Time to Go

Time to Go

To my sisters Pat and Bunny and my brother Richard

I

The Bench

Each year when spring comes I do a lot of handyman work for the row houses that line Wilmin Park Drive on the 2900 to 3300 blocks. Across from the 3100 block is a park bench and this spring for about a month on the nice days I see this man push a stroller with a baby in it to the bench and stay there for an hour or two around the same time every afternoon. Sometimes he reads for a few minutes or eats an orange while the baby sleeps or is quiet, but usually he has the baby in his lap or stands it up on his thighs or holds it in the air or feeds it some bottle or baby-jar food or keeps it sitting up on the bench but always with a wide bonnet on or its face out of the sun and he kisses and hugs it a lot and smiles and talks to it a lot too, words I never hear, this baby of around six to nine months. I’ve never seen a man so affectionate to his baby, maybe not even a woman to her baby too. I mention him a few times to some of the people I work for. Several times when he looks our way as we talk or just my way if I’m working alone then and sees us or me looking at him, he waves and we wave back or I wave back alone and then he goes back to being so affectionate to the baby.

Then one day he doesn’t show up, but a nice sunny day, one I’d think he would. And not the next nice day and the next nice day after that. When he doesn’t show up on the nice days for a couple of weeks, I mention it to the homeowner I’m working for that day. “Remember that man with the baby on the bench — he was pretty tall and had kind of sandy hair — but there almost every afternoon or at least every afternoon when I worked around here?” and she says “Most certainly do. Hasn’t been around for awhile, I know. Something terrible — almost unspeakable — happened.” I say “Yes?” and she says “He got mad one day, but I mean stark raving crazy mad — I got this from a woman I know who lives on his street and knew he spent some time on our park bench almost every day. Anyway, he got so mad that he shot his wife — because she made him mad or as a result of his getting that way — and killed her instantly — in their home — and is now up for trial and the baby’s with his wife’s sister. I didn’t read anything about it in the papers, but this woman friend said it absolutely happened and that everything bad like that that happens in the city doesn’t appear in the news. I thought I spoke about this with you.”

“No, really — I’m shocked and surprised. I didn’t think he’d do anything like that to his worst possible enemy. He had so much to lose, with that baby, and seemed so peaceful and affectionate; and with those spontaneous waves of his, to other people and myself, very nice.”

A week later, the man I’m trimming bushes for says “Howard, you recall that strange man who used to spend the end of almost every pleasant afternoon on the bench there?” and I say “Yes sir. I heard something awful happened to his wife and child.” “Something awful indeed. For a few weeks I was wondering why we didn’t see him anymore — he had practically become a fixture on the drive. Then — I’m talking to Bill Schechter”—someone else I work for—”but about something entirely different, when he says that the man’s wife suddenly got very sick and died in less than a month. And the man got so upset over it that he couldn’t function normally and had to be institutionalized, and the baby, until the authorities can find a relative of the husband and wife willing to take her in, had to be placed in a temporary home.”

“No,” I say, “that’s terrible. And the baby’s a girl? I heard something much different happened, but both things couldn’t be worse.” “What did you hear?” he says and I tell him and he says “Oh no, Bill Schechter’s brother lives two doors away from the family and that’s what Bill’s brother said.”

About a month later in the supermarket I bump into one of the people I work for on Wilmin Park Drive. We start talking general-like and then she says “By the way, do you remember the young very neatly dressed man on the bench right across from my house who used to wave to us from time to time?” and I say “The one who was so nice to his baby — kissing and hugging her all the time? I heard.” “Isn’t it something? Because rarely do you see a man so openly adoring and attentive to his child, so you can just imagine how he, and of course his wife, felt after. And at the baby’s funeral — my God.” I say “What funeral? — I didn’t hear about any baby dying,” and she says “Oh yes. Bertha Arnold saw it in the Evening Sun and over TV. She put two and two together quite easily, she said, when she saw the photo of the man and read their address and the baby’s age. He and his wife and their baby were in a rowboat they rented at Loch Maiden and the man’s wife stood up, it was never said for what, and the boat capsized and the baby drowned.”

I don’t tell her what I’ve already heard about the man and his family, just look very shocked when I’m really not feeling that way because I’m wondering more what really did happen.

Just a few days later I’m doing work for a couple who live a block down from Mrs. Larkin who told me the drowning story. I ask if they’ve heard about the man who used to bring his baby to the park every spring day for about a month and who we talked about a couple of times and Mr. Radderman says “We thought you out of anyone would have known what happened to them because you get around so much,” and I say “No sir, nothing, though I am curious, because when you see a man and his baby almost the exact same time almost every day and especially when he—” “His wife left him for a friend of his and took the baby with her. They lived just a short walk from him and after he went over there a few times to take the baby back, they took off and disappeared. We heard it from our top-floor tenant, who’s a graduate student in the same department the man teaches in. He knew him and in fact from his window he used to see him sit on the bench with Olivia, the baby daughter, on some of those days. It’s so sad. The professor must be heartbroken — not for his wife so much but the baby. Because in your life, Howard, have you ever seen a man so attached to his child? Sometimes, I was telling Mrs. Radderman, but just a silly joke, of course, it looked almost incestuous.” I say “Never,” and go back to fixing their front steps, looking out to talk to their tenant who might show, but he never does.

Two months later when I’m painting the porch deck of Mrs. Cottrell, who lives a few doors down from Mrs. Larkin, I see what I’m sure is the same man on the bench. He’s alone, no stroller, a book and paper bag next to him on the bench, staring at the ground for about an hour or so or maybe asleep, because either his eyes are naturally very narrow — I forget from two months ago — or closed. When he gets up and from the park side of the street passes the house, I want to wave to him but he doesn’t look my way.

He’s there the same time the next day, which is around the same time he used to come with his daughter. Now the sun’s higher up and much stronger than it was in the spring, which could be why he wears one of those white sailing caps today, not realizing yesterday he had to. But everything else is much the same as it was when he came here in the spring: has a book, though this time he reads it for an hour, which I don’t ever remember him doing then, and takes an orange out of a paper bag instead of the tote bag he had attached to the stroller. He looks up at the sun and a passing plane a few times, but mostly just stares at the trees some distance across from him and occasionally at the cars and joggers and the few people who stop in the park to let their dogs loose.

He comes back the next day. I’m at the top of a ladder against Mrs. Cottrell’s house, trimming the second — floor window, frames. Suddenly she’s looking out the bedroom window I’m working on, checking to see how good a job I’m doing, I suppose, or just making sure I’m working at what she’s paying me for. I nod to her, she starts speaking to me while pointing to the park, then she mouths “Wait,” since I can’t hear her through the closed window, and leaves the room. Next she’s standing at the foot of the ladder and says “Howard, excuse me for interrupting you, but what I was saying upstairs was isn’t that man on the park bench the one who used to come months ago with his baby every day — the baby who I was told was in a car crash with the man’s wife where they both died?” I say “Is that what they say happened, Mrs. C.? Because I’ve heard a half-dozen stories about what happened to him and his family,” and she says “What else did you hear?” and I say “Too many to remember, but all different,” and she says “Oh, if I only had the nerve to ask him. Not pointblank but around it. But pity no matter what it was, don’t you think? Of course you do, because he loved that little darling. That was obvious in every one of his gestures.”

She goes into the house, I go back to my trimming, but by now I’m so curious about what really did happen if anything that when the man gets off the bench and starts for the street in my direction, I put down my brush and climb down the ladder, not so much to ask him anything directly but just to get a sense of what happened by what he might say in passing or the way he looks. I take off my gloves as if I’m done for the time being, scratch some dried paint off my arms, and as he’s passing the house I look up and say “Hey there, how’s it going?”

“Can’t complain,” he says, still walking.

“And how’s that lovely little daughter of yours?” and he stops and says “What lovely little daughter?”

“Well, I don’t know if it was a daughter or son — all I’m saying is the baby you used to come to that park bench with almost every nice spring day for a month. We all admired you for the way—”

“I never had a baby,” and I say “You didn’t?”

“Never even came close to having one. I was engaged once — a century ago — but we didn’t get married and certainly never had a child.”

“This is really funny, but you didn’t used to bring a little baby there — no more than six to nine months old at the time? In a yellow snowsuit she had when it was still a bit cool out? And then in just pants”—he’s shaking his head—”or some outfit I don’t know what it’s called, where the feet don’t come out of it and it zippers all the way up, and a sun bonnet and white sweater and maybe a little blanket?”

“Never.”

“In a stroller. Rolled her there, stayed for about two hours, usually put her back in it when you were leaving or sometimes carried her while you pushed the stroller? I mean, I never saw anyone who looked after and was so affectionate to his baby, that’s the only reason I’m mentioning it.”

“Honestly, you have the wrong man.”

“I’d almost swear it was you. I’m not saying it was now, but even Mrs. C. who owns this house and who just saw you would swear, I’m almost sure, that that man with the baby was you.”

“It sounds very nice. In ways I wish I were him. But I never had a child. And since I don’t plan to get married, I doubt I ever will have one, I’m afraid. Nice talking to you.”

I look for him the next day and then a couple of days the next week when I’m working on the drive, and then for the one or two days a week I work around the drive till the fall, but I don’t see him again. I suppose I can get the real story somehow by asking a few people on the drive what else this man’s university student or neighbor or brother of a neighbor or whoever it was who knew him might have heard about him. But after that last talk with him, and because I feel I did enough damage by maybe forcing him away from this part of the park, I decide I’ve been nosy enough.

For a Man Your Age

I’m twenty years older than you,” she says. “I mean twenty years younger. I don’t know if it’s a problem for you but for me it is.”

“Isn’t for me.”

“That’s what I said. That it wouldn’t be — might not. And it’s not that I don’t like you.”

“Or that I love you.”

“See? That particularly scares me. Because I know you do. While I don’t love you. Like you, yes. But twenty years. More. Almost twenty-one. You were born in May, I’m in November.”

“Let’s call it an even twenty-one.”

“Even twenty-one. It’s so much. Tell me what you really think about it.“

“What do you think? That I wish it wasn’t a problem with you and that we should continue seeing each other despite the difference of our ages.”

“See each other perhaps but not sleep with each other.”

“See and sleep both. Or only sleep with each other. We can do everything in the dark.”

“Don’t joke. I’m in no mood.”

“No, listen. You can come to my apartment or I to yours. The lights will be out in either. Let’s say you come and ring my bell. Lights totally out, place pitch black, I’ll open the door and you’ll come in. If you don’t remember the terrain I’ll take your hand and guide you in and shut the door so no light from the stairway comes in. And then kiss you or we’ll kiss and talk perhaps or no talk if that’s not part of the bargain and then go to bed, everything in the absolute dark as it can get. That way we won’t have to see each other.”

“What about the public hallway light?”

“Okay. You ring my bell and shut your eyes. I’ll shut mine, we’ll both put out our hands, and I’ll bring you in and shut the door. Then we’ll go through what I said before till it’s over and you can leave in the dark or in the light with our backs towards one another. Or I will if it’s your apartment where all this is taking place.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea, for a fantasy, but it won’t work.”

“Why, you don’t like my lovemaking anymore?”

“No I do, I do.”

“Then not in the dark”

“No. Dark, light or one of those mini-watters on with a red shirt over the globe, our lovemaking was good. But you’re forty-two, I’m not even twenty-one. I’m a half year from being twenty-one. So that’s actually twenty-one and a half years difference, not twenty. Why’d I always think it was only twenty?”

“Maybe because I was always referring to it as twenty. Not to make it less. Only because what the hell’s a year and a half mean in all that?”

“And if you were forty-three and a half to my twenty and a half, or I was nineteen and no half to your forty-two, that wouldn’t make any more of a difference to you?”

“There is probably an extreme somewhere in age differences between couples. Thirty years difference when the woman or man’s twenty. Again thirty years difference when the woman or man’s thirty. So I suppose thirty years difference is the beginning of the extreme, except if the younger person’s fifteen, boy or girl. Then it’s probably five or ten years difference, and if the younger person’s thirteen or fourteen, three or four years difference, though even with any of those I’m not sure.”

“I don’t agree. And I think that from tonight — I know that from tonight onwards — it has to be over with us, all right? “

“What can I say to complain?”

“Then you won’t phone me, write or any of those things?”

“So it’s both? No sleep or see? You don’t even want to be friends?”

“Friends if we really need one another — in six months, maybe more. But I won’t need you. I’ve my parents, and good friends. And you’re a very nice man, very desirable too. There must be lots of women ten to fifteen years younger or older than you or the same age who’d love to have you as their lover, husband or friend. You should even get married and have the baby you say you always wanted so much before it’s too late.”

“Men can be fathers into their sixties and seventies.”

“Not if your prostate’s removed before then. Besides, you don’t want your five-year-old kid wheeling you around an old age home. You want to get down on the floor with it, run and play sports with it, dance with it at its wedding and so on, if it’s a girl, and maybe even later playa little with your grandchild.”

“Don’t worry about me — I’m going to stay active until I’m eighty. I’ll also dance with my son at his wedding if we feel like it. It just doesn’t have to be a girl.”

“No matter what, I can’t get married and have a baby for at least six or eight years. I’ve too many things to do before then. I have to graduate college first. After that I want to move to New York ‘and get a job as an editorial assistant in a publishing house somewhere while I write myself sick on weekends and early weekday mornings and late at night. I want to do all that while I’m young. I have to. Then, if one of my books sell or lots of my stories and some money’s coming in or I’m starting to get established, I’ll maybe settle in with someone and have a baby. So when I’m twenty-eight or twenty-nine. But no matter what happens, certainly not sooner.”

“It could happen sooner. You could fall in love and the pressures from him might be too great. Who knows?”

“I won’t. But if I do, and actually I probably will several times, I still won’t get married or have a baby. I’ll get rid of him, no matter how much it hurts, because I want to know many men. I want to be able to say ‘All right, I’m experienced, or as much as I want to be before it starts working against me.’ I also want to travel, but not where it takes too much time away from my writing, and not necessarily with a man. That I can always do ten years from now.”

“If you stayed with me you could do all of those.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

“You’re probably right.”

“You’re already jealous of other guys I see and sometimes when I’m just doing nothing alone away from you, and we weren’t really that serious as lovers.” “We almost were. Maybe for a while we definitely were. Obviously now we’re not, but what is it?”

“Excuse me, but what is what?”

“You think I look too old for you? Act too old also, or both those or more?”

“No. You act young enough. Maybe too young for your age, but not for mine. Actually, sometimes the young way you acted kind of embarrassed me, though I’m sure it didn’t bother anybody else.”

“So I’ll act older. Not as old as your father or like your father, but just older.”

“I don’t want you acting any way but what you are, not that you could be any other way. As for your looks, well, you don’t look forty-two but you do look thirty-six or so, though don’t ask me what’s the difference. And your physique is good, but for a thirty-five-year-old man. Not one twenty-five or even thirty, which I think, if you want my preference, is the maximum age I’d like my man’s body to look now.”

“I don’t get it. What could be the difference? “

“Your upper arm muscles, for instance, are huge, as are your pectoral and whatever those muscles are in back — the ones like water wings when they’re flexed. But all of them, hard as they are and maybe too overdeveloped, like your pects, which if you continue exercising as you do will in a year be grotesque, are sagging somewhat. That disturbs me, what can I say? As great a shape as you’re in, your body still seems to be starting to fall apart because of your age.”

“I don’t see it.”

“It’s true. Look at any twenty-five-to-thirty-year-old man at a pool next time, or even thirty-five, but not one overweight. Their pects, even when they’re not developed, are a little higher, and if you see them in the shower, so are their testes by a bit. You can’t stop that.”

“Say you’re right, which I’m not saying you are, how come you never said anything about it before?”

“How come? You kidding? Because I didn’t want to mention it. I thought of it though, occasionally. Your body’s the body of a man desperately trying to stay in shape and look much younger than he is, and that makes me sad in a way. Also your hair.”

“I’m nearly bald, okay, but so are lots of twenty-five-to-thirty-five-year-old men. Blame my father. Even if when he was my age, though he said it came from wearing tight religious caps when he was a boy, he was completely bald on top.”

“Baldness I can live with. Though again, everything else being equal and you gave me my choice of men, why wouldn’t I choose one with a head full of thick hair? Wouldn’t you if you had your choice of women who were in every respect alike except one who was much more beautiful than the rest?”

“I don’t see how any two women could in every respect be alike except for being very beautiful.”

“For argument’s sake.”

“For argument’s sake, yes.”

“Anyway, what I was talking before about your hair was the gray.”

“So I’ve a little on my sides, so what?”

“On your back, shoulders, chest and also around your groin. There more than anyplace disturbs me about your hair. I don’t know why. Maybe because I think that’d be the last place someone getting gray would get gray. And soon you’ll be totally gray allover or close to it and it would seem strange in a way going with someone who’s all gray, bald and desperately trying to make his body look like the body of a young man who lifts too many weights. You’ll probably even get a heart attack from it.”

“Chances are a lot better that I won’t. I run and enough miles a day so that my heart and lungs are probably as good as any man who’s twenty-five.”

“Heart and lungs I can’t see, the body I can. Anyway, why would you want to continue seeing a woman who thought all these awful things about you?”

“Why? Very simple, I’ll tell you.”

“Don’t bother, because why wouldn’t you want to see me? I’m twenty, no, twenty-one plus years younger than you. Even if I don’t work out, my body is still great. I haven’t a line or sag on my face or anyplace. I’m still growing in fact. This year alone so far I’ve grown a quarter of an inch. I haven’t a gray hair. No reading glasses either just because I might’ve reached thirty-five, nor a tooth missing besides.”

“That’s because your dentin’s impenetrable, which you were born with, so thank your genes and stars. As for my eyes, I’m lucky that’s all that’s wrong with them with the reading chores I’ve put them through in thirty years.”

“Okay. Maybe you’re right there. But everything about me is young and in perfect shape — that’s my argument. There’s no way I’ll die of a heart attack in twenty years. My liver has to be a beautiful pink and its proper size because I’ve hardly taken a drink to your, what, maybe twenty-five years of drinking too much wine and liquor and some years heavily you said. I’m even so young that I still get pimples about once a month.”

“There. Ask me why I’d go with a woman who still gets pimples.”

“Because it means I’m still physically growing and changing, my glandular system particularly, and to a man your age, that might be attractive and even exciting. But you go on about my skin, I could talk more about yours and also your hair. It’s aging, getting brittle, while mine is still soft and bouncy, even if I don’t brush it for days. I know all this must sound shallow to you, but I find what a person physically feels and looks like to be important. But there are other things.”

“Sex.”

“You’re very experienced, but you’re not a young man in bed.

You make love the way you do because you have to because of your age. One time and that’s usually it, right? But a young man, if he ejaculates too quickly, can be right back at it. Maybe not with your experience or cooperativeness, though I’ve known some who have been as experienced as you or acted like it, but at least he’s ready for more in fifteen minutes and right now that’s the type I want to be sleeping with. Young, energetic, wants to try lots of things, and more in tune with my own energy, curiosity, stamina and so forth. Does all that make any sense?”

“Sure it does. I wish you would’ve complained sooner. It would’ve made this whole discussion unnecessary.”

“I’m not complaining. I loved making love with you and have gotten as excited with you as I have with any man I’ve made love with who I didn’t love. But I’ve lots of’ years before I want to settle in with someone who makes love like you.”

“Anything else?”

“What I said wasn’t enough?”

“My feet? Do they stink? My breath. Is it smellier than a man’s half my age or even ten years younger?”

“No. You take good care of your teeth — a plus for you compared to some of the younger men I know — and you don’t smoke anything and know how to get rid of the horrible alcohol breath. Your body smells nice too. Maybe you’ve more hair on your body than a younger man, which can catch the perspiration more, but you’re clean, so it’s no real problem. But you also in a way make me feel dumb at times — at least ignorant or near to because of everything you know from books and life and just reading the newspapers for twenty-five years. But then I get sort of exuberant when I think that in ten to twenty years I’ll know as much if not more than you, and maybe for one reason because by that time your brains will have started to forget.”

“It’s a possibility. Though if I stay active and creative and don’t drown my head in alcohol and have no serious accidents up there, I don’t see why my brain capacities shouldn’t even grow.”

“Another thing is that I sometimes feel you think you’ve seen and felt it all or almost. I don’t want to be intermittently tugging at your sleeve and saying ‘Ooh wee, you ever see anything like it in the world?’ knowing you probably have and then pretending, for my sake, it is interesting or exciting what I’m looking at or experiencing for the first or second time. Also—”

“There’s more?”

“You said you wanted to, but I’ll stop.”

“No, let’s finish. Honesty? Facts of life? That’s what I want? Sure I do, or at least how much can it hurt?”

“Well, all those cultural things you try to turn me on to. I wanted to turn you on to things too, but you were so set with everything you liked that it was nearly impossible. Music and films for instance.”

“If you mean your new music — that heavy electric guitar and tom-tom stuff that’s been increasingly crowding the atmosphere for the last fifteen years with its untrained bombastic voices and illiterate lyrics, most of it’s worthless. Worthless.”

