single knock allowed each pile if they want to make it sound like the first half of one person’s normal double knock. And then two persons from the same or different piles could have knocked on the door at the same time for the second knock, each holding back the force of his knock to about half a normal knock.

Or the double knock I heard could have been done by one person suspended above the door while the forty-seven or so other people looked on. Or even while all forty-seven or so slept, or half of them slept and a quarter of them looked on and the fourth quarter of them had their hands raised in knocking position in front of the door but didn’t knock.

Or one person fastened to the wall above the door could have knocked once, followed by a person at the bottom or top or squeezed somewhere inside one of the piles knocking the second knock with one or both hands, and if the latter, holding back the force of each hand’s knock to about half.

Or out of the four dozen or so people it could have been ten who knocked at the same time for the first knock. Five of them from one to five piles knocking with both hands and four of them hanging from the ceiling knocking with one hand and another person fastened to the wall knocking with one hand or even a foot. Though each person holding back the force of each hand’s knock or that knock from a foot to about a fifteenth of a normal knock, or as near as possible to that. And for the second knock, a dozen or so people from any of the positions around the door could have knocked with both hands, or if they were fastened to the wall or hanging from the ceiling, with both feet or even a foot and hand. But each person holding back the force of each hand’s knock or knocks from his feet or knock from his foot to make the sound of about a twenty-fourth of a hand’s normal knock, which even with a lot of practice would only be barely possible. Or at least holding back the total force of both knocking hands or feet or hand and foot to make the sound of about a twelfth of a hand’s normal knock, with perhaps one hand or foot making up or holding back a little to a lot for what the other hand or foot of the same body lacked in force or gave too hard.

Or the double knock I heard could have been made by three hanging and fastened people while the forty-five or so other people looked on or slept or spoke with their hands or silently with their lips or had their hands or feet in position to knock. But each of these three people knocking two hands and a foot against the door or two feet and a hand against the door, and all knocking at once and each of them holding back the force of his knock from his hands and foot or feet and hand to about a ninth of the sound of a hand’s normal knock. Or at least holding back the total force of each of his triple knocks to about a third of the sound of a hand’s normal knock.

It’s also possible that someone, hanging freely by the chest in a sling or fastened to the wall at the waist with his limbs free, could have knocked that double knock, or the first or second part of it, with both hands and feet at the same time. Or even with his hands and a foot and head or feet and a hand and head, though holding back the force of each of whatever four of these five body parts he’s using to make the sound of about a quarter of a hand’s normal knock. Or at least controlling the total force of the knock from four of these five body parts, to make the sound of a hand’s normal knock.

I don’t think it’s possible that anyone could have been that coordinated to knock four of these five body parts on my door at the same time and still have been able to not only hold back the force of each of these four parts or control the total force of their combined knock, but to also make up or reduce in force for what a few to the rest of the people knocking might have lacked or given too hard in their share of the knock.

The knocking of more than any four body parts from the same person at the same time I don’t think anyone could have done and still have been able to control even the total force of the knock from these five body parts.

More than four dozen or so people I don’t think could have fit around my door to knock on it. Unless an additional two dozen or so people had stood on ladders and chairs behind the people lying in piles and used long sticks which, when struck against the door, made the sound of a hand knocking. But these two dozen or so people would probably have only been able to reach the door with their sticks if the people hanging from the ceiling in front of the door had raised themselves to make room for the sticks. But not raised themselves that high where they now couldn’t reach the door with any of their body parts including the elbow, buttock, shoulder or knee, or where they also interfered in the knocking movements of the people fastened to the wall. Though some of these hanging people could still have been able to knock on the door, even if they had raised their bodies out of reach of it, if they had used long sticks. And those fastened people now blocked from the door by the hanging people, who had raised themselves in front of them to make room for the sticks of the people on ladders and chairs, could still have knocked on the door if they had used curved sticks.

So it’s possible that the first part of the double knock I heard could have been made by all two dozen or so people on ladders and chairs, each holding back the force of his stick to make the sound of about a twenty-fourth of a hand’s normal knock, or as close as possible to that. Followed right after by a few people on ladders and chairs knocking one or two sticks apiece on the door, along with several hanging and fastened people and some from the piles knocking from one to three of their body parts on the door. But each person in this second knock holding back the force of whatever body part and stick or other thing he might be using to the closest possible fraction of the total number of body parts and things being knocked on the door at the same time to make the sound of a single hand knock. Or at least holding back the total force of the number of things he’s using to make the sound of about an eighth or twelfth of a normal knock, if let’s say he’s knocking two or three things on the door at once and the total number of things being knocked on the door at the same time is twenty-four. And with some to many of the knockers making up or reducing in force for what from many to one of the other knockers might lack or give too hard. But no more than twenty-four body parts and things being used at the same time for that first or second knock, as I don’t think anyone, if he’s only knocking with one body part or thing, can control the force of his knock to make the sound of more than around a twenty-fourth of a hand’s normal knock. And no more than three things being used by a person for either knock, as I don’t think anyone can control the sound of the knocking of more than three things at once if more than one person is knocking at the same time. And whichever way around each of these six dozen or so people wanted to knock on my door. Or someone in or out of the hallway wanted them to knock on my door. Or which the majority or even the entire six dozen or so people had chosen by voice vote or ballot before they came into the hallway, or by some kind of silent signal once they got into the hallway. Or their previously selected representatives had chosen for them by voice vote or ballot outside the hallway, or by signaling or ballot inside the hallway once these six dozen or so people were set up in their positions around my door. Or some person or couple or group had told them outside the hallway some way, or told them inside the hallway in some silent way, not only how to knock, and how many times to knock, and the reason or reasons why they should knock, but even the reason or reasons why they had to practice and where they had to practice to knock. But in the end, the sound from all the body parts and things being used by all the people who knocked on my door would be that of two knocks in quick succession by the hand of one person: knock knock, like that.

I open my book. I begin reading from the beginning of the sentence I was in the middle of before when I first heard that double knock. I finish the sentence and am reading the next sentence when someone, male or female, or maybe two males or two females or one and one, or even a trained dog or either a male or female and a trained dog, or either one male or female and two trained dogs, or up to around six dozen or so people and trained dogs of the same sex or evenly or unevenly mixed, knocks two knocks in quick succession on my door.

I put the book down. First I put a bookmark on the page I was reading and shut the book. But first I uncrossed my legs and continued to hold the book open and listened for any sound or voice or bark or sniff behind the door or human or animal scratching or more knocks on my door. Then I shut the book and said “Yes?” No one answered. Then I stood up and put the book on the chair and listened. No sound. Now I go to the door and say “Who’s there?”

THE NEIGHBORS

Someone rang his bell several times, then said “Mr. Samuels — you in? It’s only me, so open up.”

Bert closed his book, leaned forward in his chair to listen.

“Mr. Samuels, I’m telling you, it’s not the city or real estate people; it’s Anna Kornman.”

He walked quietly to the door and put his ear against it. He of course knew who it was, her ugly singsong voice as recognizable as any he’d ever known. It’s just he thought she might be with those people she mentioned.

“What do you want?” he said. “And who is it I hear out there with you?”

“Hear? What do you hear? There’s nobody with me. And I got some real important news to tell you.”

“So tell.”

“Not from behind the door I won’t. What do you take me for?”

“Sure the police aren’t waiting with you to grab me?”

“Grab you? This is America, isn’t it, and you’ve done nothing wrong that I know.”

“Okay.” He opened the door, looked both ways in the hallway as Anna came in, then slammed it shut and locked it. Some plaster above the door fell and splattered when it hit the floor.

“Excuse me,” he said, looking at the crumbling plaster and peeling paint hanging from the ceiling.