“But I don’t think it is. I think a lot of it is great, as good as the best ever, and outside of the younger teenage music, appealing and meaningful and even poignant to people my or any age.”

“Maybe it is, I don’t want to be unfair. But I’m sure you’d appreciate my music more if you’d had some grounding in the classical and really serious modern works. But that’s my preference, I don’t see why it should be yours, and obviously one of the big differences between us. As for films, I thought our tastes were pretty much the same.”

“They are. I forgot. Though for you it’s mostly just entertainment while for me a lot of it is art. But I used to love when we were in a theater and I’d turn to you or you to me and we’d with just a look know we both didn’t like the movie or stage show and get up and go before it was over. That kind of silent likemindedness happened so many times there and the pity’s that it didn’t in most other things we did.”

“Like reading.”

“I love writers you hate. And I know it’s because they’re writing about things closer to my age and past experience, and same with your writers to you. Some we both like, but they’re masters or poets, so easy to like, or writing about eternal questions or the few things we both experienced or want to know more about.”

“We forgot food.”.

“What about it? I think we both like the same kinds, except for the meats I won’t eat and you do, but that was never a problem. You’re also a lot less into the junk thing than me, though you think it’s cute that I am. Really, I was partly raised on it, while you grew up when there was almost no junk food and your mother, you even said, strained your vegetables with a hand strainer, which of course my mother, who’s almost your age, never would.”

“But junk food’s bad for you.”

“They taste good though. But that sort of represents another thing we disagree on. You’re so much into health in your own way and I simply haven’t come to that point except for my staying away from chemically filled carcasses and dead crap like that.”

“I’ll give up all my meat for you.”

“I know you’re joking. But there is some truth in it, isn’t there? and that’s that you’d give up things you like for your woman while I don’t want to give up anything for any man yet. But another thing is your mother. Nice as she is to me, she seems like my grand or great-grand—”

“Don’t go overboard. ‘Grandparent’ should suffice. Just ‘parent’ would suffice also if you considered that some adults, like the possibility of myself, have children at a later age.”

“Your possibly becoming a parent I don’t want to go into. But I do want my man’s parent to be around the same age as mine, so she can get along better or whatever the reason. Though how can she be when the man I’m with is the same age as my father minus two years? And talking about that, people have sometimes looked strangely at us because of it. I know I shouldn’t be bothered by such things — that it’s so bourgeois as you say for them to think that way. But I do get bothered by it sometimes, probably because I am young and as a result still unsure of myself in some ways, and I want to avoid those looks and talk.”

“Those looks you can get walking with any man. Though I can see how it could bother you if you’re in no way in love with that person.”

“Listen, what it comes down to is I want to give myself more of a chance and time, okay? You seem more desperate to be mated now and from everything I said today, I’m not, agreed? And it’s not only what I said but all the other things I didn’t, all right? And I don’t want to talk anymore about it, I just don’t. It was nice, different, we had some terrific times, etcetera, and I know the break will be a lot more painful for you than me, but what can I say? You feel more deeply about me than I do you, that’s all. And maybe I don’t or couldn’t because of the age difference — well of course that’s one of the main reasons because that’s what I’ve been saying all along, true? And I know I’ve contradicted myself a hundred times in almost everything I said, but in a discussion like this, who doesn’t? And — excuse me but what was I saying before I started talking about contradicting myself?”

“I forgot,”

“Your memory’s not too hot also, but I’m only kidding.”

“And yours? You’re the one who forgot what you were saying after you got into that topic about deep and no feelings for me.”

“Oh yes. I was saying that the break, more painful than you, etcetera, and I know why. You think because of your age you’ll have little chance of meeting someone new. But for all I know there are many women and even some my age and maybe even younger who might want to be with you because of your age. Sure there are — plenty. But to me your real obstacle in future relationships is that because you’ve had so many affairs and breakups, you’ve become cynical about them and women and so they’ll never work out or almost.”

“Not so.”

“Believe me, it’s so. And maybe you really don’t want, no matter what you claim, a longtime relationship — one ending in marriage and a baby.”

“How can you say that? I’d marry you today and conceive with you tonight if you wanted and we could.”

“You say you would but if I said yes, I’m sure you’d change your mind.”

“Say yes then. Go on, say it.”

“You know I won’t. Not to you or any man, as I said, for six to eight years or more. Not that when I get married a man will have to ask me to. I can just as well ask also, right? Or that person and I will just naturally slide into marriage, but a happy slide, without either of us asking the other. But what was I saying again? Oh yes. I really believe that deep inside you want to live alone for the rest of your life. That’s why you’ve lived alone all these years and all your relationships have failed, except for a couple of unsuccessful living arrangements with women — relationships which eventually failed because of the very living alone reason I gave.”

“Okay, say what you said is true. All of it, right from since we started talking. But now I want to stop that pattern for good.”

“Then do, but with someone else, not me. It will in fact have to never be me. Because when I get to that age where I only might want to get married, you’ll be forty-eight or fifty-two or whatever then and so still way too old for me. So you see, it can never change. There’s no reason in the world for you to think it can change. At forty-five I might not find a man sixty-six or so that unappealing, but that’s so ridiculously far away and I also, if I was going to have a baby, would have had one long before that age. So from this point on the relationship and everything we have to talk about it has to end, okay?”

“Not even as friends?”

“You know that’s not all you’d want, and besides, I really have more friends than I can deal with now, but thanks.”

“All right then, goodnight.”

“Goodbye.”

“Right. Goodbye, goodnight and the rest of the goods. I’ll see you.”

“Okay,” and hangs up.

I hang up, tell myself to stay calm, it’s happened before, though it hasn’t happened and hurt so much with someone in a couple of years, pick up the receiver to call her back, put it on my lap and think what am I going on about, because she’s right, I am too old for her though her reasoning against my age is mostly bull and my arguments against her reasons are just as full of it, when the phone starts making its off-the-cradle noise and I put the receiver back on.

Meeting Aline

I dreamt of her. That’s nothing unusual. Dreamt of her plenty of times before. About every four months or so since I last saw her three years ago. Since I walked out on her after she asked me to. “Walk out. I want you to,” she said. “Walk. Really. It’s no good. For too long it hasn’t been good. It’ll never be good.” Other things she said. I walked, got another apartment that day, a cheap enough place, hotel I still live in, residential hotel, so I didn’t have to bring or buy any furniture. Called her the next day and said I’d like to pick up all my things and she said she’ll send them to me with a friend, where am I? I told her. She sent them. Some things I wanted weren’t in the cartons and valises. I never called back and asked her for them. That phone call was our last communication. I’ve thought of her many times since. Haven’t pined for her though. I don’t mourn for her and never did. I was glad it was over. I loved her when I left her but knew we were never going to work out too. But tonight I dreamt of her. It was a good dream. She was very nice to me in it. She was nude too. Right from the beginning of the dream. Had a darker suntan than she ever got when I knew her. The white marks of a brief bathing suit’s top and bottom showed. It must’ve been summer. The windows were wide open. It was very bright in the room. We were high up, overlooked a river, in a bedroom I didn’t and still don’t recognize. She smiled, we talked, I forget about what. Something about how you doing, how are you doing, I’m doing fine, I’m doing fine too, “Why don’t you take your clothes off?” she then said and when I said “Well, I really don’t know,” wondering if the pleasure I’d probably get would be worth the problems I might have to go through later because of it, she took them off for me, or started to. I let her. I wanted to make love very much. Her body was smoother and stronger than when I knew her, though when I knew her her body was very good. Her body in the dream was exceptional. Smaller waist, larger breasts, firmer buttocks, longer slimmer legs. She used to say — said it several times, usually when we were naked on top of the bed covers—”If I’d been stretched on a rack when I was fourteen, which was when I stopped developing, I’d have a perfect body, one, not that I’d want to be there, good enough for a centerfold.” I never had any complaints. In the dream we made love twice. I was very satisfied in the dream. She seemed to be too. I woke up with an erection, played with myself, lost it. How many times have I had an orgasm in a dream? — forget two, which was how many I had in this one. Maybe once. A few years ago. I vaguely remember it. I forget who it was with but I don’t think it. was her.

I do some exercises, dress, make breakfast and leave for work. On my lunch hour I see her. It was sunny and warm when I left the office building and I took off my sweater and jacket and carried them. I took a sandwich and coffee I bought at a sandwich shop to one of the midtown pocketparks. All the tables and chairs were filled. I sat on one of the long concrete benches that run the entire lengths of the park. I’d finished half my egg salad sandwich and was wiping my mouth with the napkin when I saw her. She’s with a woman. They’re looking for available chairs it seems. I want to shout her name but then think wait awhile. If they start to leave, go after her and invite them to sit with you along the wall. That is, if they don’t find two chairs or don’t after they don’t find two chairs decide to sit against the wall. If they decide to sit against the wall, wave to her as they approach, if it’s this wall, and if it’s the other wall, go over to them without your sweater and jacket, and food if you haven’t finished by then, and ask if she’d mind you joining them. If she does mind, say sorry and leave. If she doesn’t mind, go back to where you were sitting, get your things and sit with them. If they find chairs, go over to them. If she sees you before they find chairs or head for one of the walls or start to leave, wave to her as if you just saw her and get up and start over to her. I wrap the second half of the sandwich in the paper it came in, just in case they want something to eat, though there is a small food shop in the turret at the park’s entrance, or if they don’t have food in their handbags.

Look at her. This morning I’m making love to her in a dream, five hours later I see her in this little park off Fifth. How do you really feel about her? She looks good. That’s not answering the question. She points to a table a couple are getting up from and she and the woman start for it. She hasn’t seen me yet. I don’t know the woman she’s with. Aline’s blouse is the one I remember from her closet when we lived together and which she never wore during those four years. I once asked her why she never wore it. “My husband gave it to me,” she said. “I don’t know why I kept it. I got rid of everything else he gave me except some of the books he didn’t inscribe. Besides, it’s not me.” They sit and both open their handbags and pull out brown paper bags. Containers come out of the paper bags first. The woman points to the waterfall at the far end of the park and they start talking about it it seems as they pull off the container tops. I look at the fall. It makes a nice sound, drowning out the surrounding traffic and construction noises. They take out wrapped sandwiches and half — or quarter — pound containers and plastic forks from the paper bags. Cole slaw, potato or noodle salad, something like that inside these containers. They unwrap the sandwiches and pull off the container tops. They eat, drink and talk. Her companion faces me. Aline has her back to me and I can only see a little of her profile now and then. She seems the same. Suppose she saw you, came over to you and said “Hey, let’s cab to my apartment and make love for a halfhour — a quickie like we used to do when we were in a rush,” what would you do? She wouldn’t do that. It’s absurd to think about. Though just thinking about it — well, that says something. Though we often weren’t compatible, our sex till the last month was usually very good. I don’t see a woman now, haven’t been serious with one since Aline, though I’ve gone with several women since. One for six months, another for three. I went to Europe with one for a month, spent two weeks with another on a Virginia beach. Suppose she said “Call me,” what would you do? I’d say I don’t know. I don’t think I want to be with her again. But she wouldn’t say that. Or maybe she would, just so we could later talk. “Let’s have dinner one night,” she could say, “or lunch, just to catch up on what we’ve been doing the last three years.” I’ve no idea what she’s been doing. I don’t see anyone we both knew from that time. I did for a year. Then the man we both knew moved to Utah and the woman we both knew died. I went to the funeral, Aline didn’t. In that first year after we split up, Aline had a lover both those people said. She might still have him. She might be married to him or to someone else and have a child. I’d like to know. I should go over to her. I wanted to marry her and have a child but she kept putting it off. Strange that I dreamt of her this morning and see her now. Stranger that I made love to her in the dream. Stranger still that we made love so much in the dream and I was so satisfied. If I speak to her should I tell her I dreamt of her this morning? Would she even believe me? She used to say I exaggerate too much, that it was one of my problems. Tell her, why not? It’s interesting. Somewhat, not very. It’s coincidental. It’d also be interesting to see her reaction. I wouldn’t volunteer that we made love in the dream. If she asked what were we doing and where were we in the dream — she liked to ask that after I said I dreamt of us — I think I’d be cagey. That I’d rather not go into it, or would I say I forgot? No, I’d tell her. What’s to lose? I’d say something like “Strangely enough, we were making love. That’s the absolute truth. I’m not saying it for effect or making it up. I’ve nothing to gain or lose by saying it. I know you used to say I exaggerated a lot, but I don’t anymore. I’ve other problems, but not that. So that’s why I mentioned the dream. Because it was only hours ago and first one about you in months and here we are now.” If she asked me to go further into it, I’d say we had orgasms — at least I did: two. “Never in my life have I had two in a dream — not even in any number of dreams in a month.” If she wanted to know what she said in the dream and what her sex was like, I’d mention her wanting me to take my clothes off and that her last words in the dream after our lovemaking was over were “That was very good for me, I’m sure it was for you.” That’s what she said. I remember it now. But I wouldn’t go that far in describing the dream. If I said we made love in the dream, she wouldn’t ask me anything further about it and I wouldn’t volunteer. I think I know enough about her to know what she wouldn’t ask. Though it’s been three years, I’ve changed somewhat, so I don’t see why I should be that sure about her.

The waterfall stops for a few seconds, starts. Aline and the woman have finished their food and are drinking from their containers. I stand up to go over to her, sit. I’m nervous. My stomach aches a little. It’s been a long time. I think I’m afraid of a brushoff. No, I’m sure she’ll be polite and probably interested to speak to me. I feel my hair. It’s standing up in places and I comb it back flat as I can get it. I’m almost sure she’ll be glad to see me. After three years she’ll have forgotten or just won’t care what went wrong between us. I have. We’ll be like two old friends meeting by surprise after a long time, so with none of our defenses prepared, or something like that. It’s happened before with others. Only a few people keep that wall up for all occasions, but she’s not like that or wasn’t. That doesn’t change. I look at my nails. Clean enough though the cuticles could use clipping. She used to say I didn’t take care of my nails, but I started to soon after we started seeing one another. Continued to also, but I probably haven’t paid attention to them the last few days. Try nibbling the worst of the ragged cuticles off and they’d start bleeding. If I don’t go over I’ll regret it. I’ll do something stupid later on, like calling her tonight, if she’s still at her old address or in the phonebook. I’ll say something on the phone like “I saw you today, I’m sure you didn’t me, but I didn’t have the courage to go over to you. I was nervous, what can I tell you?” If she then said she also saw me but didn’t have the courage to speak to me or whatever, I don’t know what I’d say. It’d be a departure point for more conversation though. No. I wouldn’t call, though I’d certainly think about doing it. I have to go over. I get up. I carry my sweater and jacket and the paper bag, look for a trash can to throw it in, don’t see one, and approach the table. Her friend sees me approaching, pulls herself closer to the table to make more room for me to pass. “No no,” I say, “I just wanted to say hello to Aline.”

Aline starts to turn to me. “Oh no,” she says, covering her eyes with her hands and turning back to her friend, “I don’t believe it — I won’t. Ty. Oh God, Ty.”

“Yes,” I say. “How are you?”

“I still don’t believe it,” Her eyes are still covered. “Oh God, I knew this would happen one day. What did I tell myself to do if it did? I forget. Well, it’s a nice place for it to happen, but I don’t want it to happen. Deborah, this is going to seem nuts to you, even embarrassing, but this is Ty whom you know about and I don’t want to see him, so put up with me for a few minutes? Ty,” her hands still over her eyes, “I don’t want to see you. I have my reasons. Believe me I do. I told myself the day I last saw you, whenever that was—”

“Three years ago. Three and a half, even.”

“Whenever, that if I bumped into you — now I remember. Told myself several times and never changed what I said I’d do, that I would do my damndest not to speak to you and to do everything I could to get away quick as I could from you. You know why. No, you probably forgot. No — with your mind? — you know why, though watch, watch, you’re now probably going to ask why I’m acting this way.”

“That’s right. I’m standing here wondering—”

“You probably think after so long a time that we could just meet and talk and joke and shake hands and ask after each other — well you know, right? Don’t answer,” when I’m about to say yes. Deborah’s not believing this. She says “If you want me to leave, Aline?”

“You crazy? Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. You stay. We’re both leaving here together,” Hands still over her eyes, back towards me. People at other tables are looking at us. Almost everyone at the surrounding tables. My stomach hurts worse than before. I don’t understand why she’s doing this. “Think I’m crazy,” Aline says to me, hands, back, the same way. “Think anything, but what you did will take six more years to make me bump in to you normally and say hello and how is the family and your mother who I hope is still living and healthy—”

“She is.”

“And your sister and nephew and what you’ve been doing and so on and so on. Six more years. But not now. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I—”

“If you don’t it’s because you don’t want to. Because, if you’re not lying, you’ve pushed the whole thing out of your head because you’re so goddamned ashamed of it. But this,” she says, “this,” turning to me and tapping her nose, “just remember this. Deborah, please help me out of here. If my feet make it I’ll be very surprised.” she stands. Deborah stands, holding their drink containers. “Leave them. I’ll buy us two new ones somewhere. Or a drink. A real drink. I’ll need one. I don’t care if I come back to work high.”

“What do you mean ‘This, this, remember this’?” I say. “Deb, please, lead me out.” She holds out her hand. “What about our garbage?” Deborah says.

“Leave everything. Sometimes you just have to go. Please.” She shakes her hand in the air. Deborah takes it and starts leading her out.

“You’ve really embarrassed me,” I say. “You’re embarrassing me and you’re embarrassing yourself and your friend. Why couldn’t you have just said, hello and goodbye and be done with it?” Deborah leads her around several tables and chairs, lets go of her hand when they’re in the clear, and they leave the park. I don’t understand why she acted like that. And that “This, this, remember this.” People around me are looking at me or doing their best not to. I don’t know what to do. To leave the park or sit someplace in it away from this spot. Right next to the waterfall to think. I leave the park, go the opposite way they went, the longer way for me but I don’t want to bump into her again today. I go back to work trying to figure out why she acted that way. She asked me to leave then and I did. I phoned the next day or a few days later I now remember and asked if I could pick up my things. She said they were already packed and she’d send a friend over with them. Okay. That friend came. A man. Man and woman, actually — they said someone else was waiting in their car downstairs. Their child, that’s right, and Aline had said the man was an old school friend from out of town. I asked them, I think — yes, I did, if Aline was very depressed, because she sounded so over the phone, and they said yes or one of them did, but both looked at me as if I was the worst person they ever met. So what did I do then to make them look at me that way and Aline to act as she did today? I hit her the day I left. That’s right. I didn’t want to leave, she wanted me to, we got into an argument, and I hit her in the face. Probably in the nose. Then she screamed, at me or because of the pain, and I turned around, opened the door, slammed it shut and called maybe a week later it was, maybe two, and asked for my things. Her friends came. I never apologized to her. Never asked if I’d hurt her. All right. I forgot the whole thing.

At night I think of calling her. To say I forgot, that I’m sorry for what happened three years ago, that I didn’t want to bring it up again now but I had to, that she was right about me today, that I now understand why she got so upset. But she’ll probably hang up before I can say a few words. I look for her name in the phone book. I’ve looked it up before — last year. And the year before that. Her name was at the same address those two times. I looked it up then and maybe more times than that to see if she was still living there. Her name’s still at that address. The heck with it, I’ll call. If she screams on the phone, hangs up, then that will be the end of ever calling her. Maybe then I could write her an apology for hitting her three years ago and an explanation for today. I dial her. She answers with a hello. I hang up. I didn’t have the nerve. She’ll know it’s me unless someone else has been doing that to her lately. Then she’ll only think that perhaps it’s me, or maybe not. I get out the book I’ve been reading, make myself a brandy and soda. I have four brandy and sodas while I read and then feel tired and go to bed. Tomorrow’s work.

I wake up around three to go to the bathroom. I go back to sleep and dream about her. She’s clothed. I’m sitting on our old bed in her apartment now without any clothes. She sits beside me, says “Open your mouth, I want to kiss you.” She kisses me as I’ve never been kissed in a dream. It’s the longest kiss I’ve ever had in a dream or out of one. I almost faint in the dream during that kiss. The dream ends when she takes her lips off mine and says “That was a good kiss, wasn’t it? I know it was for you. You lovely man. We know how to kiss.” I don’t go back to sleep. I try but can’t. I think about the dream and that it was a very exciting one but what does it mean? As far as I know, I don’t long for her. I no longer love her. Obviously the kiss dream is tied in with seeing her and dreaming about her yesterday, or is it? Because what about my lovemaking dream with her yesterday? What’s that tied to? It doesn’t matter. Dreams are dreams. They mean one thing, they mean another, they mean many things. I’m not much for interpreting my dreams. I like them when they’re good. I wouldn’t mind dreaming of her every night if I could always have such exciting dreams. Now, if I saw her today on the street or somewhere, that would be different. Then I’d think that maybe my dreams mean something important. That suddenly they’ve begun to predict when I’m going to bump into someone, or at least her. I can’t get back to sleep. I turn on the light and read till about the time I usually get out of bed on a workday.