“Excuse you I should say. You think I was the Gestapo or something the way you act.”

“Just being cautious.”

“Yeah, but to snoop around and slam the door like that I never saw.”

“I know what I’m doing. As for the cheap paint job, that’s just another thing you got to expect from piker landlords.”

He bent down, wriggled his shoulders till he heard the bones crack, and shoveled the plaster pieces into his palm and dumped them into an empty ashtray on an end table. “So out with it,” he said, brushing his hands. “What’s this urgent thing you got to tell me, because I’m very busy.”

“You sit around here doing nothing all day and you call that busy? Remember, I made this trip for your benefit.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Now what is it?”

“Nothing that important, seeing your attitude.”

“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t’ve come. I know you, Anna.”

“I could’ve come just to talk to someone, and given that ‘important’ business just to get in here. It gets lonely, only you and me in this empty old building.”

“Anytime you want to move, just say the word. The new owners will gladly hand you a relocation fee of a couple of thousand easy and cart you out like you was a princess.”

“All I said was this place still unnerves me some — especially the painted X’s on all the windows of the tenants who left. A shiver, a real shiver I get when I see them.” She clenched her teeth and wrapped her arms around her chest, as if she were standing ankle-deep in snow. She sat, banged a cigarette pack against the arm of the couch, and pulled out the cigarette that popped up and put it between her lips. She fingered through her pockets, came up empty-handed, and looked at Bert searchingly.

“Excuse me?” he said.

She pointed to the end of her cigarette and mumbled something through it.

“I don’t smoke, but thank you.”

She took the cigarette from her mouth. “My God, you think living in the same building with you thirty years I know you don’t smoke? But matches you got for your stove, right?”

He handed her the box of matches he kept in the side pocket of the coat he had on. Then he looked away, not wanting to catch another glimpse of her cynical, grinning face.

“So you don’t smoke, eh? Well, it’s nice you at least got ashtrays.” She struck a match against the flint on the box. With one eye closed and the other squinting down her nose at the flame she held to the cigarette, she drew in a satisfying first drag. Three puffs quickly followed, leaving her surrounded by smoke.

He waved his hand before him, though he stood about ten feet from the nearest arm of the smoke. “Now what is it you came to say?”

“Give up you don’t,” she said, laughing large holes through the smoke in front of her.

He just stared at her.

“First of all, those real estate people were here to see me yesterday,”

“I know that.”

“So, to come I didn’t have to at all, I see.”

“Did I say I knew exactly why they came?”

“Yeah, but everything I say you seem to know beforehand. Who knows; maybe it’s not that important to tell anyway,” and went to the window.

What she probably means is she had nothing new to tell him, he thought. Because for one thing, she knows he misses nothing going on in the building. Especially now, with everything being so quiet — even the radiators stopped knocking two weeks ago when the landlords were allowed to turn the heat off to freeze them out — the slightest noise outside moves him to the window. Few days back it was a bunch of cats fighting. Later that day, drunks arguing over a bottle of booze as they sat on the entrance steps. Two mornings ago it was a policeman, bundled up in earmuffs and a nicely tailored blue coat, running his nightstick against the courtyard’s brick wall and looking for vagrants who might have moved into the unoccupied apartments for the night. And yesterday, the three men she referred to, representatives of some big outfit that had bought the building from Mr. Shine and wanted Anna and himself, now the only holdouts, to leave so they could raze the building and put up a seventeen-story luxury apartment house in its place. It was curious why they also hadn’t come to see him as they’d been doing regularly the past few months. Probably they gave up with his shrewd bulldog-like stand and were now preparing their final, higher offer. He smiled, just at the possibility, but hoped they’d hurry up with it before he came down with pneumonia and was taken away in an ambulance and forced to give up the apartment because of his absence.

Anna was standing with her back to him by the window, blowing smoke rings against the pane. Just look at her, he thought. Looking like the same skinny wreck she was thirty years ago, even though she’s wearing several sweaters and God knows what else under her housecoat. What does she think she’s staring at anyway? Maybe a few months ago — when they first started to hold out — there were still a few old people sunning themselves in their beach chairs along the courtyard walls, but now? — nothing. It was so like them to take the first offer and run out of here, when if they’d listened to him they could have, all sticking together, milked the landlord for way more. Already, just Anna and him, he’s worked the real estate men up to two thousand, and before he’s through he figures they should get four thousand each, plus the maybe five hundred extra for moving costs. After all, their reasons for staying are as valid as the company’s for tearing the place down, for the building’s still in good condition and was getting decent rents. And then, what are they planning to put up anyway? — for he’s seen the architect’s drawing of the apartment house nailed to the empty brownstone next to his. A nice drawing they’ll be putting up, with plenty of trees and pretty shrubbery around it, but an apartment house it isn’t. Someone’s got to be blind not to see that this cheap white-tiled tombstone will be completely run-down and a hazard to its tenants in five years, but just let him try and argue this point, let him try and tell the city what he knows and has seen in other similar new buildings, and they’ll call him a crank and a crackpot like they do to all the poor people his age and maybe find some way of stopping his Social Security checks and locking him up for good. So he keeps quiet on this, and that he’s holding out for all he can squeeze out of them. Instead, he argues he’s grown very attached to the apartment — why not, after more than half a lifetime here? — and he could never get another like it in the city for the same rent, and there’s also his civic rights, so no amount of money or pressure will ever force him to leave.

Anna was back on the couch. Down to her last drag, she blew the smoke through her nostrils and snuffed out the cigarette in a tea-stained saucer she’d been using as an ashtray.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but you couldn’t have used the ashtray? I eat off that plate.”

“It has that paint and plaster in it and I thought it’d burn up.”

Oh God, he thought, how this skinny, frightened-looking woman has stayed in the building and resisted the real estate people so long remains a mystery to him. She’s obviously cleverer and stronger than she makes herself out to be, and is probably out to profit from her stay as much as he is, but he still has to hand it to her for sticking with it-though for the life of him he’ll never tell it to her face.

“You’re so quiet,” Anna said. “Anything wrong?”

“No.”

“You think they’ll come back today? They’re getting pretty persistent.”

“Depends what you told them yesterday.”

“You ask like I caved in to them.”

“Just curious, that’s all.”

“Well, for one thing, I told them nothing. They just talked, and I’ll tell you something: they were very gracious, very gracious indeed. Hats off on their laps and everything — you should’ve seen them.”

“Nice clothes I know they got.”

“Dandies like that in my living room, I ask you. Even being so polite to ask me if I’d mind them smoking.”

“So what happened after?”

“‘Mind?’ I told them. ‘I should mind? Smoke all you like,’ I said.

‘Me, I also smoke.’”

“I meant, what they say about getting you out?”

“You know: the same old story. If I leave they’ll give me bonuses to knock my eyes out.”

“What are they giving now?” he said.

“I didn’t ask. But they mentioned fifteen hundred, maybe sixteen. They weren’t too definite.”

“Four thousand they’ll give at least — but what’s the difference? To me it wouldn’t matter what they offered.”

“Same thing I told them. I like the Upper East Side, I said, and a place like this I couldn’t get nowhere else, so horses it’ll take to move me to Brooklyn.”

“What they say to that?”

“First, that I’m your stooge — and which I’ll tell you I didn’t like hearing such a lie. And two, that if they wanted, they could have the city down our necks before we know it — and with no promises they’ll then give us what they originally offered. They said the city’s very sympathetic to them, with half their planned apartment house already half-rented out.”

This I can believe,” he said. “All the city wants is property taxes — that’s all; no concern for the little man — and bigger and more classy the building, more the tax.”