I wash, shave, do my morning things, go to work. I spend my lunch hour sitting by the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel. I sort of look for her while I’m there and on the street, but don’t see her. I go back to work, finish for the day, go home. I think of calling up a friend if she wants to have dinner here tonight, but I don’t feel I’ll be good company. I make a salad, finish the book I’ve been reading and start another. I have several brandy and sodas. I get very tired and go to bed. I wouldn’t mind having another exciting dream with her tonight. I go to sleep and wake up around eight without being aware of having had any dreams at all.

Don

His father came home from the army a year after V-J day to the day. Don waited for him at the Columbus Avenue corner of their block but his father came up from the Amsterdam Avenue corner and was home an hour before Don gave up his wait.

“We’ve a little baby,” Don said on the phone. “Well, of course, little. Well, not of course ‘little.’ It could’ve been a big baby — big for a newborn baby. In other words — ah, I’m too excited to talk. Just that you’re a grandmother again and of a girl. Now I have to phone Lucy’s folks.”

It rained heavily the night his wife left. He said when she was at the door and the taxi was honking downstairs “This is a lot like a lot of the novels I used to read in my twenties and some of those movies too and which now turn up on TV. When the wife or husband leaves or the lover or newborn baby dies, it often poured and the hero would walk out of the hospital that night into the driving rain.” His wife said “Sometimes life is like that, sometimes it isn’t. I suppose in those books and movies the rain was supposed to add drama, but here it’s just anticlimactic.” “What do you mean?” he said but she said “Just don’t walk in it after I leave — you’ll catch a bad cold,” and grabbed her valise and opened the door. His two daughters and father-in-law were waiting in the cab.

“I love you,” a girlfriend said to him. “I can’t believe this. You’re such a screwy mixed-up angry guy and not at all goodlooking, though you got a perfect physique, or with much of a future ahead of you from what I can see — and in dancing no less; what will people think? But I love you. What does that make me: screwy, mixed-up and angry too? Who cares right now. Prove you’re no pansy. Do me.”

“God be with you,” the beggar said on the street today when Don gave him a dollar. “And if he doesn’t get with you, get mean with him. That’s what I do. Yell at him, scream, say ‘God, what’s with you today, man, huh, huh?’ It works.”

When he was a boy and there was lightning out as there is tonight and he was asleep, he’d wake up in a panic and crawl under the bed with his covers and clamp the pillow over his head and in the morning wake up and wonder for a minute how he got there.

He remembers when his sister came home from the hospital when she was born. The buzzer from the building’s vestibule rang. His babysitter rang back whoever it was and Don opened the door. His parents and brothers were walking up the stairs, his father holding his sister. “Here she is,” his father said, “a present for you. Now you’re no longer the youngest,” and he put Rita into Dan’s arms.

After they were called out for the last time, he didn’t know what to think. Either I did well, very well, or I’m fooling myself and I just did adequately and maybe even poorly, because the audience goes wild on premiere night and especially for a young dancer who replaces the not-so-popular soloist at only a few hours’ notice.

The cats whined and rubbed up against his ankles and he fed them for what he thought would be the last time. About ten minutes later, while they were licking each other’s faces, his wife called from the corner phone booth and he put the cats into their traveling case and carried them and their kitty litter box and what was left in the kitty litter bag downstairs.

He met a woman in a theater lobby. They talked during the two intermissions and after the, ballet she suggested he come home with her for lots of “wine, wooing and womance.” They took a cab to her apartment and after they had some wine he tried to kiss her and she held him at arm’s length and said “Not now, not tomorrow, not ever if you mind it with a guy who’s better at part of it than any woman can be and who’s going in for an operation next month to complete the job.” “Goodnight,” Don said, and the man started to cry.

He goes over to the dinner table, looks at the elaborate salad he prepared and main and side dishes he cooked for three hours tonight, and goes into the bedroom with a bottle of wine and a juice glass and shuts the door and turns on the TV.

“Oh, you’re having another girl, aren’t you?” the nurse said to them at the obstetrician’s office. “Oh, I wasn’t supposed to say that, since you didn’t want to know the sex of your baby, did you?”

His mother called and said “What’s this I hear you’re going out with a black girl?” “I don’t know how you could’ve heard it so fast,” he said, “as I’ve only known her for a week.” “Someone saw you two walking in the street and said she was short and not even pretty.” “Look, I don’t want to get cross with you, but what I do and who I go out with is my own business,” and she said “Not if it touches on the lives of your father, brothers and sister and even your only grandparent who can’t see, hear and can barely think.”

His father never went to a doctor till he was seventy-seven and three months after that died at home in his sleep. The City doctor who did the post-mortem later said “He died of old age; otherwise, he was in perfect health. I’m not joking. After what you said about him, I don’t understand how someone could be that age and stay so healthy yet drink the way he did and never exercise or eat the right foods for all his life.” “Let’s not go into it any further,” Don said, and the doctor said “What’re you so worried and upset about? It means you carry some great genes.”

His sister dropped by. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood,” she said. He said “As long as you’re here I suppose you should be the first to know. This is Lucy. I met her last Friday, proposed to her this morning, and we’re getting married, if we can get the blood tests and license and all in that time, Saturday of next week.” “I’m glad to meet you, Lucy, and to know I’ll have such a beautiful sister-in-law, but what,” she said to Don, “happened to my best friend and your fiancée Susan who you were in love with so much till last week?”

His wife called and said “If you have a moment I’d like to speak to you.” “I have to rush to an important union meeting, I’ll call back.” “You don’t know where I am,” she said. “You’re not at your mother’s?” and she said no. “Nor at one of the women’s departments in Bloomingdale’s?” and she said “Don’t be such an ass.” “Or at either of your two lovers?” and she said “One I haven’t seen for a month and the other’s on a business trip.” “Oh, I’ll find you,” and he hung up.

His wife brought him flowers in bed on one of his birthdays. He said “The hell with those, I want you,” and lunged for her. She jumped out of his reach; he fell out of bed and landed on top of the flowers. She said “I’m leaving you,” and he asked why. “The way you treat me and the way you treat flowers.” He said” Ah, you both like to be treated rough, don’t tell me, and besides, on my birthday I can get what I want and act any way I please. It’s an unwritten law or maybe even in the Talmud,” and he kicked the flowers under the bed. She packed but didn’t leave.

His daughter lost her first tooth. He said “Go to sleep, put it under your pillow.” She said “First I have to put it under my pillow, then I go to sleep.” “Oh, you’ve done this before?” “How could I — this is my first lost tooth? I know all about it though. I put it under my pillow, make a wish to the good fairy and go to sleep and you or mommy put money under my pillow and take the tooth away.” “No. We take the tooth away while you’re asleep, inspect it, see what it’s worth as a tooth, if anything, and then put money under your pillow according to the tooth’s value. This one — I don’t know. It looks a little rotted. In the long run, eating all those sweets doesn’t pay.” She said “I don’t eat so many. I want my tooth’s money.” “Oh sweetie,” he said, hugging her and wiping away her tears. “I’m sorry. For your first tooth we’ll try to make an exception.”

His mother liked to say he was born in a taxi. Actually, his head appeared out of her vagina just as the cab was pulling up at the hospital. The driver and Dan’s father carried her inside and she delivered unassisted in the elevator going up to the delivery room. “Yours, except for the fact that I thought they might drop me carrying me to the lobby, was the easiest birth of all my kids.”

His second oldest brother died in an air crash. One hundred and seven people, including the crew, died in the plane with him. One person survived. He floated down about three thousand feet inside the tail section and escaped with minor injuries. Don had wanted to phone him and ask what he remembered last about his brother, since they were both actors going to Los Angeles to work in the same film and had sat a few rows from one another, but he never did. He wrote him once about it, care of the film company, but never got a reply.

“Help,” his nextdoor neighbor yelled through the walls, “I’m being attacked by two black panthers.” It was the third time this week she was attacked by a wild animal; the last one was a lion. He rang her doorbell and asked if there was anything wrong and she said “Go away, I’m okay,” and resumed yelling about panthers and, calling for help. He spoke to two other neighbors about it and they said he should call the landlord. He did, saying his neighbor was going crazy or drinking too much and having hallucinations or maybe it was drugs — but she definitely needed help, though not from what she said. His landlord said “If I could get her out I would. She’s only paying one-thirty for an apartment I could get four-fifty for easy, but in this city the tenants have all the rights. You look after her — you seem to do that well for the whole building and block. But as long as she pays the rent, which her lawyer always does for her on the first of the month, there’s nothing I can do. Be the one to get her out for me though and I’ll give you a month’s rent gratis and a complete paint job even before your lease is up.”

His oldest brother seemed to set the standard for the rest of the children. He was very political and social conscious, the rest of them became that way. He listened to classical music, they all listened to nothing but classical music. He married out of his religion, so did the others who got married. He became a sculptor, the rest of them ended up in various creative and artistic fields, though his parents had wanted them all to be doctors, lawyers, dentists, university professors. His father once said to Irv when the whole family got together for a Thanksgiving Day dinner “I blame you alone for ruining your brothers and sister. They’ll all wind up making peanuts and being Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guys to the detriment of themselves and their pocketbooks, just like you.”

His daughter knocked on their bedroom door, said “Mommy, I can’t sleep.” “Tell her she has to sleep in her own room tonight,” he said. His wife said “Maybe she’s not feeling well — let’s find out first. All right, Carole, come in.” She came in, crawled in bed with them on his wife’s side. “Can I sleep between you and dad?” “No,” he said. One of his great pleasures in life was holding his wife while he slept, the two of them on their sides, his genitals pressed into her buttocks and his hand holding her breast or thigh.

During a biology practicum at college his professor came up behind him and said “What do you have in your hand?” “My pencil,” Don said. “Your left hand.” “Nothing.” “Then please open it?” “Why should I?” “Because I think you have something in that hand other than sweat and air.” The whole class watched them. “Go back to the practicum,” the teacher said. “How can they?” Don said. “Then open your hand so they can go back, as they’ve only ten minutes left to this part of the exam.” “Oh, the hell with it,” and he threw the crib notes into the air. They came down on top of the teacher and Don’s lab table. “Get out of this room!” “Save your breath,” Don said, “I’m already gone,”

Their first cat jumped out of their apartment window five stories up and, after two days at the vet’s, had to be put to sleep. His wife and daughter and he made the decision in the vet’s office and that was the first time they all cried together. Only other time was when he slapped his wife in the face. She cried, then their daughter came into the room and cried, then he cried and said he was sorry to both of them. “Not to me — only to mommy,” their daughter said. “Okay, I’m only sorry to mommy, but also to you for slapping your mommy, though thank God I didn’t do it in front of you, and I swear it won’t happen again,” “It does and I’m leaving you for good,” his wife said and she and their daughter started to cry again and he just stared stupefyingly at his wife. She’d never said anything like that to him before.

His sister got a rare form of cancer when she was nineteen and suffered horribly for a year before she died. The entire family stood around her bed in the hospital and watched her pass away, while the nurse and aide tried to get them out of the room. Every time they got two of them out of the room and came back to get the others, the two who’d left came back. Finally the doctor came in and said “All right, though it’s against hospital policy, let the young woman succumb in front of her family — we’re outnumbered and they seem decided,” His parents and brothers and he were advised to go for checkups and body scannings twice a year after that for the rest of their lives, since the disease she died of was supposed to be hereditary, even if no one on either side of the family for three generations back had had it. The first woman he asked to marry refused him because she said their children might get his family’s hereditary disease. “I’m sorry but with your luck it’s almost bound to hit you or one of our children, which I just don’t have the guts to take.”

He couldn’t make himself verbally understood to any adults till he was four and a half. He talked an almost incomprehensible baby talk that only his brothers understood, and they translated it to his parents and other people for him. His pediatrician used to make fun of him when he was brought to his office. He’d say “Donny bonny, still can’t say a word but mmm mmm dadda momma poo-poo too?” He told his parents that mimicking their son would ultimately shame him into talking complete coherent sentences. Then on one visit, his mother said, Don spoke his first recognizable sentence to an adult. The doctor spoke baby talk to him again and Don said to him “Doctor Brandon, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

Only one teacher in his entire education ever showed any affection for him. It was in the fifth grade. She’d put him on her lap in front of the class whenever the students had been disruptive, and say “This is the nicest, quietest, gentlest and politest student in the class, and that goes as well for the girls. Why can’t you all be like him?” It embarrassed him but he enjoyed it and she gave him the highest grades he ever got at any school.

His mother enrolled him at ballet school when he was nine to improve his physical coordination. He liked ballet but stopped taking it because his friends said it was only for sissies, and resumed classes when he was twelve and had moved to a different neighborhood. His ballet teacher then said it was too late for him to take it seriously, so suggested he shouldn’t take it at all. He quit and got interested again four years later when he was going out with a girl who was studying ballet. He got so good at it that he switched to a city high school that concentrated on the performing arts, and got a chorus job in a Washington ballet company when he was eighteen. He was considered a promising soloist with a New York company at the age of twenty-one when he broke an ankle crossing a street. He leaped out of the way of a bicycle going in the wrong direction and fell over the pedestrian next to him. His ankle never healed right and he had to stop dancing professionally. He tried choreography, wasn’t very good at it, went to college to eventually become a dentist, flunked most of his predent courses, switched to a degree in political science and became a social studies teacher in junior high school, which he does today. He got a master’s in education and has failed the assistant principal’s test twice. He still limps a little from the street accident and occasionally does a few positions, jetés or parts of dances he danced on the stage or choreographed, for his children or when he’s by himself. He never dances at social occasions, except for a slow simple fox trot, because most partners and observers expect too much from him on the floor.

His wife said on their fifteenth wedding anniversary “The first five years were the pits, the second got a little better, the last five have been almost brilliant. I can’t explain it, can you?” “No,” he said. “Maybe we’re just slowing down” she said, “or getting used to one another, but those reasons sound like gross clichés. Or maybe, just maybe, we’ve really begun to like one another — oh this is going to sound trivial, the cliché of clichés, but it’s what I feel.” “Say it then,” he said, “because I’d also like to know why.” “It could be our having the children and because you are a good father and provider and you’ve mellowed a lot since I first knew you — maybe all those are it. You let me love you now when before you held back. Cliché? Trite? Even if they are, so what? But I never thought I’d stay with you after the first year and then every year after that for the next four. Then we had Carole and I thought what the heck, I have to stay with him till she’s at least in the first grade. Now she’s in the fifth grade and we have Celia and I’m very much in love with you and you seem to be with me and it’s great together most of the time, as a couple, individuals, and a family — am I talking like a schmuck or what?” “No, you’re right. I hate my work but I love you and the kids. And the sex is still good, isn’t it?” “Better than ever,” she said, “I forgot that. Let’s do it now, in fact. My anniversary present to you, or my morning one.” “Celia might get up and want to have breakfast.” “We’ll say we’re still asleep,” and she got up and locked their door.

His mother’s condition got worse. His oldest brother called him from the hospital and said “You better get here right away.” He went into the principal’s office and said “I have to leave immediately — could you send someone to cover for me?” “I’ve no one,” the principal said. “Stay for another period. Then Diamant will be free and he can cover for you.” “I can’t stay another two minutes. My mother’s dying — that’s what that emergency call was about.” “You have to stay. I have no one to cover. We had ten regulars call in absent today and could only get four substitutes.” “You cover for me.” “Me? I don’t cover for teachers no matter what the emergency. I run this school. I have to look after ten things at once.” “Then the girl I appointed to take over my lesson while I’m in here will cover for me.” “I’ll have you fired,” the principal said. “You’re crazy,” Don said and went back to his room, said to the class: “Listen, you’re to be on your best behavior for the rest of the period. My mother’s dying and I have to see her in the hospital and the principal can’t get anyone to take over the class. Please don’t be rowdy or do anything to embarrass me or yourselves. Please, if I ever asked for anything, it’s to be better behaved than you ever were in my class, do you understand? Now finish the assignment and then do schoolwork, homework or sit quietly and read or just think. But damnit, be considerate and mature,” and he left the room. He wasn’t three steps past the door when he heard something smash against his blackboard and then a window break and the class cheer.

When he was a boy his father insisted that all his children kiss him when he got home from work and kiss him when they went to sleep and kiss him first thing when they saw him in the morning. “I kissed my father every day of my life till the day he died and I expect the same treatment from my kids.”

His sister one night scratched his face and pulled his hair and ripped the shirt off his back because she said each of the boys in the family got more things bought for them than the girl.

He met his wife at a party on New Year’s Eve. She was sitting on a couch, looked sick. He sat down next to her and said “Excuse me, but you don’t look well, is there anything I can do?” She said “You can get me two aspirins if you don’t mind,” and he brought them back with a glass of water. She said “That was very nice of you. I didn’t ask for water — not because I forgot — I like to swallow my aspirins whole — but you thought of it for me. If it wouldn’t also be a bother, and because I trust you now and think you have a good pragmatic head for such things, could you walk me to the bathroom and hold my waist from behind while I throw up? I usually do it so violently that I throw my shoulders out of joint.”

His father was a pharmacist and everyone called him Doc. Don had three best friends over the years whose fathers were pharmacists and all their acquaintances and customers called them Doc. Don’s father was the only one of the four who brought most of his pharmaceutical samples home, leaving very little closet space for anyone else in the apartment. After he died, Don’s mother asked Don to sort the good samples from the bad, but he just put them all into about a dozen big plastic garbage bags and threw them out.

He met a woman in England when he was in college, corresponded with her during the school year and the following summer hitchhiked with her from her home in South Africa to Cairo. It took them four months. They were in love when they started out and hated each other by the time they reached the Sudan. He saw her off at the Cairo airport and her next to last words to him were “What did I ever see in you I wonder?” His last words to her were “If we’d time I’d remind you, but as for me I used to love the way you looked, acted and talked and that you answered and so intelligently and lengthily a letter of mine every other week and that you thought there was nothing better in life for you to do than become a hospital nurse and that you once sent me a nine by twelve inch photo of yourself in a skimpy swimsuit and that you hailed from Estcourt, Natal, and summered when I wintered and that when we lived in our native countries we never saw the same stars.” “Is that true about the stars I wonder?” and she went up the ramp to the plane. He was broke and the American embassy wouldn’t loan him money so he called his folks collect for the fare home.

His sister was Gretel to his Hansel in a summer camp play. He wanted a girl closer in age to him to play the part but the drama counselor said their being brother and sister would make the play more realistic and endearing to the audience. The camp photographer took pictures of the performance and till his sister died his mother loved to bring them out and show them to the women friends he’d ask over for dinner or drinks.

He was playing ring-a-levio one night on his block. A girl named Mary, who lived on the next block, was hiding in the same brownstone walkway with him. They were kneeling close together, their shoulders and arms touched. She had on a short skirt and when she looked over the walkway wall to see if the person who was “it” was anywhere near them, he looked up between her legs, hoping to see her vagina or maybe some hair if she had any there yet but only saw the ends of her buttocks sticking out of her panties. Later, as a prisoner, it seemed his underpants were wet. He felt down inside them, thinking he might have made. His penis and the pants around it were sticky. He got scared for a second, then remembered the dirty part of a book he’d recently read and something some boy had said, and thought Holy Christ, for the first time in my life I’ve spermed.

“Touch me again and I’ll call the cops,” a woman friend said to him. She got dressed, left his apartment and he never spoke to her after that till he bumped into her in a museum garden a few years later. She said hello and smiled, then must have remembered what he did that night and walked past him into the museum. He started after her, wanted to ask what it was he did that night — he’d completely forgotten or had blocked it out — so he could apologize again or for the first time. “I don’t care how bad it was, I want to know,” he wanted to say, but the museum was crowded and he couldn’t find her. That evening he wanted to call her and apologize for whatever he’d done that time years ago, but her name wasn’t in the phonebook. He knew a couple of people who might know her or how to find her, but then thought it’s all right, you can have a few harmless enemies in this world and still sleep well and live through a normal day every day. In time you’ll straighten it out with her, if it was that important.

For the last two months, when he brushed his hair on the right side, his head hurt. He went to a doctor, something he hadn’t done in about a dozen years, and pointed to the spot. The doctor felt it, looked into his eyes with a penlight, took his blood pressure and said “I know you must be worried it’s brain cancer or some form of brain damage or anything resembling those, but that you’re definitely on your way out of this beautiful world, but it’s not so. You’re healthier than you almost should be for your age; when you’re approaching fifty you should begin conducting yourself as if you are. You must have hit your head hard two months back and it hasn’t healed fully.” He was relieved when he left her office, didn’t feel any pain the next day when he brushed his hair or pressed down on that spot, but has felt the same pain and even worse every day since for the last two weeks. He was worried about it again but more worried what a neurologist might do to try to find the reason behind the pain, so for the time being he’d avoid brushing that part of his head and pretend to believe the pain would ultimately go away.

His wife was playing with his penis when she said “Good God, you’ve blood coming out of the hole.” He went to a doctor, afraid he had something serious. His wife went with him, saying “Don’t get excited, it’s probably nothing. People always think they have the worst when they should think that nine times out of ten they have nothing, and if they do have something, it can usually be cured simply and quickly.” The doctor said it was a minor case of prostatitis and prescribed pills that would clear up the infection in two weeks. “Can I have sex during this time?” he asked and the doctor said “By all means — it’s good for the prostate gland. Only thing to stop you from it now is if your wife for the next few days minds a drop or two of your blood.”