She nodded, got another cigarette and tamped it on her thigh. Bert stood up after she lit it, and walked to the window. He hated the stench of tobacco, especially cigarettes. She waved a cloud of smoke away from her, and said “Truthfully, Mr. Samuels, how long you think we can hold out like this?”

“I don’t know. Indefinitely, maybe.”

“I don’t think I can do it that long. It’s almost December now, and soon it’ll be much too cold with no radiators going, five sweaters and heaters or not.”

“So give up then — go!”

“No need to get so excited.”

“But it’s obvious you’re caving-in to them. So just do it and be done with it I say.”

“Be done with what? Please, be reasonable.”

“So don’t then,” his voice toning down.

“I’m not. For look, some rights I got also, no? Throw me out into the street, who do they think they are? Build for us cheap you think they could do instead.”

Rights my eye, he said to himself. But ask her to give the real reason she’s holding out, and she’ll say with this big innocent look “Me? I should do that?” If she’d only admit the truth once, he’d probably tell her why he’s staying too. It’d be good getting it off his chest to someone, and then united in purpose like that they might be able to drive the relocation fee up to five thousand.

“Did they say anything more about me?” he said.

“Some. They said ‘You know him well?’ and I said ‘Well? For thirty years I know him, and very well. A nice man, quiet and friendly’—that’s what I told them.”

Thanks.”

“It’s the truth. Then they went on about how you’re all the trouble. That they think you’re crazy and for my own safety I shouldn’t be in the same building alone with you, and how they can’t even speak to you anymore, since the last time when you threw them out. Crazy, I said, you’re not. And for you to throw them out I couldn’t understand.”

They accused me of holding out only for the money, which you can understand made me upset.”

That they told me also. Something like you’ll get no more than you deserve and what’s the going rate. What did they offer you if I can ask?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“How much, though?”

“Same two thousand they offered two weeks ago.”

“You’ve been offered two thousand? Then I’m going to get two thousand. Moving costs excluded?”

“Maximum of three hundred,” he said, “but if it costs less I can’t keep the balance.”

“Keep? Just watch me try to move for three hundred with all my furniture. ‘Brooklyn,’ I’ll tell the mover, and he’ll laugh in my face.”

They say anything else about me?”

That was it. It was sort of like you wasn’t living here in a way.”

“Not living here? Oh, I’m living here, and they know it full well. Excuse me a second.”

He strutted into the kitchen, put water in the kettle, and set it on the stove. Gas and electricity and water they still had, thank God, he thought, but only because he was smart enough to contact, after the city didn’t get back to him, a tenants’ protective organization, saying how he thought his unhumanlike landlords were about to shut everything off.

“You know what especially made me uneasy,” she said when he got back, “was the way they blamed me for pushing back the demolition date. I mean me, I should do that?”

“Doesn’t bother me none.” He put his cup of tea on a side table and sat down.

“Yeah, but yak-yak-yak they went on about the extra workers’ costs and that from their own pockets it’s coming.”

“Don’t believe a word they say.”

“So from whose pockets does it come from — yours? Mine? I don’t like it.”

“Forget it. Just tell yourself you’re right.”

“I tell, I tell, but what good’s it do if my heart still goes out to them some? I know deep down they’re wrong, but like my late husband I always believed business is business, you know? And here they already paid for the property — two brownstones and this building, no less — which must’ve cost them plenty the way this neighborhood’s changing.”

“Quadruple they’ll get back, those cutthroats.”

“Maybe. But in a way they’ve acted all right with us and been fair to the other tenants here. I mean, give in a little, Mr. Samuels.”

“Give in, you ask me?” his voice rising.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You have the nerve to ask me to give in?”

“I told you that’s not what I meant.”

“Listen, I know exactly what you meant. So if you’re going to be talking like that, better you do it somewhere else.”

“And somewhere else I will.” She stood up, smashed her lit cigarette into the saucer and started for the door.

“You should get your head examined if you think I’ll stay in this room another minute with you.”

“Now what I say?” he said, thinking maybe he was too rough with her this time. He reached for her arm, but she pulled away and grabbed the doorknob.

“Don’t give me that nicey-nice what’d-I-do? business again — please. For plenty I’ve taken from you — everything from watching you not offer me tea to your hurling insults.”

“So I got a little temperamental. So everyone does once in a while.”

“Crazy’s more like it. And when you act like this, I don’t know what else you might try, like those men said.” He stared at her a few seconds and began laughing.

“Look, you got your hand on the doorknob, so use it. Then take all you can steal from the landlords and get the hell out of here.”

She muttered something under her breath and tried opening the door. As he continued to laugh at her, she kicked the bottom of the door, unlocked it, and charged out.

She did just what he expected her to: slammed her front door shut a good five minutes after she’d slammed his, walked noisily through, the hallway and down the stairs. He went to his bedroom window, waiting for her to storm out of the lobby, through the courtyard, and across the street, heading, he was sure, to the drugstore phonebooth a block away. He raised two Venetian blind slats and peered through them just as she came out of the lobby and glanced up at his living room window. She was carrying her mesh shopping bag, a bag of garbage and a bundle of old newspapers — but she wasn’t fooling anyone. First thing she’ll do when she’s away from the building is get rid of all that bogus junk and hustle to the phone to haggle with one of the realty people. Later, when they can’t agree to what she’ll call her final offer — cunningly made much higher than what she expects to get — she’ll tell them to come to her home, where they’ll settle, her knowing all the time the advantage of bargaining in the very apartment they so desperately want.

He stood at the window till she returned, a celery stalk and packaged bread sticking out of the mesh bag filled with groceries. A costly trick to fool him, he thought, and look how it worked. He waited behind his door, listening till she was upstairs and in her apartment, and then went back to the window. He stayed there for more than two hours — even moved a chair to it so he could sit on it — and was surprised, by the time his dinner hour rolled around, that the realty people hadn’t shown up.

Four days later Bert saw the three men enter the building, and then heard them climb the cracked green linoleum steps leading to the third floor. He stood by the door as they walked down the hallway, one of them, apparently wearing metal plates on the heels of his shoes, clicking along like a tap dancer. They stopped at Anna’s door and rang the bell. She let them in, and in an hour showed them out. Thank you very much, and good day, gentlemen,” she said, and one of the men: “And thank you for tea, Mrs. Kornman.” Bert expected the men to ring his bell next, since after disposing of her they’d naturally think he could be had for the same price that very afternoon, but they went down the stairs.

He rushed to the window and opened it a little, hoping to catch something in their expressions and movements and what they were saying that’d give him an idea of how they accepted her last offer, which would help him decide what his should be before they ultimately forced him to leave. All he saw were their secret, lineless faces — no smiles or looks of disappointment — and the creased tops of two of the men’s hats, and the third man’s black slicked-down skull, since this fellow was holding his fedora and combing the hair above his ears. All three talked softly, moved swiftly, and carried briefcases under their arms. Then the hatless man stopped as the other two walked on, slid the comb into his coat’s breast pocket, carefully placed the hat on his head, and grabbed the briefcase by its collapsible handle, letting it dangle at his side. He ran to catch up with the others, who were waiting at the curb, and all three walked silently side by side, crossed the street, and headed downtown.

Bert waited for Anna to knock on his door — certain she was the type who’d want to boast to him about how much she’d shrewdly extorted from the company. She never came, so three hours later, after he tramped up the second flight of stairs with the evening newspaper, thinking she’d hear him and throw open her door, he rang her bell.

“Yes? Who is it?” after he rang a fourth time.

“Bert,” he said, thinking, Who else could it be, you liar.

“Who, please?”

“Bert Samuels, from the third floor. Remember me?”

“Just a moment.”