For a year his uncle showed him a lot of attention. He took him to professional baseball and hockey games every other week, took him to first-run movies or Broadway plays at night, let him stay with him an entire summer month at his beach house, gave him a hundred dollars on his birthday and told him to buy what he liked with it. They were never close before then, and after the year his uncle stopped calling or coming by. He’d call his uncle and his uncle would say “I’m busy this weekend, kid. I’ll see you next Saturday or Sunday,” and the next weekend he wouldn’t call or show up either. Finally Don’s mother told him “I think my brother’s going through some change-of-life crisis — don’t feel it’s your fault he doesn’t act the way he used to with you.” Ten years later his mother called and said “Uncle Nat died in Miami last night — a heart attack. I’m flying down with Dad — can you look after my plants?” He said “I’d like to come too,” and she said “What for? — you two were never close.”

His wife said “Let’s renew our marriage vows, just together, Carole can stay with my mother. We’ll write the ceremony ourselves, be our own witnesses and judge, go on the Caribbean honeymoon we never took, not tell anyone what we’ve done and only my mother where we’re going — it’ll be our one secret we’ll keep from everyone for life.” “Let me think about it,” he said, and that was the last they spoke of it.

He was thumbing through the phone directory looking for the zip code page when his wife said “Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you if you’re doing anything important, but would you like to go to bed for fifteen minutes?” “I just want to find this,” he said and she said “What are you looking for? A zip code; for Christ sakes. Forget my proposal,” and he said “No no, I have it now just let me mark it down,” and she said “Next time I should try to catch you when you’re reading page five of the Post, because I’m not asking too much, am I?” and he said “No, I can always do it; just it might take a little more time.”

His wife said “Please don’t take it — it can’t be good for you. The others here are all heads and know how to handle the stuff,” and he said “I always wanted to take a trip — now’s my chance, and I swear I’ll be okay,” and swallowed the LSD tab. First they were all gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus and his wife, who hadn’t taken any, said “If this is all it’s going to be, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all,” and he said “Drop another grape in my mouth and then come kiss me, you lovely beast — oh God, I love you,” But soon after that he became a famous black gospel singer and sang gospels in her voice and then he went outdoors to embrace all of nature and crawled low in the snow because he thought one of the other LSD takers was trying to kill him with a rifle and then he was in a circle with three other naked people in a dungeon, all with their heads yoked between the thighs of the person in front of them and turning a horizontal wheel for what would be an eternity and then he was a bug on the dungeon floor and human feet were trying to smash him. He was given a strong tranquilizer and while he was coming down he told his wife he had gone mad and nothing would ever make him sane again and he’d be completely dependent on her or in a squalid institution for life, “so listen, your friend with the gun before, get him to put it to my head and shoot perfectly.” Then he fell asleep and the next morning his wife said to him “I know how you hate I told-you-so’s but I wish you’d listen to me on things like this,” and he said “You’re right, no need to hedge around it, but I’ve seen the darkest I can become and nothing so much before has made me appreciate sanity and day-to-day sameness and simple sleep and just sitting here with you, for instance, and admitting any of this.”

“You’re being hired for your musculature and height, not your potential to teach,” the assistant principal said to him, and an hour later, after he introduced himself to the class as the new permanent sub and asked the students to one by one tell him their names, a boy stood up, the first student to ever respond to him in his own class, and said “I’m not taking orders from any white man,” and left the room. “Come back,” he said, “you come back.”

He was in college, dating a girl from New Jersey. He took the bus from Port Authority and was walking in the rain along the street to her house when she jumped out from behind a tree just to the side of him and said “Boo,” He looked at her from about ten feet away, sheepish grin on her face, body still partly hidden by the tree trunk. That was the single happiest moment of his life. Other than that he was in love with her and had looked forward to seeing her that day, he can’t really explain it beyond that. He went over to her, they hugged and kissed, but the most rhapsodic part of the experience was over for him.

He finished The Idiot, thought it the best book he read and wanted to talk to someone about it. No one he knew had read it, not even his brothers and mother who among them seemed to have read everything. A couple of high school friends said if the book was that great they’d start reading it right away, but he said by the time they finished he’d probably have forgotten most of it. “I need someone to talk about it with now. Maybe someone in your family,” and one friend reported back that his father had started it in college but couldn’t get past the first fifty pages.

He sent away ten cents and a box top and every Saturday after that waited for the mail in the building’s vestibule or on weekdays rushed home around lunchtime when the mail was often delivered. His mother said “It takes time,” but he said “Maybe this company just wanted to steal my dime.” Two months later the mailman said “I think this is for you. I could’ve left it by your letter box yesterday hut I knew the contents were especially precious to you,” and he gave him the small package. He opened it in his room, put the ring on his finger, adjusted the band, blew the ring’s whistle, peered into its sight, learned where north and south were in the room, held the ring under a light and then went into a dark closet, shut the door and brought the ring up close to his face and was able to make out the ring and the knuckle of his ring finger.

His mother took his sister and him to see Macy’s Santa Claus.

Santa’s helper ran the specially decorated elevator, other helpers led them down and around a dark corridor that looked like a funhouse’s and at the end of it gave them each a brown paper bag of Christmas candy. When his turn came, Santa sat him on his lap, called him “a skinny lad” and asked what he wanted for Christmas. “An electric train set and the right to change my name to Toby Tyler.”

His father was drafted. For a while Don slept in the same bed with his mother because she was afraid to sleep alone. But he kicked too much and occasionally wet himself, so she put him back in the boys’ room. Years later he mentioned this and she denied he’d ever slept in the same bed with her even when he was sick, so he stopped talking about it or even bringing up that time when his father was in the service.

His parents were on their double bed. He crawled into the room, stood up by holding the bedspread, wondered how they got into the bed. They must use a ladder and he imagined a ladder against the side of the bed and his parents climbing up it. He raised his arms and shook them and his father lifted him up and dropped him between them.

He was sitting at his favorite bar drinking a beer. A man sat next to him, said “Beer is it? Another beer for this young man and a daiquiri for me,” and then said to Don “So what are your credentials or would you like me to first give mine?” and put his hand on Dan’s knee and rubbed it. Don said “Excuse me, take your hand off, I don’t swing that way,” but must have said it louder than he intended to, for the man saw some other drinkers staring at him, got up, though the drinks he’d ordered were just now set down, and headed for the door. “What am I to do with your drinks, you goddamn fag?” the bartender said, but the man was outside. “You attract the wrong types,” the bartender said to Don. “Gain some weight.”

It was around 4 p.m., a school day, he went with about eight of his friends and one of them yelled from the street “Herminia, Herminia, it’s Jack,” and when she opened the window on the third floor, he said “Can we come upstairs?” “Too many of you,” she said. “Not so many,” Jack said, “and we all pay.” “Okay, come up.” They went up the smelly stairs, all sat in the living room with her brother, she said, while her mother and daughter stayed in the bathroom. “You have to pee,” Herminia said to the boys, “go outside someplace.” Jack went into her room first. There was cat feces in the middle of the room and her brother took out a knife and threw it at it but always missed, maybe intentionally, though the blade always stuck in the floor. Jack came out, said to the rest of them “Have your two bucks ready and do what she says, not what you want.” One boy said he was too far back in line and went downstairs. Don was fifth or sixth. He gave her the money, she put it in a cigar box, took off her bathrobe, told him to get undressed quick, got on the bed, spit into her hand and wiped it between her legs and said “Now please, mister, fast.” It was his first time. After he was done he said he was leaking, did she have a tissue or something, and she threw him a soiled dishrag. He zippered up without using it. “Again, nice, but alone or with no more than two next time,” she said to him just before he left the room, “and five dollars, five, this time only special favor for Jack.” He waited with the others till the next two were done and then they all went downstairs. “How was it?” Jack asked him outside and he said “Awful, but I’m glad I did it already,” and for a month after that thought he had a venereal disease.

A friend knew of a prostitute on 85th Street. They went right to her door, she said through it “Come back in fifteen minutes,” they came back and she said “Who goes first?” “Only he wants it tonight,” his friend said when he saw she was pregnant and Don said to him “I do very much — I don’t care.” He went to bed with her, she charged five dollars, and after it was over she asked for a two dollar tip “because I did a little extra for you and, stomach and all, you can’t say it was bad.” He was already dressed, she was putting on her clothes, and he reached over to the dresser to put two dollars on it but grabbed his five off it and ran for the door. She yelled “Stop, that’s mine now,” and grabbed his shirt and pulled his hair. He turned around, pulled her hands off him and pushed her in the chest and she fell to the floor. “Oh Jesus,” she said, holding her stomach, and sucked in some air, blew it out, opened her eyes on him again and started to get up and he ran out the door. “Help, a man robbed me,” she yelled into the hallway and two men came out of the door next to hers and chased him down the three flights of stairs, one waving a bottle it seemed. His friend was waiting on the stoop. “Get going,” Don said, running past him and they ran down the block, looked back, didn’t see anyone chasing them and got a cab. His friend said “What happened? The time I went to her she was nothing but sweet,” “She wanted another five after and I just didn’t think that was fair,” “Next time give it to her or you’ll get us both killed. I’m crossing her off my list, even for six months from now,” and he took out his address book and crossed out her name and number.

He didn’t shave the week after his father died. His mother said on the third day of their mourning period “You look dirty — stop grieving so hard. Shave for me,” He said “I can’t seem to raise the razor to my face,” and she said “Go to a barber,” “I can get hepatitis from one and besides, for some reason I don’t think it’s right to go to a barber right now or even to go outside,” “I’ll shave you, or one of your brothers,” and he said “Right now I’m feeling a little disturbed so I’d trust someone else’s hand even less than my own, even with an electric razor in it. It might give me a shock or explode. But don’t worry. I’m not planning to grow a beard and as long as I don’t slash my clothes and throw things, everyone should be able to respect me for the time being.”

He got his draft notice and went to the army center for the physical. He passed all the physical tests, though he tried his best not to, and then intentionally answered the psychological test wrong in several places and was sent in to see the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said “You checked here you have nightmares, then crossed it off and checked you don’t — which is it, and if you do have them, how bad are they?” “I do have them, but didn’t want to give you any excuse for keeping me out the army, but it’s okay, because they come and go, nothing serious, and one of these days, not that I’m claiming I know when, I know they’ll all be gone and I’ll sleep completely peacefully again,” “Do you have many male friends?” and he said “Some, but not for very long any more, and certainly not as many as when I was younger — three, four years ago, but okay, people change, I do, you do, we all have to, right? We go through certain things, not that what I went through was so bad — in fact it wasn’t when you compare yourself to the rest of the world. It’s just that my friends got to be different than me, in interests and things, so they didn’t understand me anymore or didn’t try to and I just didn’t like what they were doing with their lives and told them so, that’s all. I speak my mind, sometimes without anyone asking and when I know what I say might hurt, but so do a lot of people, so is that so bad?” “What about women — do you go out with them much?” and he said “Very much, or at least I want to, and I used to go out much more too — in high school and when I was a dancer. But it’s either they’re not attracted to me as they used to be or I just don’t find that many to my liking in many ways — intellectually, spiritually, and that they’re always pampering themselves so much, which I used to appreciate when I was in the ballet, more really for professional reasons, but now find it a little too self-centered and stupid. I do have one good woman friend though, but just to talk to,” “What do you talk about with her?” and he said “Things we don’t like — our problems, but not mental ones. Just what we think about various people and daily life. And she in a way is like me, which is probably why we get along so well and can speak so freely to one another. She also had plenty of girl friends and went out a lot with men and now she doesn’t and for many of the same reasons as me. Anyway, it’s easier to talk to her than to anyone else, including, right now, my family,” “But you get along with your family — you checked a yes for that here,” and he said “Oh yes, we’re a very close bunch and always have been, just at the moment everyone’s gone off some place and my sister, who’s really too immature for me to speak to deeply, well we don’t get along that well.” “Why do you want to be in the army?” and he said “Because of everything I talked about so far — why else? To make new friends and maybe to get away from college and home for a while and because if I’m not let in — not that you saw me volunteering, you know — my brothers will think something’s wrong with me, since the two oldest served honorably and my father was in World War Two, though he only ran a pharmacy at an Arizona base.” “How would you describe your relationship with your father other than what you checked off on the test?” and he said “Close, or somewhat, though he was much older than most fathers of boys my age when I was growing up, which might explain some things, But I really didn’t know how close I was to him till after he died. Don’t misunderstand me. What I mean is I didn’t know how much I loved and missed him till after he died, Before that, like I suppose most boys and young men to their fathers, you just take the relationship and his presence for granted and never think he’s going to die.” “What would you say if I told you that I think for the present time you and the army are incompatible?” and he said “No we’re not. If you think we are, then you’re dead wrong and you should send me to someone else here to examine me — anyone you want, I don’t care — because I’m just nervous now in front of you, that’s the way I always get with tests and then when I try to explain why I didn’t do well on them.” “No, perhaps in a year from now the army will send you another draft notice; but for now you’ll have to be temporarily deferred,” and he said “My family’s not going to like it, I don’t like it, and I insist you let me see another psychiatrist, because I don’t see how anyone person by himself can make such an important and maybe career threatening decision on someone else.” His brothers all said he was wrong to pretend he was disturbed and he said “I just didn’t want to clean out any stove grease with my bare hands, which I hear some country sergeant always makes the city boy do, or train with live bullets over my head or even hold a loaded gun,” and they said he could have avoided the training and sadistic sergeant and guns by using the same intelligence and cunning he used to get out of the army and he said “Maybe, but at the time it seemed the only solution and now it’s too late. Maybe I’ll be called up in a year as the doctor said,” but he never was.

Two men tried to rob him on the street. He went crazy, screamed “You can’t do this to me or anyone else in this neighborhood,” and started to swing wildly and one went down and stayed down after his knife flew into the street and he ran after the second one, caught him and picked him up and threw him through a store window and then punched and kicked him till the man said “Please, I give up, get a rag for my neck,” and held them both on the ground till the police came. The newspapers wrote about it the next day. “Male dancer beats up toughs,” the headline of one article said.

“I have to stop teaching,” he told his wife. “I know we need the money and health insurance but I can’t take another week of it no matter how good the kids might be some days.” She said “Just stick in there, you’re only going through a bad period in your work, and in ten years you can retire at half pay and still be young enough to do what the hell you want for the rest of your life and with never a complaint about it from me.” “Maybe I can take up painting now,” he said, “or classical piano playing. Creativeness runs in my family, or did.”

His dead brother has showed up in his dreams about once a month for the last five years. Usually he was guiding or lecturing him. “You’re not loving enough to your wife…You don’t pay enough attention to your daughters…Be more tolerant of mom, she’s getting old…Go back to choreography if you can’t think of anything else — you never really gave yourself a chance.” “How is it where you are?” he asked the last time and his brother said “Don’t get nervous about it — it’s fine for everyone, but do what you can to take the normal time and beyond to get here.”

One image keeps on coming back to him. He could be anywhere, on a subway, lying in a bed, in his classroom or listening to music, and it just drops into his head. It’s of his mother drying him off and powdering him after he was through taking his own bath.

His older daughter gave him a tie for his last two birthdays and the last Christmas. His wife had a big laugh over the last one. “Don’t you know what it means?” she said and he said “I don’t believe in that stuff or not that much. She just knows I always stain or wrinkle my ties but thinks I look handsome in them.”

He got an anonymous typewritten note from a student. “You are my favorite teacher ever and I’ll tell you why. Some teachers study to teach, you were born into it so didn’t have to study. A born into it teacher is both smart, patient and kind and something else no one can define. Thank you. Signed: a student (female, but that’s not important) but a lifelong friend.”

Today’s his birthday and his watch stopped on the morning hour his mother said he was born. He wound it up but it didn’t start again.

That was when he thought about the hour and day he was born. He took it to a watchmaker who said it would cost more to repair than if he bought the watch new. “The parts now are worth more than the whole. Buy the new nonwindup kind — quartz, the only thing today. Those watches will eventually put me out of business, but they’ll save you a lot of trouble.” “No, I’m an old fogy on things like that — sell me a good windup watch.” The watchmaker said “You have a birthday coming up?” and he said no. “You have a wife though, right?” and he said “Divorced.” “Children?” and he said “Two daughters.” “Old enough to buy a watch?” and he said “The oldest might be, if I wanted a cheap watch, but the youngest is only five.” “A girl friend then?” and he said “None and none in sight.” “I was only suggesting all these because no man should buy his own watch.” “I don’t believe that. Just give me a round one that’ll work even better than the last and which has numerals and has to be wound once a day.”

Encountering Revolution

Georgia and I are getting our son dressed to go to the dentist when the doorbell rings. Jimmy wants to wear shorts and Georgia’s insisting he wear slacks and I’m saying as I go to the door that I don’t care what he wears so long as she gets him out of here and I can continue practicing for my recital tonight.

It’s our landlady, Mrs. Longmore, who says “Quickly, hurry, turn on your radios, turn up the TVs, war’s been declared, the whole country’s going to ruins.”

Mrs. Longmore has been known to use any excuse or lie to get into one of her apartments to see if the tenant’s installed a new heavy appliance without notifying her for the surcharge on the rent, so I tell her to calm herself, the only war currently raging is between our son and his folks, and to quiet my own nerves I turn on the radio to a classical music station which at this hour only plays Baroque.

The announcer’s speaking only a little less hysterically than Mrs. Longmore about a civil war taking place. I figure it’s this very station’s radio play about a war that’s disturbing her. I switch stations to prove my point, but they’re all giving the same kind of news.

The insurrection, as the newscaster I settle on puts it, began last night in a northeast college community when a band of students beat up three policemen who the students said had for no reason clubbed a friend of theirs, though the police claim the student they clubbed had first beaten up an elderly park employee who had courteously informed the student of the park’s curfew law. Though opinions differ on how the disturbance started, the police then called for reinforcements, who came with the suburb’s one armored car. The police tried breaking up the students’ demonstration in the park with nightsticks, the students beat them back with rocks and chemical sprays, the police fired tear gas canisters, and when these were hurled back with makeshift fire bombs, rifles, and two students were killed. Hundreds of enraged students on campus banded into an armed mob and overwhelmed the police guarding the park, with several fatalities on both sides, and used the cannon in the armored car to blow up the police barracks. They then seized the local radio station and broad casted appeals to students and workers to join them in the streets to rid the area of its homicidal police and those public servants who use these police for private self-serving ends. The radio station was destroyed by armored cars summoned from nearby suburbs, though by this time thousands of students and some workers were battling guardsmen and police in the area and eventually throughout the Northeast Region. Students in many university communities in the North and Southwest Regions learned of the fighting and also rebelled. Over commandeered radio stations they declared a national revolt in the name of sanity and peace against all institutions, groups and persons who opposed the revolt, and that they soon hoped to meet their Eastern and Central revolutionary comrades to form a united provisional government that would coordinate the postwar effort if they won, or else all underground activities if the open rebellion failed.

Georgia, Jimmy and Mrs. Longmore huddle around me when the newscaster says the president’s about to make an address of unprecedented importance from his emergency headquarters. We turn on the television and stare at the president’s seal for a while. Then the president appears, looking no more harried than he was in all his previous heralded addresses of proven unimportance, and says his historical residence, Defense and Justice Buildings and National Art Museum have been shelled and nearly taken this morning, but the Capitol and entire Central Region surrounding it are now back under complete government control. “By late today, or early tomorrow, this so-called rebellion by university thugs, high school toughs, innocent dupes seduced by the slogans of strife, and those alien agitators working for the countries most likely to gain by the collapse of our political and economic system, will have ended. And then that part of the world still in chains though ever hopeful of future freedom, and those allied nations not in chains only because of the military might behind our country’s freedom, will once more breathe easier knowing our nation is at peace again.”

He’s suddenly cut off. There’s nothing on the screen now but the jittery specks we usually only get with bad reception. Then the word “liberated” appears, followed by a voiceover saying “In the name of the common people of this country and those, via television satellite, of the world.”

A young man in work clothes and with a rifle strapped to his back faces the camera from behind a lectern. He says he’s the regional spokesman for the national revolution and gives a report of the war up to now. Guerrilla units are fighting counterrevolutionary forces in all Northern and Southern regions, and despite what the president just said, in the Central Region and Capitol as well. Many large sections of small major cities and many small sections of large major cities are in the hands of the revolutionaries. The battle for the country’s principal war-works city was lost at a cost of hundreds of lives to both armies, though military production there has been set back for years. “By tomorrow evening, or the evening after, half the population will be under rebel control. And once all five regions and the Capitol have been completely liberated, and it can only be with a second successful revolution here that the first real world revolution can begin, we will help all the common people of this globe free themselves from the international political-economic arrangement that is keeping them hungry and enslaved and the world perpetually on the verge of war and total annihilation. For a new day of eternal peace and freedom is fast approaching us,” he says, when he collapses from a bullet fired off-camera. Two soldiers in recognizable military dress drag him out by his hair. His cameraman’s ordered to stand before the camera with his arms raised. A third revolutionary — the director of the newscast — is rifle-butted to the ground for reaching for a concealed weapon, though she gave ample warning to studio guards and home audience that she was going to search through her pockets for a handkerchief because she was about to sneeze.