“Just a moment?” he said under his breath. Why, she should be hung upside down by her toes, the ugly witch, he thought, picturing her waiting behind the door, smoking a cigarette or filing her nails.

She opened the door, seeming to withdraw her halting smile just as soon as she gave it. “Would you like to come in? Though why I should be so polite to you after your treatment of me the other day, I don’t know.”

“I’m fine here, thanks.”

“Have it your own way.” She flipped an unlit cigarette out of her hand, almost like a magician pulling something from his sleeve, stuck it between her lips, and tried to light it with a silver table lighter.

“Needs fuel.” She put the lighter and cigarette on a little table by the door and searched her housecoat for matches.

Bert forced a smile. “Say, I saw those fellows leave before and wanted to know if they had anything new to say about me.”

“You? Nothing much. Why should they?”

“Oh, stop it. They must’ve said something.”

“Only about me. They offered — you know: like they always offer.”

“So come on; what happened?”

“What happened, what?”

The money, the money! How much you finally take to leave?”

“You think I took? Is that what you’re driving at all this time?”

“Look, I’m nobody’s fool. All along I knew you were holding out and using me just to get more cash from them.”

“What, are you altogether insane?”

“Goddamnit, I saw you myself running to the drugstore to phone them. Thursday — right? Yeah, Thursday late.”

“To dump garbage and for my groceries I went for Thursday. Always Thursday the groceries. Friday’s too crowded, and Saturday’s my holy day. I eat and throw my trash out, you know, no matter how some people live.”

“Anna, I know what you did, so why bother arguing? I didn’t come here for that.”

Then what is it you came for? The first day since last week I speak to them is today—today; but did I expect them? I didn’t. They drop in from nowhere, no letter, just unannounced, and now I think I’m glad they did.”

“Glady for the money you mean.”

“Money? What’s money to me? Enough I got without theirs. To you, maybe — to a stingy hoarding old man like yourself it’s the world — but to me? Pride’s more important. It’s living here, you, always insulting me like I’m an animal, that’ll make up my mind fast. So I’ll tell you, Mr. Samuels, before I only got excited and threatened to go, but now, don’t tempt me into really going.”

“So you’re leaving this week then, right?”

“I wasn’t leaving no time till you helped me decide this very moment. Now I’m going to call them tomorrow morning and say that anything they want to give me is good enough just as long as they take me away from this madhouse.”

He didn’t believe a word she said. All he wanted was for her to admit she sold out — just that simple satisfaction — and also to know what amount she sold out for, since besides using the figure for his own bargaining purposes it’ll give him an opportunity to tell her what a monkey they made out of her. But she’d turned around, ignoring him and appearing to be deep in thought, and then said “You’ll have to excuse me, but I got a lot of packing to do and might as well start it now, so if that’s all you got to say, goodbye.”

There are some other things I’d like to speak over with you before you go, would you mind?”

“I don’t know what other things, but if you do come in, please leave the front door open.” She motioned him inside, and after flitting around the apartment a few minutes, opening closets and drawers and pushing a couple of empty boxes to the middle of the floor, she started refolding the sweaters that had been neatly crammed inside the television console cabinet.

“Go right ahead,” he said. “Just don’t even think I’m here. Mind if I sit?” She nodded, and he sat down and watched her build a pile of sweaters two feet high. She went into the bedroom, came out in a dress a minute later with the three sweaters she’d had on underneath her housecoat, and added these to the pile.

“When they were here they said I could have a one-bedroom in Queens, not Brooklyn,” she said, “—a building they got a big interest in and which they said is newer and in better condition than this one, though not so near a market. I think I’ll take it anyway — temporarily. I mean with my legs acting up again it’d be a nuisance looking for a Manhattan place just now.”

“Sure, sure.”

“You still don’t believe me? Mrs. Scarlisi — you remember, nobody I was friendly with, but from apartment 45? She’s there, and they told me she likes the neighborhood very much except for that market problem. So she takes the bus when she doesn’t want to walk, and though they don’t come regularly like our buses, they’re regular enough. I think I’ll call her later.”