An army officer kicks over the lectern and sits behind a desk.

He says the country’s first widespread internal armed conflict in a hundred years has all but concluded and that every annexed radio and television station will be returned to its rightful ownership by tonight. He reviews the counterrevolution in progress. All sections of cities the revolutionary spokesman said were in rebel hands have been recaptured and pacified. Guerrilla units are rapidly being smoked out and eliminated and no longer pose a national or regional threat. The president is returning to a thoroughly becalmed Capitol and will spend the evening in his historical residence. The country’s leading defense industry city will resume normal production at the start of the regular work day tomorrow. “All citizens in this area are urged to return to their homes till further notice, as an indefinite curfew begins in two hours. Stay tuned to this or any of your other legitimately run stations for a continuation of the president’s address and important news bulletins, advisements, and information regarding the country’s planned victory celebration.” Then there’s an unusually long series of commercials followed by the soap opera Mrs. Longmore says she always puts on at this hour. She returns to her apartment to watch it.

“I guess this means Jimmy’s dental appointment is canceled,” Georgia says, “and it took two months to get. And what about your recital, Phil? You’ll have rented a hall nobody’s allowed to come to. And Dad!” meaning her father who lives with us and spends every day in the park’s chess house downtown. We run to the window, but he isn’t on the street. At the windows of brownstones across the street and on either side of us are people anxiously eyeing the pedestrians hurrying to get home or to buy goods before the curfew begins.

“Check the refrigerator,” I say.

“Forget the refrigerator. We’ve got to find Dad.”

I yell out the window if anyone’s heard if our city and particularly the park has been physically touched by the war. But it seems the people in the buildings don’t want to be distracted from catching sight of their close ones and the people in the street are in too much of a hurry to answer me.

I switch to every radio and television station to see if there’s any news about the city’s involvement in the war. All the radio keeps saying is for everyone to stay tuned to his television, and the only television programs are the ones normally on, with messages moving at the bottom of the screen urging all viewers to remain home or return home but stay tuned because important news bulletins will follow.

I dial the chess house, parks department, police, newspaper and the two cronies my father-in-law always meets at the chess house and then the telephone operator as to why I can’t reach any of these numbers, but right after each dialing a recorded voice tells me the number I’m calling is temporarily out of service and that I should stay tuned to my television set because important news bulletins are going to be made.

I ring the doorbells of all my neighbors. The only person who’ll tear himself away from his television long enough to speak to me briefly through the door says he hasn’t heard anything about the city’s part in the war. “Though there was an announcement just before that tomorrow and the next day will be wage-paid holidays for all workers and government-subsidized ones for all businesses because the rebellion was crushed. And that all TV programs will be preempted in a few minutes for a four-hour special on the revolt, with live coverage of the most damaged areas in the country, videotape highlights of the last bloody battles, and the president conducting a walking tour of the partially ravaged Capitol.”

Georgia pleads with me to try to find her father in the hour we have left before the curfew. “That way I’ll always know we did everything possible to find him.”

I leave the building. The weather’s clear and the neighborhood as peaceful as on an average summer Sunday: stores grated and locked, most of the apartment windows shaded and closed, an occasional car or motorcycle driving past, a solitary couple at a bus stop. They know less than I about what’s happened in this city, as their television broke down an hour ago and they’re going to a friend’s house to watch the special.

I start to jog to the park’s chess house. Little by little I see signs that perhaps a minor disturbance took place. A broken car window…an abandoned bike…a row of garbage cans turned over…a speeding police car and army truck with their emergency lights on. Then that a riot if not a fierce battle took place, with stores without windows…buildings without walls…streets without buildings, and smoke, flames, bodies, limbs, teeth, hair…I head home. This time across the park, which was bombed and strafed. Past the gutted chess house. Through several residential neighborhoods: now smoldering mounds of debris. My own street’s been torn up while I was gone, my building blown apart. Only the old-fashioned marble staircase remains, ending in the sky. “Georgia,” I scream. “Jimmy!” I shout their names repeatedly as I dig and pick away at the rubble.

The super comes out of a hole in the ground where the entrance to his basement apartment was. “No use wasting your energy and voice doing that, Mr. Devine. Whole building’s occupants either been wiped out or buried under or went scrambling out of here between the time the explosions started and the place caved in. Really can’t say who was responsible for it all. Either the revolutionaries who rushed into the building and for one strategic reason or another set it off, or else the government tanks that came up the street chasing them. Didn’t see any of your family leave, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t. I just know nobody else is around but my wife and me. We were the lucky ones, living so deep in the ground with no floor to fall from. All our friends used to say ‘Why do you want to live in a dungeon like that? Steam pipes all over your ceilings and no view but the next building’s blank wall.’ Now they know. Because I always felt this would happen one day, which is why I took this place and job. What do you think you’re going to do now?”

I haven’t been back in this city for nine years. First thing on arriving I go to our former street. Twenty-to thirty-story apartment buildings have gone up where our five-story buildings used to be. There are trees and shrubbery on the sidewalks now, and all the stores have become so sophisticated with their wares and window displays and exorbitantly priced: ours was a neighborhood of apparently poorer workingmen.

I check the tenant directory in the apartment house where our building and several others once stood. Only name I recognize from the old days is the super’s and I ring his bell.

“Who is it?” he says over the intercom. He can’t quite place the name so I say “You know: Georgia, Phil and Little and Big limbo from number thirty before it was blown up.” Now he remembers and he tells me to take the apartments A to L elevator to basement two.

“So how goes?” he says in the basement corridor. “And did you ever find any of your pretty family and your wife’s dad?”

“Nope. They just never turned up or were found. How’s your wife, father-in-law and son?”

“First wife cracked up, got a new one now, and I never had any in-laws or son. You must be mistaking me for another super.”

“How do you like your new building?”

“The walls are like cardboard, most of the plumbing and wiring’s already shot, and it’s either way overheated or drafty and cold. But it’s a more cheerful looking and social place. And there are no rounded hallways and big staircases and high ceilings and such like the old one, which makes it easier for my staff and me to clean. Well, it’s been good talking to you, Mr. Devine. And every bit of luck in your future living, okay?”

I press the elevator button for the lobby, but it takes me to the floor we lived on. Our hallway floor was made of a lively terrazzo and at the end of it was a casement window we threw open on the warmer days. On the walls were forged iron fixtures with light bulbs. This door would be where our thick oak one was if this was still our third floor. Georgia would be home now preparing dinner, and instead of using my keys today I think I’d ring the bell. She’d say “who’s there, please?” and when I’d tell her, though first posing as a special delivery postman with a message about her missing husband or maybe just a grocery boy, she’d open the door and say how unusual it is for me to forget my keys. I’d kiss her lips, ask where’s our son. She’d yell out the window “Jimmy, your father’s home,” or “Dinner’s ready,” or “Come quick — the surprise of your life is here.” The front door would still be open. I’d hear him run upstairs. He could take the elevator of this new building, but like me he likes racing up rounded stairways. But I’m getting confused. Our building was destroyed, this one went up in its place. The same super’s downstairs — that’s true: ten years older and with a different wife, though he said he never had an in-law or son. If Georgia’s on this floor it’s because she moved in some time after the building was constructed, and because of a number of errors, neither of us was told the other was alive, and the super might not have told me she’s here because over the years he’s developed mental blocks about certain people, events and times. I’d knock on the door. I’d knock because I don’t live in this building and never had the keys. She’d open the door. Jimmy would be there and they’d be overjoyed at seeing me, we’d all kiss and hug. I’d tell them how neither my hands and then the most advanced digging equipment could turn up any of their remains. How I stayed in the city for a year, each day canvassing all the police stations for some word of them, till I was told to give up or at least stop pestering the police, so I got a job with a Central Region orchestra, remarried, had two children, Laurel and Rose. Then a revolution started in Central. I was on tour, my wife and children were at home, they too were never found. We had the basement apartment — I’d taken that safeguard of my former super’s just in case there would be another revolution — but this time the building fell on top of it rather than around. The revolution ended as quickly as the last one. One of the sides won. The other side is now in power. It seems there’s going to be another revolution there, which is why I came to this city. I’d heard that because of the extensive death and devastation of the last revolution here, this region had become the most peaceful of the five. She’d tell me her story. While I was searching for her father, she and Jimmy were watching the television special when suddenly all the electricity went and seconds later the building fell apart. Both were quickly hospitalized in different cities and were incoherent for a year till a relief agency brought them together again. “No, that’s not how it happened,” Jimmy would say. “I was in the kitchen, getting a glass of water, when the tap stopped running and then the windows and walls went. Just as I was looking at Mom through the space where the living room wall used to be, the floor under me went also. Then I don’t remember anything but a lot of tumbling, and next thing I know it’s a year later and Mom’s holding me.”

I get on the elevator and press the button for the lobby, but the door opens on a penthouse floor and then on the super dragging a garbage bag in the basement.

“Say, I was hoping you hadn’t left and might drop by again. My wife says I was very rude not asking you in before. She says I forgot how much you lost ten years ago and how much I was personally spared. So come on in now to meet the missus and also for a stiff apologetic drink.”

I go into his apartment. It’s almost palatial compared to his old basement flat. The television set is on. He hands me a drink. A woman comes out of the kitchen carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

“My wife, Gerta. We had two kids, something the first wife didn’t want, but they were snatched up from us during one of those harsh flus. Drink strong enough for you, Phil? And where you planning to bed down for the night if I can ask?”

“In a hotel downtown. I’ll find one, thanks.”

“Lots of nice hotels in town.”

“Most are too expensive for the ordinary man,” Gerta says. “Expensive for us, maybe, but I don’t believe for him. But what do you know about hotels here? You ever stay in one?”

“Our friends have told us about them.”

“She’s right. Visiting friends who come through not so much to see us as a whole slew of people. I forgot about them.”

“I wish you wouldn’t forget that maybe I don’t forget.”

“I’m sorry. It seems all I’m telling people today is I’m sorry, but I am. To both of you for what I didn’t remember and should have done.”

The television program concerns a hospital resident who wants to operate on a woman before she takes her first flight to Earth. This series about a traveling space hospital has been running a long time or perhaps this is a rerun, as I remember my daughters watching it. The patient says “Honestly, Doctor, is it plausible for me to think I’ll ever reach my affianced alive?” The doctor bites his thumb. The super asks me how I like the set’s reception. “Real sharp,” he says. “Like real life, if not clearer.”

“Sets have certainly progressed in the last few years,” Gerta says.

“Remember old lady Longmore, Phil? How she got the first giant color set in the building? Cost her a fortune it did, and she was never found either. All those unmarked graves under this building. All-tolled I’d say a few hundred.”

“Well, that’s not very much for a new set,” Gerta says. “People. I meant people.”

“Lon!”

“Okay. She doesn’t like me talking about it so I won’t. But it has been ten years since it happened, which should be time enough to mention it without someone else getting upset.”

“I’d think so,” I say.

“You see?’” He refills my glass. The doctor says “Everything will go smoothly — I swear.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” the patient says. She’s put on a stretcher, wheeled through the hospital’s many halls. Through a window in the operating room, Earth and passing spaceships and comets can be seen. A nurse fastens a surgical mask over the doctor’s mouth, another nurse slaps a scalpel into his hand. “Gently does it now,” the doctor says, when the screen goes blank. “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice says. “We are having difficulty with our transmitters, so please stand by,” A sign on the screen says the regularly scheduled program will resume shortly. Court music from another century and country is played. Just as I’m beginning to enjoy a rare flute and double bassoon duet, the music stops and an army officer stares at the audience from behind a desk. “It’s just like our first revolution here,” I say to Lon, “except this guy’s got a pistol in his hand instead of a pointer. And much like my last region’s revolution three years ago, except then there were two officers from different military branches sharing a stand-up mike.”

“This is not a television drama or news documentary,” the officer says. “I am the designated communications spokesman for the national government in power. Minor revolutionary activity has broken out on both sides of the border of this and the Central regions. All noncombatant citizens are ordered to evacuate any outdoor areas and stay in their business, living or shopping quarters till the conflict has ended. Most of the rebels have been defeated, tried and executed, but hundreds more need to be caught and exterminated before the two regions can be considered safe from siege and slaughter and the country at large free from similar outbreaks and bloodshed.”

A second officer appears on the now split screen. He says the president and his military staff will give a report soon from their permanent underground building, and then gives specific instructions to people in this region. “Though there’s little chance the hostilities will increase or spread, go to the bottom of whatever building you’re in or nearest to. Lie flat with your body against a wall till the all-clear sirens are sounded. If the sirens aren’t working, then the signals may also be heard on your radios and TVs. If the radio and TV stations aren’t operating, the all-clear will be delivered over bullhorns by servicemen dispatched to all populated areas.”

A message “Go to your building’s lowest floor” flashes on the screen till it’s replaced by the title and credits of a film dramatization of what people should do from the time they learn of a local armed disturbance till the moment the all-clear signal is made. Actors, carrying portable televisions and supplies, take elevators and stairs to their building’s basement, undo their top buttons, buckles, laces, ties and belts, and lie face-down on the floor with their hands behind their heads—”But as far away from any wall with a window in it,” one child actress stands up to demonstrate and say, “because of the danger of flying glass.”

“If this position becomes unendurable,” an actor says, “try mine as a substitute,” He removes his shoes, empties his pockets of eyeglasses and sharp objects such as pens and keys, crouches down on his shins, crosses his feet, sticks his head between his chest and forearms—”Which in this position should be as huddled up to your knees as you can get them.”

“Looks like we’ve again got no place to go down to,” the super says. “And seems you’ll have to stick it out with us, Phil, unless you think you can make it to a hotel in time.”

“Nonsense,” Gerta says. “Mr. Devine will stay here and think of it as his home till the city’s no longer threatened.”

We hear faint reports of what seem like distant explosions and buildings crumbling to the ground.

“There it is,” the super says. “You hear it once you never forget.

Oh how I’m reminded from the last time when just our simple brownstone went. Remember, Phil? There we were, Gerta — my first wife and I having ourselves a fine old supper, when all of a sudden—”

“I thought it was around lunchtime when you said the first rumblings came.”

“Then a fine old lunch, which in those days were as big as our suppers are today, when all of a sudden — but why don’t I stand you both to another drink?”

“Might as well,” Gerta says. “Mr. Devine — the same?”

Should I run up and get Georgia and Jimmy? Warn them at least, because maybe their television’s on the blink and for some reason they didn’t hear those explosions and cave-ins before, if that’s what those sounds were. I start for the door.

“You don’t want to be leaving now,” Gerta says.

“If he thinks he’s got some better place to go to, let him. He’s experienced and of age.”

“But it can’t be safe out there. In fact, it’s — Mr. Devine, where, you going?”

Outside their apartment people are lying on the floor, pressed against the walls, most in either of the two positions suggested in that film: mothers and fathers lying on their younger children, the elderly and sick with their medicines close-by, piles of food and beverages in communal out-of-the-way corners and in unbreakable containers, several televisions on showing that army communications officer with the anchor persons of the country’s leading network news shows.

“Because of the thousands of skeptical phone calls we’ve received regarding the authenticity of the government’s reports,” the officer says, “I’ve asked these people to appear with me to verify that a revolution is indeed taking place.”

I ring for the elevator. But it’ll be bouncing me back and forth between penthouses and basements if it does come, so I run up the service steps, race down the hallway. I search for my keys. Hang the keys, and I rap on the door and ring the bell. Georgia says through it “Who’s there, please?” and then “You lose your keys a second time today, Phil? That’s so unlike you — really so rare,” and she opens the door.

“Who’s it, hon?” a man says from somewhere inside. “Who’s here with you besides Jimmy?” I ask her. “Beg your pardon, sir?” an elderly woman says.

“Excuse me, Miss, I mean, Ma’am, but I took it on my own to hurry all the tenants to the shelter below. There’s a good chance the entire city’s going to be directly involved in the war.”

“No picnic — we heard,” a man says, coming to the door. “But at least they didn’t throw the bull this time, which — bad as the situation is — is the way we like it. ‘All civilians,’ this spokesman guy said, ‘must take every precaution against antigovernment attack and cooperate with the government in every possible way,’ which is how it should’ve been worded in that last revolt here: full of facts and open and aboveboard.”

“Ready?” the woman says to him. They leave, carrying supplies and a cat in a carrier.

I enter the apartment. It’s much different than the one we had on the third floor. Smaller rooms, many more home appliances, recessed spotlights in the ceilings and linoleum looking like parquetry on the living and dining room floors. From the windows the neighborhood seems calm: no moving vehicles, only a trio of singing drunks walking in the middle of the street, though a mile or so downtown I see lots of smoke and what looks like fire.

A television’s on in the bedroom. The picture focuses in on the president sitting at a long table with about forty military men. “Once again,” he says.

I get a beer and sit in front of the set. I prefer their thick carpet to the single prayer rug we had in our room. The sounds of gunfire, explosions and buildings collapsing get louder. They can’t be coming from the television, as what’s on now is the president introducing his family to us from what he previously described as his noise-and bombproof bunker.

I go to the window. A few foot soldiers are shooting at some civilians in the street. The civilians, who first seemed unarmed, fire back. A tank moves into the street from the avenue and machineguns what I suppose are the revolutionaries. Though maybe the revolutionaries captured the tank and the people in civilian dress are government soldiers made up to look like ordinary pedestrians so they can get closer to the tank to retake it or blow it up. A woman climbs on top of the tank, shoves something through a turret slit and jumps off as the tank explodes. Six tanks enter the block single file. I look back at the television set and see the same scene I just saw happening on the street continue to happen on the screen. The woman and several other people run into an apartment house. The lead tank swivels around and moves after them. I think this must be live or taped coverage of the fighting on in another city or maybe in a section of this city that looks very much like this one, till I recognize the number of this building’s awning and the nymph statue in the middle of the working fountain in front, which I was admiring from inside the lobby just before I rang the super’s bell.

“Georgia,” I shout. “Regina. Hurry up, and bring the kids. There’s the wildest television show on you’ve ever seen. It’s a street battle. Our street. With the tank cannons pointed straight at our lobby doors. Either the government or the revolutionaries have a mobile camera team outside, showing one of the armies destroying its enemies right there live for us on our TV screen.”

“I’ll be right there,” Georgia says.

“In a second, love,” Regina says. They all come into the bedroom. Georgia and Regina sit on opposite sides of me on the floor — Georgia, as she likes to do, with her arm around my waist and fingers tucked into my belt, Regina with her head on my lap. Jimmy and Rose sit in front of us holding up Laurel, who’s too young to stand on her own yet.

“I don’t like this program,” Jimmy says. “Too gory.”

“Neither do I,” I say and I reach over the heads of the children.

But the television’s a remote control unit and I can’t find the little command box to shut it off or lower the sound.

Goodbye to Goodbye

Goodbye,” and she goes. I stay there, holding the gift I was about to give her. Had told her I was giving her. This afternoon, on the phone. I said “I’d like to come over with something for you.” She said “How come?” I said “Your birthday.” She said “You know I don’t like to be reminded of those, but come ahead if you want, around seven, okay?” I came. She answered the door. From the door I could see a man sitting on a couch in the living room. She said “Come in.” I came in, gave her my coat, had the gift in a shopping bag the woman’s store had put it in. “I have a friend here, I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “Me? Mind? Don’t be silly — but how good a friend?” “My business,” she said, “do you mind?” “No, of course not, why should I? Because you’re right, it is your business.” We went into the living room. The man got up. “Don’t get up,” I said. “It’s no bother,” he said. “How do you do? Mike Sliven,” and he stuck out his hand. “Jules Dorsey,” and I stuck out mine. “Like a drink, Jules?” she said, as we shook hands, and I said “Yes, what do you have?” “Beer, wine, a little brandy, but I’d like to save that if you don’t mind.” “Why should I mind? Though something hard is what I think I’d like. Beer.” “Light or dark?” she said. “Whatever you have most of,” I said. “I have six-packs of both.” “Then…dark,” I said. “I feel like a dark. Suddenly I feel very dark. Only kidding, of course,” I said to Mike and then turned to her so she’d also see I was only kidding. She went to the kitchen. Mike said “Now I remember your name. Arlene’s spoken of you.” “I’m sure she had only the very best things to say of me too.” “She did and she didn’t,” he said, “but you’re kidding again, no doubt,” “Oh, I’m kidding, all right, or maybe I’m not. Say, who the hell are you anyway and what the hell you doing here? I thought Arlene was still only seeing me,” and I grabbed him off the couch. He was much bigger than I, but didn’t protest. “Where’s your coat and hat?” I said and he said “I didn’t come with a hat and my coat’s over there, in the closet.” “Then we’re going to get it and you’re going to leave with it,” I clutched his elbow and started walking him to the closet. Arlene came into the living room and said “Jules, what are you doing? — and where are you going, Mike?” “I think out,” he said. “Out,” I said. “I came over to give you a gift and take you to dinner for your birthday and later to spend the night with you here or at my place or even at a great hotel if you wish, and goddamnit that’s what I’m going to do,” “What is it with you, Jules? — I’ve never heard you talk like that before.” “Do you mind?” I said. “No, I kind of like it. And Mike. Are you going to leave when someone tells you to, just like that?” “I think I have to,” he said, “since if there’s one thing I don’t like to do in life it’s to get into or even put up a fight, especially when I see there’s no chance of winning it.” I opened the closet. He got his coat. I opened the front door and he left. I locked the door. Bolted it, just in case he already had the keys. Then I turned around. Arlene was standing in the living room holding my glass of beer. She came into the foyer with it. I didn’t move, just let her come. “You still want this?” she said. “No, the cognac,” I said. “It’s brandy but good imported brandy,” “Then the brandy,” I said. “How do you want it?” “With ice.” “Coming right up,” and she went back to the kitchen. I followed her. She was reaching for the brandy on a cupboard shelf above her, had her back to me. I got up behind her — she didn’t seem to know I was there — put my arms around her, pressed into her. She turned her head around, kissed me. We kissed. I started to undress her right there.

That’s not the way it happened, of course. The way it happened was like this. I did come over with a gift, it wasn’t her birthday, a man named Mike was there when I thought she’d be alone, she said he was a good friend, “in fact, the man I’m sleeping with now,” “Oh,” I said. “Well, I still have this gift for you so you might as well take it,” She said “Really, it wouldn’t be fair.” Mike came into the foyer, introduced himself. “Mike Ivory,” he said. “Jules Dorsey,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t stay.” “No, Jules, come in and have a drink. What’ll you have?” “What do you got?” I said. “I don’t know. What do we have?” he said to Arlene. She said “Beer — light and dark — wine — red and white — scotch, vodka, rye, bourbon, gin, brandy and I think a little of that cognac left, and all the mixers to go with them, besides other nonalcoholic stuff if you’re suddenly into that.” “Come on, Jules drinks his share,” Mike said, “or at least will with us here.” “I drink, all right,” I said, “though not that much. But tonight I’d like a double of that cognac you said you have, if you’ve enough for a double.” “Why not — right, Arlene? Want me to get it?” “It’s okay, I’ll get it,” she said, “but what’s a double?” “Just double whatever you normally pour,” he said. “If there’s so little in the bottle that you don’t have enough to double what you normally pour, empty the whole thing in his glass.” “I just usually pour, I don’t know how much,” she said. “So do it that way,” he said, “but double it.” “Fill half a regular juice glass,” I said, “and then put some ice in it, if you don’t mind?” “Ice in one of the best cognacs there is?” he said. “No way, sir. Sorry.” “Then make it your worst cognac,” I said, “but ice in it, please. I feel like a cognac and I feel like a double and I feel like I want that double cognac ice-cold.” “Sorry — really,” he said. “We only have one cognac and it’s one of the rarest there is. Gin, vodka, bourbon, scotch, even the beer, light or dark, I’ll put ice in for you, and the wine, either one, too. But not that cognac or even the brandy. They’re both too good. I’m telling you the truth when I say I couldn’t sleep right tonight if I knew I was instrumental or helpful in any way or even allowed it, just stood by and allowed ice in cognac or brandy when I knew just by saying something I might be able to stop it.” “Listen, you,” I said and grabbed his neck with one hand. He swung at me. I ducked and hit him in the stomach, he fell forward and I clipped him on the back. He went down. I put my foot under his chest and nudged him with it and he turned himself over on his back. I looked at Arlene. Her hands covered her eyes but she seemed to be peeking through the finger cracks. I said to Mike “Probably Arlene won’t like this but I’m going to give you to ten to get your coat and hat and—” “I didn’t come with a coat and hat,” he said. “Then ten just to get the hell out of here.” “Jules, this is awful,” Arlene said, not looking alarmed or frightened or really upset or anything like that. “I don’t care. It’s what I suddenly felt like doing even if I didn’t feel that right about doing it so that’s what I did. Now get, buddy,” I said to Mike. “One, two, three…” He got up, held his stomach as he went to the front door. By the count of eight he was out of the apartment. She said “I hate when anyone does that to people, but I think deep inside I loved it when you did it to him. Not because it was Mike. He’s very nice. It’s just that you were, well — I’ve never seen you like that before. I don’t know what that makes me, but come here, you rat.” I came to her. She mussed my hair, with her other hand slipped off one and then the other of her shoes. “Shall we do it here or in the bedroom?” “Here,” I said, “or the opening part of it, but first let me lock the front door.”

That’s not the way it happened either. It happened like this. Arlene’s my wife. We’ve been married for three years. We lived together for two years before that. We have a nine-month-old son. During dinner Arlene said she wanted a divorce. Our son was asleep in his room. I’d just put the main dish and side courses on the table. I dropped my fork. I was in what could be called a state of shock. I don’t like that term but for now it’ll have to do. Figuratively and maybe in some way literally — technically, scientifically — I was in a state of shock. I didn’t move for I don’t know how long. A minute, two, three. Just stared at my fork on my plate. Till the moment she told me this I thought that though we had some problems in our marriage, they were manageable and correctable and not untypical and that we were serious at working them out. All in all I felt we were very compatible in most ways and that the marriage was a successful one and getting better all the time. Arlene had said it several times — many times — too. About once a month she used to tell me that she loved me and loved being married to me, and about once a month, and not just after she told me this, I’d tell her the same thing. I meant it and felt she meant it. I had no reason to believe she didn’t mean it. This is the truth. Sometimes out of the blue she’d say “I love you, Jules.” Sometimes I’d answer “You do?” and she’d say “Truly love you.”

We could be in a taxi and she’d turn to me and say it. Or walking to a movie theater or in front of a theater during the intermission of a play and she’d break off whatever either of us was saying to say it. At that dinner, which I cooked — it was a good dinner, a chicken dish, rice cooked to perfection — something she taught me how to do — a baked zuccini dish, a great salad, a good bottle of wine, crabmeat cocktail to begin with, two drinks with cheese on crackers before we sat down, we had made love the previous night and we both said later on that it was one of the best acts of lovemaking we’d ever had, our son was wonderful and we loved being parents though admitted it was tough and tiring at times, both of us were making a pretty good income for the first time in our marriage so as a family we were financially sound, nothing was wrong or just about nothing, everything or just about everything was right, so that’s why I say I was suddenly in a state of shock. “You want a divorce?” I finally said after she said “So what do you have to say about what I said before?” “Yes,” she said, “a divorce.” “Whatever for?” “Because I don’t love you anymore,” she said. “But just last week or the week before that you said you loved me more than you ever have, or as much as you ever have, you said.” “I was lying.” “You wouldn’t lie about something like that.” “I’m telling you, I was lying,” she said. “Why don’t you love me anymore?” “Because I love someone else.” “You love someone else?” “That’s what I said, I love someone else.” “Since when?” I said. “Since months.” “And you stopped loving me the minute you started loving him?” “No, a couple of months earlier.” “Why?” “I don’t know. I asked myself the same thing lots of times and all I could come up with was that I felt rather than knew why. You fall in, you fall out. You fall out, you fall in. Though this time I’m sure I’ve fallen in forever, since the feeling has never been stronger.” “I can’t believe it,” I said. “Believe it. I’ve been having the most intense affair possible with a man I met at work — someone you don’t know — and he’s married but will get a divorce to be with me, just as I’m going to get a divorce to be with him.” “But the children, I mean the child,” I said. “We’ll work it out. We were always good at working things out in the past that most other couples never could, and we’ll work this out too. I’ll take Kenneth for the time being and when he’s completely weaned you can have him whenever you like as long as you like so long as it doesn’t disrupt his life too much.” “But just leaving me, divorcing me, breaking up this family, will disrupt his life,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to, I in fact tried not to, but the force of the feeling I have for this man and he for me—” “What’s his name?” “What’s the difference?” “Just tell me his name? Maybe I do know him.” “Even if you did, which you don’t, nothing you could do or say—” “His name, please, his name? I just want to know what and whom I’m up against.” “What could you know by just his name? If it was Butch or Spike or Mike, would it make you feel more or less confident that I’m not very much in love with him and that I’m not going to divorce you to marry him?” “Is it Mike?” “It isn’t, but you know that wasn’t my point. — All right, it is Mike,” when I continued to stare at her as if I’d caught her fibbing, “but so what? Mickey, Michael or Mike, it’s just a given name’” “Mike what?” I said. “Now that’s enough, Jules. I don’t want you starting trouble.” “I won’t start anything. I just want to know the man’s full name. That way I can begin saying to myself you’re leaving and divorcing me and breaking up our family for Mike So-and-So and not just a shadow. I’m not sure why, but it’ll make it seem realer to me and so will be much easier to workout in my head.” “Spiniker,” she said. “Mike Spiniker’” “With an ‘i,’ ‘a’ or ‘e’ or even a ‘u’ on the second half of his last name?” “Now you’re going too far,” she said. “Anyway, good — I have enough. I got up, got the phonebook off the phone stand in the living room. “What are you doing?” she said. “Can’t be too many Mike Spinikers in the book with an ‘a,’ ‘e,’ ‘u’ or second ‘i.’” I looked up his name. “One, a Michael, with two i’s, on Third Avenue.” I dialed him. “Stop that,” she said. “He lives in another city, commutes here.” A woman answered. “Is Michael Spiniker in?” I said. “Who’s speaking?” the woman said. “Lionel Messer. I’m his stocks and bonds man.” “Mike has stocks and bonds? That’s news to me.” “He has a huge portfolio of them and I’ve something very urgent to tell him about them if he doesn’t want to go broke by midnight tonight.” “I’ll get him, hold on.” She put down the phone. “Stop wasting your time,” Arlene said on the bedroom extension. “Hang up. It can’t be him. I’m telling you, he lives fifty miles from here.” “Hey what’s this about stocks and bonds?” Mike said. “Hello, Mr. Spiniker. Do you know Arlene Dorsey? Arlene Chernoff Dorsey — she goes professionally by Chernoff.” “Sure I do. We work in the same office building. But anything wrong? Because I thought this was about some stocks and bonds I don’t have.” “You seem very concerned about Ms. Chernoff. Are you?” “Sure I’m concerned. By your tone, who wouldn’t be? What’s happened?” “You sound as if you’re in love with Ms. Chernoff, Mr. Spiniker. Are you?” “Listen, who is this? And what kind of jerky call is this? You either dialed the wrong Spiniker or you’re crazy and not making any sense, but I’ll have to hang up.” “This is her husband, wise guy, and you better stop seeing her or I’m going to break your neck with my bare hands. If that doesn’t work, I’ll put a bullet through your broken neck. I have the means. And I don’t just mean a weapon or two or people to do it for me — I’ll do it gladly myself. I can. I have. Now do you read me?” “I read you, brother. Okay, fine. You have the right number and you’re not crazy and you’re probably right on target in everything you said, so my deepest apologies for getting excited at you. But let’s say there must be two Michael Spinikers in this city, because I have no stocks and bonds broker and after what you told me, I don’t ever plan to do anything with my money but keep it in the bank, okay?” “Got you,” I said and hung up. Arlene came running back to the living room. “You’d do that for me? You’d really go that far?” “I wasn’t just threatening for effect or because I knew you were on the line. The way I see our marriage is that until it’s clearly impossible to stay together, we’re stuck together for life. Of course I only feel this way because of the kid.” “I bet. You know, awful as this must seem about me, I think my feelings have come around another hundred and eighty degrees. What a husband I now realize I have. And what a weakling and pig that guy was for taking it the way he did, even if you weren’t all bluff, after all he swore the other day about how he’d stand with me against you and his wife when it finally came down to this. I’m sorry, Jules. So sorry, I want to beat my brains in against this chair. If my saying I love you very much isn’t enough, what else can I say or do to prove what I just said is true and that, I never want to stop being married to you?” “You can take my clothes off and carry me to bed.” “Will do if I can.” She put her arms around my waist and tried to lift me. “Oof, what a load. Instead of carrying you, which I no can do, what would you say to my just taking your clothes off and we do whatever you want us to right here on the floor or couch?” “Fine by me,” I said and she grabbed my shirt by the two collar ends and tore it off me.

That’s ridiculous also and never happened. Why not say what really did happen and be done with it? It was all very simple and fast. We were eating dinner when she said she was leaving me for a man named Mike. We had no child, we’d been married for eight years. I said I wouldn’t try to stop her. I could see it’d be useless and I did only want her to be happy. If she couldn’t be happy with me, I was glad she was with someone she could be happy with. She said she was thankful I was taking it so well and in such a decent civilized way. I asked about him. She said he worked in a law office on the same floor as hers. They’d been carrying on for six months. He was divorced, had two children. That night Arlene and I slept in separate rooms for the first time in our marriage, or for the first time when one of us wasn’t very angry at the other or wasn’t so ill that he or she needed to sleep alone. We just thought it best to sleep separately till she moved out. They rented a new apartment together the following month. I helped her pack and bring her belongings to the van she rented and drove. I told her I wouldn’t mind if Mike came and helped, since she had several vanfuls of stuff to move. She said she felt I shouldn’t meet him till much later on: when they were married, perhaps; maybe a year into their marriage when I could come by with my new woman who she said she knew I’d have by then. “You’ll be as much in love with someone else in a few months as I am now with Mike.” I said “I hope you’re right. It’ll certainly be what I want.” So she was gone. I thought I was taking it well but I wasn’t. I couldn’t take it, in fact. Every night I’d get drunk thinking about her. I read her old adoring notes and letters to me and looked at her photos and would slam the wall or table with my fists and shout and cry. I couldn’t stand thinking of her being with another man, kissing him, whispering to him, making love with him, doing all those private things with him, confiding to him, telling him what happened to her at the store that day, asking him if he’d like to see such and such movie or play that week, meeting him for lunch, going away with him some weekend, visiting friends, maybe even planning to have a child. It also distressed me that they were in the same profession. I knew that’d make them even closer, all those professional matters they could discuss and look up and share. A month after she left me I showed up in front of their office building at around the time I knew they’d be finished for the day. They walked out of the building fifteen minutes later, holding hands, chatting animatedly. I had a wrench with me. I pulled it out of my jacket, ran up to him and screamed “Meet Jules, her husband, you bastard,” and hit him in the hand he threw up to protect his head from the wrench. He grabbed that hand, turned to run and I hit him in the back of the head with the wrench. He went down. I kept yelling “I’ll never let her be with anyone else, you bastard, never. I love her too much. I’ll love her forever,” and swung the wrench over his face but didn’t hit him again. The police came. I didn’t try to get away. I don’t know what Arlene was doing at the time. I was arrested. Mike was taken away in an ambulance. Later he pressed charges against me. I pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years. That means I’ll serve around three and a half years if I don’t cause any trouble in prison. Arlene visits me every day she’s allowed to and stays the maximum time. It’s six hours by bus for her round trip but she says she doesn’t mind. Twice in my first half year here we were allowed to walk around the prison garden for an hour. She broke off with Mike and he’s already moved in with another woman. “So much for his professed eternal devotion,” Arlene said, “not that I would want it now.” She’s said several times that she’ll never again be with another man but me. She hated my hitting Mike with the wrench, but sees now it was probably the only way I could ever get through to her how much I loved her and wanted to get her back. “In some oddball way,” she said, “it made me fall for you all over again. Maybe also because what I did and the way I did it forced you to lose control and try to kill him and I’m trying to make up for that too. But it’ll all be different from now on. I can’t wait to be back home with you, my arms around you, in bed with you, I can’t wait.” At certain designated spots in the garden we’re allowed to hug and kiss for a half-minute, which we always did past the time limit till one of the guards ordered us to stop.

That’s not it. This is it. There wasn’t a wrench. There is a Mike.

My wife fell in love with him and told me this at breakfast, not dinner. She said she didn’t want to tell me at night because she wanted to give me plenty of time to adjust to it before I went to bed and also time for her to get her things out of the apartment and move in with a friend. We have no child. We tried for a while but couldn’t. Then I had a corrective operation and we could have a child, but she said the marriage wasn’t as good as it used to be and she wanted to be sure it was a very good marriage before we had a child. That was three years ago. She’s had several affairs since then. She told me about them while she was having them. I didn’t like her having them but put up with it because I didn’t want her to leave me. I don’t know why I mentioned anything about a gift. Maybe because her birthday’s in two weeks and I’ve been thinking recently about what to get her. A bracelet, I thought. But that’s out. This morning she said she realizes this is the third or fourth serious affair she’s had in three years. She’s had one or two others but they were quick and not so serious. She doesn’t want to continue having affairs while she’s married or at least still living with me. It isn’t fair to me, she said. She also said I shouldn’t put up with it and shouldn’t have in the past. Not that if I had told her to stop she would have, she said. But I should tell her to get the hell out of the house and should have two to three years ago. Since I won’t, she’ll have to leave me. That means divorce, she said. The marriage isn’t working out. What’s she talking about? she said. The marriage is so bad that she doesn’t think it’ll ever work out — it never will, that’s all, never. And because she wants to have children, maybe two, maybe three, but with someone she’s very much in love with, she’ll have to end our marriage and eventually get married to someone else. Maybe it’ll be with Mike but she doubts it. He’s married, but about to separate from his wife, and has indicated he never wants to marry again. He also has two children from a previous marriage and has expressed no interest in having more. Anyway, she said, it’s fairer if I stay here and she goes, since she’s the one breaking up the marriage. Of course, if I want to leave, she said, then she’ll be more than happy to stay, since it’s a great apartment and one she can afford and she’ll never be able to get anything like it at twice the rent. “If you don’t mind,” I said, “I think I’d like to keep the apartment. Losing you and also having to find a new place might be a little too much for me.” “I don’t mind,” she said, “why should I mind? I already said the apartment’s yours if you want. So, do you mind if I start to pack up now to go?” “No, go right ahead.

I’d love for you to stay forever, naturally, but what could I do to stop you from going? Nothing, I guess, right?” “Right.” She went to the bedroom. I brought the dishes into the kitchen, washed them, sat down at the small table there and looked at the river. She came into the living room an hour later with two suitcases and a duffel bag. “This ought to do it for now,” she said. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll arrange with a friend to come by for the rest of my stuff some other time.” “Sure,” I said. “You moving in with this Mike?” “No, I told you, he’s married, still living with his wife. I’ll be staying with Elena for now. If you want to reach me for anything, you can get me there or at work. You have her number?” “I can look it up.” “But you won’t call me at either place for very personal reasons, will you? Such as saying how much you miss me or things like that and you want me back? Because I’ve definitely made up my mind, Jules. The marriage is finished.” “I understand that. I mean, I don’t understand why it’s so definitely finished, but I do understand that you definitely feel it is. But I can’t make just one more pitch? There’s nothing I can do or say or promise to help you change your mind?” “Nothing.” “Then goodbye,” I said. “I’ll miss you terribly. I love you tremendously. I’ll be as sad as any man can be over a thing like this for I don’t know how long. But that’s my problem, not yours, I guess, and eventually I’ll work it out.” “I’m glad you’re taking it like this. Not that you’ll be sad — I don’t want you to be like that — but at least that you see the situation for what it is and that in the long run you’ll be able to handle it. Because it’ll make it much easier — it already is — for both of us. You’ll see. You’ll get over me before you know it.” “Not on your life,” I said. “Yes you will.” “I’m telling you. Never.” “No, I know you will. Goodbye.” She opened the door, put the suitcases right outside it, said “I’ll be back for these in a minute,” and carried the duffel bag downstairs. “I’ll help you with the suitcases,” I yelled down the stairs. “No need to.” she said. “It’d actually be better if you closed the door so we won’t have to say goodbye again.” I shut the door.

Come on a Coming

So come on up,” and I say “Okay” and start climbing. But not enough what for my feet and hands? Places, ledges, perches, niches, nooks, holes or whatever they’re called to put my feet in or on and my hands to get a good grip on to climb up more than eight to ten feet on this wall. My hands are holding on but I can feel them about to slide off.

“I can’t make it up this way,” and one of them says “Sure you can, don’t give up now. Climb. All you got to do is climb.”

I try to but can’t find anything higher to stick my foot in or on or anything also for my hands to hold on.

“No, I can’t make it up another inch,” and one of them says “Then drop down and we’ll throw you a rope.”

“I might break an ankle or something if I drop,” and one of them says “From that height? Don’t be a baby. Just drop.”

I drop, landing on both feet and hurting one around the ankle.

“I knew I shouldn’t have,” and one of them says “Shouldn’t have what? What happened, you hurt your foot?”

“Not the whole foot, just the ankle. What I said before. What I told myself not to. From now on I’ll stick to taking my own advice.”

“Could be you didn’t fall right. But watch it — here it comes,” and the rope drops from the top of the wall to the ground.

I pull on the rope. Seems a bit slack. “You sure you have it real tight up there — I mean, where it won’t fall down when I climb? Secure, I mean.”

“Secure, sure — you think we’d take someone’s life in our hands?”