“Just stop with the talk and tell me how much you got, all right?”

“Got I didn’t get. All they said was it’d be a tidy sum if I decided to leave.”

“How much a tidy sum?”

“Five hundred for the moving costs, and I can keep the balance what I don’t pay the movers, fair?”

“Sounds fair. But for the last holdouts they got good reasons for being big sports.”

“Didn’t I tell you last week they were fair people?” She went into the bedroom and returned with a suitcase and some dresses. She started folding the dresses and putting them in the suitcase.

“When did they say they’d be back to see me?”

“Like I said before, they really didn’t mention you.”

“Not even if I was also ready to move or not?”

“Not even if you was still living here.” She clasped the suitcase shut.

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Anyway,” just as she was about to protest, “what’d you finally get for signing away your rights to this apartment?”

“For the last time: I signed nothing; they only offered.”

“All right, all right, but try telling me they gave you more than two thousand.”

They offered a lot more.”

“Twenty-five hundred?”

“A little less.”

“A little less? You took less?”

“Less they said they’ll offer than twenty-five hundred, but it’s still more than I ever thought they’d offer, so for me it’s plenty.”

“Because you don’t know better, that’s why. And then taking so little you ruined my chances of getting much more. For what you get: twenty-two hundred? Maybe twenty-three? Why, four thousand clear before the five hundred moving costs you should’ve got, or a stupid fool like yourself I’ve never seen before. Goddamn you,” he yelled, “you screwed up everything, and he kicked a hole in one of the empty boxes and kept kicking the box till it was across the room. He walked in circles around the room, slapping his forehead and wringing his hands and saying “What could’ve possessed me? Why’d I ever trust her? What am I to do now? All this time here for practically peanuts, peanuts,” and flopped down in the easy chair and pounded the chair arms with his fists and shouted toward the ceiling “Moron, absolute moron, I’d like to tear off her rotten hide,” and shook his head back and forth several times and then leaned forward with his hands in his hair and shut his eyes.

When he’d simmered down a couple of minutes later, she was no longer in the room, her suitcase was gone, and the bedroom door was closed. She has to be in there, he thought, because if she went past him out the apartment he thinks he would have heard her. He sat up and calmly waited for her to come out. If it takes till tomorrow, he’ll wait, he thought, though before that he’ll shut the front door. He’s going to apologize, say something about being unable to explain exactly what took hold of him just now, but he’s definitely sorry, as sorry as a man could be. After rewinning her confidence, or a good part of it, he’ll very politely ask her to hold out against the landlords with him for just two weeks more. She didn’t sign anything, he’ll say, so in that regard they’re in luck. After two weeks, they’ll each be a cinch to get four thousand clear and the five hundred moving costs they promised her, plus a freshly painted three-room West Side apartment, a new demand he just came up with — so the hell with the long bus rides in Queens; there’ll be good markets and services right up her block. After all, he’ll point out, doesn’t she owe him at least this extra stay in the building, for in a way it’s actually she who made him so upset before when she misled him into believing she signed the relocation agreement. And then who knows: the realty people might get so panicky after two weeks that the two of them could even pull in more than four thousand — maybe even five thousand, five and a half. The last figures will knock her right off her feet, he thought, and be what he needs to have her go in with him.

The bedroom door shot open, just as he was going over the pitch he’d give her. Anna, lugging the suitcase and dressed in a moth-eaten Persian lamb coat with this veiled black hat pushed down on her forehead and hiding most of her face, hurried by him before he could say anything but “Wait.” She went out the front door, down the hall, and hobbled down the stairs. He ran to his living room window, raised the blinds all the way and saw her trudging lopsidedly through the courtyard. This time she didn’t look up at his window, though he had opened it so he could stick his head out and was prepared to smile and wave and even plead with her.