I pull on it again. It still feels slack and I say “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel that secure. What do you have it tied around?”

“We have it around this and that and something else. Not only do we have it secure but this rope’s the best you can get for climbing. You coming or not, for if not we’ll pull up the rope and leave.”

“But it’s secure,” and one of them says “Secure as it’ll ever be. I’m telling you, it’s taut.”

I grab hold of the rope with both hands. I’ve climbed ropes before. In high school: not very well but it was a start. In college, where we still had to take, at least in my college, four physical science courses they called them then to graduate. One of those courses had rope climbing in it. Twenty feet to the ceiling I think we had to climb. Maybe thirty, because it was in the same gym the college basketball team played in — and then with our feet wrapped around the rope in some way, we slid down. I remember the physical science teacher saying when I got down “You ought to be a genie.” I remember saying to him—

“Hey, you coming or not? We only have so much time.” “Coming, coming,” and I start climbing. It all comes back to me as I hoped it would. As my hands pull, my feet and knees push. Something like that. I’m about fifteen feet up when the rope suddenly feels loose in my hands and I yell “It’s coming loose,” and someone on top says “Where? What?” and just then the rope comes off whatever it was around above and I fall.

I come down hard. This time I know I sprained a foot, maybe broke one. It certainly hurts.

“Didn’t I tell you to check the rope?” and someone says “You didn’t say to check it. You asked if it was secure and we said it was. Anyway, we did check it. You must have been too heavy for it. What do you weigh?”

“You said that was the best rope around for climbing, so what does it matter what I weigh? If I weighed three hundred pounds it should’ve been able to hold me.”

“You weigh three hundred pounds?” and I say “No, but that’s not the point.”

“It would be if you weighed that much. This rope might be the best, but it only holds till around two-fifty, maybe two seventy-five. What do you weigh?”

“Less than two hundred, way less. Oh, forget it. I’ll never be able to get up there no matter what I do, and certainly not with a broken or sprained ankle, so I’ll be seeing you all.”

“Sure, give up. That’s what you do. That’s what almost all you guys who want to come over do, though it hardly seems the attitude to take if you’re sincere about being in here. Look, if you want, we can throw you a rope ladder.”

“Rope ladder attached to what? No thanks. You have a regular ladder — wooden, aluminum? But wait. What do you mean all us guys? That rope wasn’t my fault but yours. What were you giving me, some kind of test?”

“No. And I was only talking for all of us here about hundreds like you. ‘I want to come up.’ ‘I want to be over.’ ‘I want to be in there,’ and so on, right? But give them two good shots at it and when they fail for their own reasons—”.

“My own reasons?”

“—then that’s it, they give up, but don’t you worry about it, because when they get home they’ll complain we’re keeping them out, we don’t want them in, we’re only playing with them, and so on, right? You wait and see. You’ll be just like the others.”

“Okay, throw over the rope ladder. But secure it, will you?” and he says “Don’t worry, it’ll be secure. We want you here. We’ve nothing against you or the others. But we can’t just let everyone in, can we? People who don’t even want to make an effort? Believe me, you get in, you’ll feel just like us. So make the effort. Climb. We might be serious but we don’t play tricks,” and he throws the rope ladder down.

I pull on it. It’s tight. “It’s tight,” and one of them says “You mean good and tight. Start climbing.”

“Because of my foot it might take me a little longer than usual, but I’m on my way. You have someone to fix a foot there?”

“We have everything. Someone to fix a foot, someone to make a new foot if you want. Anything you want with feet, arms, head — any part or anyone thing in the world. Maybe the one thing we haven’t got so much of right now, or at least for you, is time, so come on.”

“Right,” and I start climbing. The foot really hurts, but what they said makes it seem worth the pain. Once on top they’ll probably give me something to ease it, and it also should be much easier getting down the other side. Who know how they work it? Maybe they’ve a sliding pond. Or more rope ladders or wooden ladders or steps, even. Probably steps. They take good care of themselves. They have the means and ingenuity. Whatever it is, they got. Probably steps or maybe even some motorized car. An elevator or funicular or seat car or whatever it’s called that’s used in skiing to go up and down a mountain — a chair lift. Anyway, they want me now. Want me? I’ll say they’re still interested in having me, but if I don’t make it now, then that’ll be the end of their interest for a while. It first came in the mail. “You’re invited,” it said. To such and such place, “which you’ll have to get out to on your own. We know you want to be with us and will be excited at receiving this. Now we’re inviting you to be with us. It won’t be easy for you, but we also don’t think it’ll be that hard. In other words, you’ve more than proven to us because of your past deeds, industry, sincerity, perseverance and honesty that you’re the kind of material we want and could even use here, so come on a coming.” That’s what the letter said. “Come on a coming. We’ll be waiting,” and it gave the directions, time and date and said to wear my work clothes. So I came. When I got here and looked around and didn’t see anyone or anything but this wall, one of them said from on top of it “You there — up here.” “Where’s the door?” and one of them said “Door? You have to climb up, old friend, up up up.” “With what?” and someone else said “Your hands.” I tried, couldn’t make it. Tried the rope, couldn’t make it. So now I’m climbing the ladder. Seems easy enough despite the ankle pain. They didn’t make it that tough for me. Probably some sort of initiation, those first two. Though I just about knew I couldn’t make it by hand or rope. I went through both figuring that falling ten to fifteen feet each time would prove even more to them how sincere and persevering and so on I am. It worked. I’m not sure that’s how I felt those two times, but they have given me a third chance and this ladder is relatively easy to climb.

The strut — no, what’s it called? — the ring, the rung, though maybe also the strut, or even the crosspiece, beneath my bottom foot feels loose. I climb a step higher and the next strut, rung or crosspiece is loose, so now both feet are on loose crosspieces, I’ll say. I climb a step higher and that one splits in two, so now one foot’s on a loose crosspiece and the other’s dangling in the air. I’m twenty feet up and have about fifteen feet to go and the crosspiece in my top hand is loose too. I climb a step higher and the crosspiece above the broken crosspiece splits in two and the next crosspiece my top hand grabs is loose, so now I’m dangling there, two feet in the air, hands holding on to two loose crosspieces I’m sure are going to split, and I don’t know what to do.

“Help, please, the ladder crosspieces are breaking or coming loose,” and someone yells “Hey, what’s happening down there? We know you’ve a bad ankle or two, even a broken one, but we got to get down our side of this thing one of these days too.”

“Do something, I’m about to fall,” and one of them says “Fall?

From where you are? You’ll be hurt. Look, you’ve fewer feet to climb up than down, so I’d advise, and I think I can say this for everyone here — yes, they’re all saying I can — that you just come on a coming, because there’s nothing else we can do for you now.”

“You can quickly pull the ladder up,” and one of them says “Okay, good idea, that’s what we’ll do, that’s really thinking, sorry we didn’t come up with the idea ourselves,” when the crosspieces I’m holding split in two and I fall to the ground, my feet breaking every crosspiece along the way.

“Hey down there, how do you feel?”

I’m lying on the ground, hurting all over, and for all I know I was out for a few seconds or even minutes.

“Hey, hello down there, I said how do you feel? Any broken bones? You alive? Answer us. Anything we can do?”

“I think I definitely broke a foot this time and I think also my arm which I landed on. Yeah, it’s limp, won’t move. What kind of ladder did you give me?”

“The best kind,” and I say “If it was the best it would’ve had secure crosspieces or rungs or whatever you call those damn bars.”

“Both will do. In fact, all three are good. And they were secure till you started going through them. How much you say you weigh? Less than two hundred? Don’t try to fool us. Anyway, you can’t do anything. Okay, you followed our directions and got yourself out here, but what have you done since? You can’t scale a wall on your own. You don’t know how to use a rope. We give you a perfectly good rope ladder a child could climb, a person twice or even three times your age could climb—”

“Nobody could be three times my age. And anyone twice my age who could climb it would have to be in extraordinary shape and have a ladder whose bars are strong. But the bars on my ladder were weak, once I got up around twenty-five feet—”

“Twenty at the most. Don’t exaggerate.”

“Twenty then. But after I got up that high, all the bars were either very loose or splitting the second I stepped on them, and I didn’t step on them hard, nor pull on them hard either. That ladder was defective.”

“If it wasn’t, it certainly is now. Look, I’m sorry, we like you and you’re a nice guy and all that — sincere too, which I think is what we said in our invite to you. And you come with good recommendations, though maybe in the future we’ll have to check everyone’s recommendations a little deeper, seeing what yours came to. But it just doesn’t seem you really want to be in here.”

“What are you talking about — I do.”

“You still do?” and I say “Sure, why not? I heard great things about the place, and it’d be a terrific achievement for me and I think a big improvement over what I have now. So yes, I absolutely still do.”

“Okay, then you’re in. We only wanted to see how much you’d take before you quit. But it doesn’t seem anything’s going to break you, which is just the kind of material we want and need, so come on in. Door into here might look like part of the wall from where you are. But if you look close about ten feet to your left, you’ll see it and a latch to pull, which will let you in easier than any other way. Congratulations.”

“You mean it?” and one of them says “Mean every word we just said,” and I say “Why thanks,” I get up, fall, my right foot is useless for the time being, and I say “You sure you have someone to fix a broken, or if that seems like an exaggeration, then a badly sprained foot and arm?” and someone says “Everything, just like we said. We have every kind of doctor and profession and healing art and all the other disciplines and arts and whatever you want and the very very best. But show us again how much you want to come in, by not having us come out to get you, though if you’re really that hurt, we will.”

“I’ll show you, don’t you worry,” and I crawl to the place they said the door was, but don’t see any outline of one or a latch. “Say, you said ten or so feet to my left, correct? So I’m here, looking at nine and eleven feet to my left also, and I don’t see any kind of anything that looks like a door or a latch, handle, lever, button or whatever it might be to open it.”

Nobody answers. I can’t see anyone on top, maybe because I’m so close to the wall, and I say “Any of you still up there?” Nobody answers. I crawl around, cover every inch of the wall I can see from one to twenty feet to the left and right from where I fell, but always crawling because of my broken foot, and I’m sure it’s broken. Crawling’s made even more difficult because of what I’m also sure is a broken arm, but there’s no latch, door seam, nothing but a wall.

“Say, I don’t see anything resembling what you said would be here, so give me some more instructions how to get in, though don’t forget to take into consideration my bad foot and arm.”

I yell and look for another half-hour. By this time it’s dark. I wouldn’t try to make it to the road to get the bus back the way I am, so I just sit against the wall, roll down the sleeves of my sweater and shirt, and to help keep out the cold, roll my socks up far as they’ll go and button the top shirt button and buttons of my shirt cuffs. In the morning I should probably be rested and strong enough to not only yell to those people inside what I think of them, but to limp or just crawl to the bus stop.

The Package Store

Larry said “Rose, listen, I’ve decided, something very important — we have to get out of the store. We can’t take it anymore. For once we have to do something like this for ourselves.”

Rose said “Go back to sleep. It’s too early. It’s still dark. The birds aren’t even chirping. I’m not kidding, Larry. I’m too tired to talk.”

“Okay, but tomorrow we’ll have to talk about it. Today — later this morning I mean. We have to get out of that store. Sell it for what we can get. Hopefully we can sell it for something high. The price. I’m also confused now because I’m sleepy, but you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. But you can’t be sleepier than I. You woke me up. Worse, you’re keeping me up. Sell it for high, sell it for low — right now I don’t care but I’m sure tomorrow I will. But that’s it for now — no poking me awake again — all right?”

“For now, maybe, but not later today. I’ve been lying here thinking about it for hours.”

“I’m sleeping, Larry. I’m fast asleep, or would be.”

Later that morning when they were dressing, Larry said “Remember what I spoke to you about the store and our lives earlier before?”

“No, reacquaint me.”

“You’d have to remember, but I said I wanted us to sell the store and I don’t know what we’d do next, but that we definitely have to start looking out for ourselves.”

“Now I remember. Yes, I heard you. I thought you forgot that nonsense by the time you woke up. Hurry up dressing or you won’t have time for breakfast.”

“I didn’t forget it. And this is way more important than breakfast. I meant it and I mean it now. We have to sell out. We already had too many robberies. The security guards we get are only good against petty thieves with their clubs but can do nothing against guns. We can’t take any more of this at our age. Everyone who comes in but a few college kids and their professors look like robbers to us and I bet half of them are. I get sick of it every day till closing and half the nights I can’t sleep. I’m sick of it for you and just as sick of it for me. I’d kill myself if someone shot you. But that’s what could happen. One day someone will come in with a gun and that time we won’t be so lucky. He won’t just say ‘Stick ‘em up, shut your mouths, give me all your money.’ He’ll say nothing but bam — bam with his gun and take our money and leave us and the guard dead on the floor.”

“So you’re that worried?” Rose said.

“I’m that worried, for you and me and all the innocent bystanders.”

“What about if we also got an attack dog?”

“They’d kill the dog just as fast and probably first.”

“Then all right, we’ll go ahead like your brother once suggested and get that glass partition separating us from the customers — why not?”

“I don’t want any partition. I don’t want to be separated. I don’t like having to use a guard either, but that I had to accept. What I want is a store where I can talk to my customers more. Where I’m a lighthearted person, not someone afraid. I want a happy store like it used to be. Where the customers come in and talk to us awhile if they have time, and then ask for what they want or just take it out of the cooler or off the shelves, and where I gladly ring up whatever it is and they give me money or even a check like we used to accept when people didn’t cheat us on them every day. And where they’d say goodbye and we’d say goodbye and if their packages are too heavy, I gladly run to the door to hold it open for them till they get outside, though without my looking right and left on the sidewalk to see which thief’s going to come in next.”

“That kind of business you won’t find anymore in this city and maybe not even in the state. Maybe only in a little village in Spain you’ll find it, or one in Japan, or in all of Japan for all I know, but too many people just don’t behave that kind of way in stores anymore. Besides, we have it pretty good. Even behind bulletproof glass, God help us from what it’ll cost us, we’ll have a good business. You can still smile behind glass, can’t you? And maybe even smile more so now because you’ll feel safe behind there and because our insurance rates for the store and our lives will go down once we put in that glass.”

“And then go right up again,” Larry said, “because the thieves will manage to steal from us behind that glass too. Who do you think we’re dealing with, unsophisticated amateurs? They’ll inject gas or some inflammable stuff through the exchange hole in the glass and then threaten to throw a lit match in after the gas if we don’t throw all our money out. I’ve heard how it’s done. I’ve read it to you from the papers myself, and not just to package stores. Groceries. Butcher shops. Cleaning stores.”

“Cleaning stores can’t have that glass. Not for the big dry-cleaned clothes.”

“They. do. One up on Greenmount. A special turnaround glass carousel or whatever you want to call it that turns the cleaned clothes around on their hangers to the customer once the customer’s paid the bill. Look, we just can’t manage it anymore. Partitions, guard dogs or not, if we don’t get shot at in this store inside of a year the way things are going in this city and have already happened to us, we should consider ourselves fortunate.”

“Tell me more over breakfast. It’s not that I’m not concerned. But I’m hungry, you have to be too, and if we fritter away one more minute in here, we’ll be opening the store late.”

“I don’t want to open at all.”

“Don’t talk silly.” She raised her finger to him. “And I’m telling you this in all seriousness. Talking about it and maybe making a compromise on it is one thing, but not coming to the store and leaving me there alone because you suddenly don’t want to go in, is another. You want to do that? Because I’m driving to the store in half an hour whether you go with me or not.”

“I’ll go with you, what do you think? But later we have to talk about it some more.”

They read the newspaper while they had breakfast, then in the car going to the store he said “Okay, we had our little rest period, so now we have to decide what we’re going to do.”

“If you’re referring to the store again, you know where I stand.”

“No, no glass partitions. It’s either we sell the store or nothing.”

“Then nothing.”

“No, no nothing — we sell the store.”

“Oh,” Rose said, “first you give me a choice, then you take it away? That the way you operate? No. Glass partitions or if you want, an armed security guard, but that’s as far as I’ll go, and not both. Maybe in five years, when we’ve put away a lot more savings and you still want to with the same idea, we’ll think about selling it. So is it a deal? The partitions?”

“No.”

“You care that little about my life? What I’m saying is if what you say’s true about what we should expect, you want to see me in there alone get shot or both of us get shot if we don’t put the partitions in?”

“What about the gasoline they could squirt in to blow us up?”

“That’s a rarity. I don’t think it happened in this city for a total of more than once or twice in all kinds of banks and stores.”

“I also heard they have some sort of dynamite arrangement where they stick it half in half out of the hole and threaten the store owner with to blow up.” “They got that dynamite in the hole, how they think we’ll get the money through to them?”

“They take it out. They give you a few seconds. They maybe even light it right there on a long fuse and hold it up so we can see and maybe even set it against the partition when the fuse gets down and leave the store and blow us up. Those partitions say bulletproof but they don’t say bombproof. We’d die like soldiers killed with hand grenades dropped into their tanks.”

“It’d never happen. I believe people can be that cruel, but not that clever. Besides, the glass partitions will work. Once more, though you don’t have to answer me now if you don’t want, do we do nothing about the store or do we make inquiries about getting the protection of that glass?”

“I don’t know.”

“Say yes so we can settle it.”

“Okay,” he said.

They got several estimates for the partition that week and the next week had them installed.

About a year later Rose nudged Larry in bed and said “Larry, Larry, I want you to get up and awake enough to talk with me about something. I think we have to get that glass in the store removed.”

“What glass?”

“The partitions. Those cell bars. That see-through wall we’ve created between our customers and ourselves.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

“I haven’t told you I didn’t like it a hundred times before?”

“But you never said you wanted them removed. You intimated. You alluded to. But you never said ‘removed,’ Let me sleep, though. I worked hard today. You worked hard today. The whole world did. But I can only sleep for myself.”

“First hear my reasons when I’ve got a clear head of them and then see if you don’t agree that the partitions have to go. Mind if I turn on the light on my side?”

“I can see I don’t have a chance now to do anything I want including to mind, but hold it a second,” and he covered his eyes with his hands, said “Okay, I’m ready, turn it on.”

She turned on the light. “Before—”

“Oh, before,” he said.

“Yes, before, I’m saying, and let me finish some more before you speak. Before the partitions were put in — well, maybe up till around five years ago — we had an excellent business and wonderful customers who we communicated with on a first-name basis with almost every one of them. They knew us, we knew them, and something about each other’s families and lives. Then the neighborhood changed. Lots of transients or people who didn’t want conversation started buying from us and most of the ones we knew and liked moved out. Just about the only people in the last five years we could really still talk to were some of the university teachers and students who still lived around here because they were fairly poor themselves or didn’t know better we’ll say or just desperate for a place, and who always like to talk to us a lot too. You know it for a fact yourself. Well say something, because you have to admit what I’ve said so far is true.”

“I can speak now?” he said.

“Sure, why not?”

“So far nothing you’ve said is really that new or worth my staying awake for that much — I’m sorry.”

“That’s not so. Anyway, to go on, one new student or teacher would come in and either you or I, and not planned either or to make a steady customer, would say to him or her something like ‘I bet you’re from the university there,’ and then ask what subject he studied or taught and what city and state and even country he came from and how they liked living in Baltimore and so on.”

“Please get to the point.”

“The point is we enjoyed talking to them, these last interesting people who were left. And showing them our wine selection and giving them favored treatment in a way and a percentage off if they buy by the case, because they were very nice people who spoke to us like we were more than just store owners with only something to sell and nothing to say. But now?”

“Now we can’t talk to them so much because of the glass. I know.”

“Not only is it we can’t. It’s that these same university people won’t even come in anymore because of it. They think it’s not human or uncivilized but definitely something awful where it does something to them inside and that they’d walk or drive five to ten streets more for a bottle of wine of even a lesser kind for the same or even more money and nothing off on the case, just to avoid that dehumanizing glass. That’s what one of them said when I met him by accident downtown. The Reynolds boy from Idaho, a premed, remember? Dehumanizing, he said. ‘I like to browse,’ he said, ‘—pick up the wine, look at the label and see where it comes from and not feel I’m buying it from a pressure tank or fish tank or whatever he called it, ‘and not with the next robber outside about to come in and hit me on the head.’ Not even some of the customers we never spoke two words to like to order now through that horrible speaking hole. So I don’t care anymore—”

“You want it removed,” he said. “Four times we’re attempted or robbed by knife or gunpoint in the year before we put in that glass and not a robbery or attempt since, but you want it removed. Brilliant.”

“You like it?”

“The glass? I hate it like the plague. But what do you want me to do, risk our lives again without it? To tell you the truth, while you were just thinking before about getting the partitions removed, I was thinking of from now on or starting sometime soon, working one hour less a day. That’s all I want.”

“All right. Work one hour less. We’ll close earlier.”

“I was thinking of opening up later.”

“Both. We’ll open an hour later and close an hour earlier. But we’ll give ourselves two more hours of nonwork a day.”

“Wait. I was only thinking it, I wasn’t so much saying we have to do it. Let’s talk about it this week some more.”

“No. It’s a terrific idea. We’re going to do it. Better for our health. Certainly better for your health, because you’re way too heavy and also can’t take the long hours so much anymore. So, done. We work ten to seven starting tomorrow. When Donald hears it he’ll love you for making that decision and making it so decisively. He’s always wanted us to work much less.”

“He wants us to give up the store entirely.”

“Easy for, him to say when he has a wonderful job and sun all year and a gorgeous home which he got from his good education that we paid for out of money that only came from the store.”

“You’re going to fault him for that?” he said. “Our only child? He didn’t deserve to get the best we could afford and more?”

“Yes he did. I wasn’t saying that. Anyway, starting tomorrow — even starting today if you want to sleep late, we open the store at ten and close at seven. So we make a little less money, but it’ll be nice having a normal dinner for a change that isn’t on Sunday. Now what about taking down the glass too?”

“And putting up what in its place?”

“Nothing. Air. Listen, both of us are miserable behind the glass, so why keep it up?”

“Because we have to. The thieves see us taking it down, they’ll think we’ve lost our senses or are just feeling cocky and in one day they’ll cure us of that. Next time they hit us we might not be so lucky.”

“Don’t talk like that. We’ll always be lucky. We were lucky when we got together and even luckier when we had such a nice boy. A little bad luck but mostly it was good. And neither of us has been very sick since we got married, thank God,” and she tapped the headboard, “and Donald almost never sick too. And we have a little money put away and a paid-up house and neighbors who like us, and better family relations nobody could have more. So we’ll be lucky and we’ll be happy with the partitions down too. We’ll bring out the wine again and show customers around. We’ll breathe better if maybe not as lightly for a while. Besides, the neighborhood’s improving.”

“It’s the same it was a year ago and maybe worse. And our insurance rates will go up again.”

“So they’ll go up. So we’ll take that in stride and make up for what we lose with the new insurance rates by gaining in the sale of more wine and beer. And milk. What person in his right mind wants to buy milk through a glass partition?”

“Lots have.”

“But more will with the partitions down. And those college kids and their professors. I want them back. I miss talking and being educated by them. Please, Larry. I haven’t asked for much. I didn’t want those partitions, but I gave in.”

“It was a compromise.”

“Please, Larry. Nothing bad will happen again in the store — I know it.”

“Something will happen. A robbery.”

“Then let’s sell the store and buy another in a better neighborhood.”

“We’d get almost nothing for it except for the stock and I couldn’t start over some place else.”

“Then the partitions have to come down and we hope for the best. Really, it’s that or my not working there anymore. It’s driving me crazy as you can see, and I know it’s driving you crazy too.”

“It’s driving me, all right. But let me think.” He lay his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. A few minutes later he said “Rose, you up?”

“Sure, I’ve been waiting.”

“Okay, the glass comes down. But we still open the store an hour later once we get all set up, okay?”

“I thought closing an hour earlier too.”

“No, one thing at a time. We want to see how things work out.”

The partitions were taken down that week, the entire store was painted and brighter lights were put in. They hired a security guard to be in the store all day. They were a little frightened when they opened the store again, but both began feeling much easier when they learned from several new customers that some of the more dilapidated buildings in the neighborhood had been bought by young people in the last few months and that nobody had heard of a store being robbed by someone with a knife or gun in almost half a year.

The students and professors became their customers again and Larry and Rose acted as they always had with them: learning their names, asking where they came from, talking about their own son and how well he had done at that same university, escorting them around the store and pointing out two or three wines that were particularly good for the price and which that person might be interested in by the bottle or the case. Then a month later two men came in, showed their pistols, one on the guard and the other back and forth on Larry and Rose, and demanded all the money in the cash register and safe.

Larry, taking the money out of the safe, said “I thought you guys were gone for good.” The man said “shut up — not another word — or get a bullet through your nose.”

The men got all the money from the store and from Larry’s and the guard’s wallets and Rose’s pocketbook, and left. Larry phoned the police, locked the door and put the “Closed” sign up and said “I think for maybe the first time in my life, or maybe since that first or second robbery here, I’m going to break the law in our store and open a bottle of scotch and have a shot. Rose?” She shook her head. He opened a bottle, the best scotch they had. The guard was still shaking. Larry said “Excuse me, I was just thinking of myself, but I think you need one too.”

“No, I never drink,” the guard said. “Just like I told you when I got the job. A glass of milk will do me if you want someone to drink with, and I think my stomach can use it.”

Larry drank several shots, the guard drank from a milk carton, Rose said she was still so nervous that maybe she’d have a little scotch from Larry’s glass. The police came, reports were filled out, the police said they’d do their best in trying to find the robbers but for Larry and Rose not to get their hopes up, and left. The guard helped Larry put the gates up on the front of the store, then said “So what time you want me in tomorrow — same as usual?”

“No, better you not come in at all,” Larry said. “Nothing personal, but I’ve some thinking to do. No partition glass, too many robberies, our lives in danger and same with yours — what’s a store owner to do? If I need you and you’re not working in some other store by the time I call, I’ll try to get you back.”

During the car ride home Rose said to Larry “So what are we going to do?”

“I was about to ask you.”

“Risk our lives again with no glass of course. What do you say?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I was only kidding. One of us has to have a sense of humor about this. But no partitions again, Larry. I couldn’t live with them a week.”

“Same here. But what else — an armed guard? One with a gun who’ll try to stop them?”

“First, can we afford one? No. They make almost twice as much as the club guards, plus carry more insurance, and you can’t get one to stay for more than seven working hours a day and only five days a week. And a robber comes in and one not afraid of a guard with a gun, and there are some, then we got fireworks and maybe with us and a customer in between.”

“Then we have to sell the store. You know we’ll practically have to give it away.”

“The stock’s worth a lot.”

“It’s worth more than a lot. But what kind of package store will we have without stock?”

“We’ll open something else.”

“I don’t want to open anything else. At this point in my life I only want to open what I know.”

“Well, open a package store almost anywhere else in the city, and if we don’t have those partitions again they’ll come in and get us once a month. I say we give up the whole thing, invest the money from the sale of the store and stock, and both of us go work for someone else.”

“What about just my working for someone else and you can stay home and sleep late and do what you want and everything you ever deserved. Cooking more. Meetings. Being with your sister and developing some close friends. Going to school and getting as smart as you could have got if you didn’t thirty years ago feel you had to go waste your life by working in the store with me.”

“I worked in it because you wanted to work with someone honest and you wanted my company.”

“That’s true,” he said. “And it wasn’t a waste. But what do you say? You always wanted more time for yourself and to visit Donald where he is and to go to school. We’ll live maybe not as well as we have, but I’ll get a job only in the safest of stores, so we’ll at least live knowing we’ll be alive the next day. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do, unless you insist on getting a job too.”

“Actually, the way you present it makes it sound very nice. Maybe I’ll even be taught by some of the professors who come into the store.”

“I don’t think so. They only teach students for credit.”

“Some of them said they also teach in the adult division for extra cash.”

“If that’s the case, then you will. And they’ll know you and give you good marks.”

“They don’t give marks in adult education.”

“Why not? For all the tuition and work you put in, you ‘ll be cheated if you don’t get them. But that’s what we’ll settle on, okay? Unless you can come up with something better.”

“A dinner tonight in a restaurant would be nice,” she said.

“I’m still so shaken inside from the robbery, I think it’d be wasted on me. I just want to have a small quiet dinner, a little television and then go to bed.”

“After dinner all I want is to read and read, because tomorrow I can sleep as late as I want.”

“We have a lot to do though.”

“We can give ourselves a day.”

“We’re still paying rent on the store, and the utilities. And soon as we sell everything, I have to get a good job.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. They pulled into their street.

“You know what else I think I’ll start doing with all my free time if I also don’t get a job? Inviting some of those students and professors from the store for dinner at our house. Some of them are very lonely. I’m sure they’ll like it.”

“If you do, those nights I’d be sure to get home for dinner on time.”

He parked the car, squeezed her hand, they went into the house.

II

Will’s Book

There’s a young woman in my building’s vestibule. She’s smiling at me as I walk down the outside steps and open the door. I’ve my keys out and am holding a box of books. Do I know her? Someone I’ve only been corresponding with and never seen and who was suddenly in town or around the neighborhood and decided to drop in? There are those. Happened before at least twice. She says “Hi, I’m Denise,” and unfolds what looks like a power of attorney of several pages and with a back and front cover and bound at top.

“Hello. Anything I can do for you?” I say.

“Yes you can, a lot. Which one are you?”

“Which one what?”

“I bet you’re Taub. You have to be, for yours is the only mailbox with no matchbook in the slit, which is why I’ve been ringing your bell the most. I thought the rest were out.”

“I’ve been out all day too.”

“Well I thought you picked up your matchbook on your way in before, went out again for a brief errand we’ll say and were only now coming back.”

“No.” I look at the mailbox. All of them have matchbooks in the slits but mine. I take one of the matchbooks out of another tenant’s slit and see it’s an ad for a new hair clinic on Broadway. Afros, facials, pedicures, hair straightening, hairpieces and unisex permanents and haircuts.

“Want this? That tenant’s away and I don’t smoke.”

“Very nice of you, thanks. I can always use an extra pack.” “And the reason nobody answered your rings before is none of the bells work.”

“So that’s why. But you sure you didn’t take your matchbook from your mailbox and then go out? Usually I’m right on things like that.”

“I haven’t even taken my mail yet.” I open my mailbox. Three return manila envelopes and a circular and the telephone bill from the day before.

“That’s a lot more mail than I get in a day. You must do all right or have loads of friends. But now let me tell you what I was doing all my bell ringing and hanging around here for and how you can vote for me today.”

She points to a photograph on the folder’s first page. “That’s me and these are my credentials, so you know nothing’s funny and I’m not here to clean out your home.”

“If this has anything to do with a magazine subscription, you’ve the wrong guy. I’m dead broke.”

“No, what I got for you is even worse than that. You see, that’s my name, Denise Waters. My photo, like a passport photo, though it’s not a good likeness, as passport photos never are. And my age, height and eye color, just so nobody exchanges photos on me and goes around with my binder doing my business what I’m about to describe to you. Do you recognize me?”

“Yes, the photo’s you.”

“I’m supposed to ask you that, which is why it might sound stupid to you. And the height, five-three, and blue eyes, or are, under these shades. Okay. I’m from N-A-B.”

“For the National Association of Booklovers or something I think I recall.”

“So you know us. Then you know all us students and the organization we’re doing this for are honest and straight.”

“One of your members was around about a year ago. Same thing.

The subscriber votes a certain amount of votes for you through the number of subscriptions he buys, and in the end the student who sells the most subscriptions gets the most votes and wins thousands of dollars.”

“One thousand, and not for the most subscriptions. Some are worth seven and eight times as many votes as others, like one to Vogue over a slim comic book. Though if you take a comic book subscription for ten years we’ll say, fat or slim, that’s good too and maybe better than two years to Playboy or Vogue. But that’s not even the worst part of what I’m here to do to you.”

“What else?”

“You see, I want that thousand dollars. I need it. And I’m going to get it, so I’m sure you can afford to put down at least a few hundred votes for me.”

“I can’t. Nothing.”

“Let me explain. I have nineteen thousand so far. That’s a lot of votes but not even enough to make the semifinals. I need a thousand more and only then I’m in the running for the grand prize. Twenty thousand votes gets me the chance to sell subscriptions for another week against what could be the other thousand semifinalists. And if I get more votes than the rest of them, which I will, the thousand dollars is mine. So you’ll help me, won’t you? I worked this hard, you don’t want to see me suddenly fail. Take any magazine here for a year — the cheapest is worth at least fifty votes for me.” She opens the folder and shows me two pages filled with the names of magazines and how many votes a subscription to each of them is worth for one, two, five and ten years.

“I wish I could, Denise. Honestly, I wish I could.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Will.”

“That’s a nice name — Will. What do you do?”

“A waiter.”

“You don’t look like one. You’re too nice. But I bet you make lots of tips being that way.”

“I only started Monday. I owe two months rent and will probably have to borrow to pay it and some other bills. Lights, gas. This phone bill here.”

“Please, something says you’re fooling me, Will. You’re no waiter. You’re not the type to let yourself get that far behind. What do you really work as?”

“I’m a waiter. Other times I’m a writer. Waiter, writer. When I save enough, just a writer. And sometimes when I’m waiting and not too tired, I do both, but not as much writing as waiting. Now I can’t do any writing I’m so bushed. The first week or two of going back to waiting does that.”

“I believe you now. What’s in the box, books? They look like them.”

“Five hardcovers, five soft, of an anthology I’m in. My. first book. Arrived yesterday but the box was too big to stick in my mailbox so I had to pick it up at the post office,”

“Well if you’re someone famous who makes piles of money from writing in books and all, then I know you can help me with a hundred votes.”

“I didn’t get any money for this. Just the books.”

“They got to be worth money if you sell them.”

“I’ll probably just give them away to friends and my library and keep two.”

“Can I see?” She sticks her hand in the box, pulls out a hardcover. “Let me try and find you.” She reads my name off the mailbox nameplate, turns the book over a few times and says “The cover’s black except for a sprinkling of white dots running through the middle of it on both sides. What is it, a photograph of a string of pearls like on a necklace strung out but shot in the dark or so?”

“Night lights from a bridge I think. I’m not absolutely sure.”

“This is a book about bridges? I love bridges. The symbol of them, connecting. Going over things, making traveling easier.”

“It’s fiction. An anthology of. Like a story collection of one person though in here of different writers, but not all the stories about bridges of course. Maybe none of them. I haven’t read any of the stories yet but mine.”

“Don’t play with me, Will. If it’s an anthology of stories, I know they can’t all be about bridges. I read. I like reading. But I like famous people more. To me anybody who has something in any book is famous. Even if he didn’t write the book but just has his name in it for something he did, no matter how bad. But let me see if I can find you.”

“My name’s inside with the others.”

“If it isn’t and you’re also not in the index, then you’re not in the book, right? But I’m sure you weren’t lying.” She opens the book to the first two blank pages and stares at them.

“Go further.”

“No, I was only looking. Still all black but now no lights. Bridge in the night with no stars or cars or lights on it it could be. Just guessing.” She turns the page. “The Black Book. That’s the title. And black page with red lettering this time. Very devilish. I think I’m getting the gist of your book now. Edited by Ralph and Ernestine von Blake. That’s not you.”

“The couple who put it together.”

“You mean got it together like really got it going, or the other thing?”

“Edited and published the book. They solicited the stories, selected those they wanted, rejected those they didn’t, put the book together by choosing which print and paper and who went where and in what order if the author had more than one story in it — I’ve got four. And designed the cover and frontispiece and so on — this is the frontispiece — and wrote the contributors’ notes and promotional copy and got the money for the project and distributors and things like that.”

“Eight fifty it says here.”

“It’s a little high but nothing I can do.”

“What I think is you just give two of them away. Then sell the rest for six dollars and make a big profit. Eight times six is almost fifty.”

“Five are soft covers and I have to keep one of each for myself.”

“Then just give away one. What do the softcovers sell for, four dollars, five? You’ll still net around fifty. That’s some money at least. But your name.” She looks at my mailbox nameplate.

“Keep turning.”

She turns to the contents page, runs her finger down the names of the authors.

“Mine’s at the end.”

“There it is. Last one. That’s good or bad though I’m sure being first is best, but I could have found it. Looks nice. You’re really him. You’re famous, Will. Can I have this?” She sticks the book in to her shoulder bag.

“No can do,” I put my hand into her bag.

“Say,” edging away, “what are you doing? Help, police. A thief in our midst, I mean mine. I can’t keep it? As a keepsake from a short and lasting acquaintanceship if I do get to keep it? I want to read you. And then carry it around and tell all my friends and the people I talk to about subscriptions that I met you and you were one of their fellow subscribers who gave me this book and lots and lots of votes. Please?”

“Give back the book?”

“You have seven of them. Ten. This is one of ten. What’s that?”

“I told you. I’ve friends and a library to give them to.”

“So I’m not a friend of yours, right?”

“The truth is I just met you. Years ago I might have been that superficially generous with a book I’m in or something I own, but now I can’t. I just don’t. I don’t want to. The book?”

“The Black Book. Goodbye Black Book.” She kisses it. “It’s very smooth, the cover. Black is the smoothest color of all in looks and touch. I like it against my face.” She runs the front of the book against her cheek and chin. “You look worried. I’m not sweaty or have makeup, so don’t be.” She gives me the book.

“Thanks,” I drop it into the box. “I really have to go upstairs now.”

“Before you do let me tell you in detail what you don’t know about our vote system. I can skip the introduction monologue because you know us, correct? We’re all college students, working our way, which you know too. Some need money for tuition, some to have fun. I want to have fun with it. I’ve never had a thousand dollars just to spend on myself. And now I’ve been real honest with you so the least you can do is take one subscription from me to help me out. We have magazines for everyone. The Writer we have. It’s right at the end here, alphabetically. You’re a writer, so if you don’t already subscribe to it it’s an absolute must. Indispensable I’m supposed to say. See? I’m being completely honest, telling you what they say should be my pitch.”

“I already told you.”

“Told me what?”

“Debts, rent.”

“So I can’t sell any to you? Well that’s cool, am I right?”

“I guess.”

“I like you. You’re more than nice. You’re patient and speak well and write things. You wouldn’t let me read anything you wrote but I’ll buy your book even if you won’t take a subscription from me and give you royalties and read you through.”

“No royalties. And no place to buy it except through a distributing company in Berkeley and maybe one of the better literary bookstores downtown.”

“Then I’ll go downtown and buy it. So now you can take a subscription, royalties or not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Who’s he? Somebody else who’s famous in this house?”

Ed Turner from the first floor just passed. He might have said “Hi will” as he usually does in a very low voice without ever looking at me, but I didn’t hear him. He’s already sitting against a parked car.

“That’s Ed Turner. He’s a tenant here.”

“Writer too?”

“He’s a reader. A fantastic reader actually. Retired. Worked as a printer.”

“Printer and a writer. Eggs and butter, I mean toast,”

“Ed was a linotypist.”

“I know. For newspapers and such. Retired. He’s old though, but you think I ought to go after him? Not just trying to get rid of me, not that you shouldn’t? I’ve been a pest.”

“No you haven’t. I liked talking to you. And Ed does get strapped for cash, but he might buy.”

“No, you’re not trying to get rid of me. You’re still much too nice.” She opens the door to the street. “You know, I’m really beginning to love this little building. Everybody who’s in it is great. Printers. Writers. I’m going to make it my project to stick around here and meet everybody who lives here, even if I can’t get Ed to give me a hundred votes. This building’s loaded with good people, to me the best on the block.”

Ed takes his keys out of his pocket and looks at them. It’s around dinnertime for him. Mostly he eats in luncheonettes like the type I worked in today. Denise says goodbye, shakes my hand and goes outside.

“Mr. Turner?” she says. “Ed?” His hearing’s bad so that might be the reason he doesn’t look up.

I go upstairs, exercise, shower, finish reading my section of the book. About fifty pages. I’m satisfied with the way it reads and looks. Only a few minor typos and one major one where it reads “Pocked the sand in his hand” instead of “Packed,” which could make me look stupid because of all the intentional transpositions of letters and words in my stories to make double meanings and puns, and I correct it in my ten copies. I read the newspaper, shave, snack and go downstairs with one of the hardcovers to drop into my neighborhood library’s drop chute with a note taped on it for the librarian. I promised her a copy when she said she had no funds to order one. Denise is sitting on the building’s outside steps.

“Hiya, Will. I told you I loved this building. So far I’ve talked to two of your neighbors and three of their guests and a television repairman. Outside of him and a man who wouldn’t identify himself who went out to walk his monkey he said, which he wouldn’t show me under his coat, they’ve all been more than nice to me and in brains practically brilliant. Mrs. Balin from 4B gave me a hundredten votes. So you can see I’m too good at this not to win the thousand dollars. Hey, there it is again, The Black Book. You’ve decided to give me one after all.”

“I’m donating it to the library.”

“They’re open this hour? Intellectual New Yorkers. But what have you been doing till now, reading your own anthology pages?”

“You must be psychic.”

“I’m more than that, Will. And you’re feeling much happier now, aren’t you, so you’re going to give me a hundredten votes too.”

“Here, take the book instead.” I take off the note. “And now that you’ve cut short my destination in a way, what do you say to accompanying me for a coffee or a beer?”

“Go with you? Oh no, I don’t do that. But thanks for the book.”

“It’s innocent. It’s getting late and I thought you might like something to drink and maybe to talk. I would.”

“You’ve got other things on your mind, I can tell. And I’m busy. I still have to meet all the people in your building and now I’ve something great to read and rub against my face while I wait. I already met one printer and writer and a restaurant manager who’s also a film producer and Mrs. Balin who was a dancer and actress. Did you know that?”

“She once showed me her programs.”

“Danced in the Scandals she said. When was that? When you were a boy?”

“Way before.”

“Well she says there’s nothing but real cool tenants in this building. Some younger dancers also, women, and a handsome young man who looks like a leading film star of today with a big white dog. I love dogs. She said ‘hound,’ And I can tell from the ferns hanging in the third floor windows that young people live there too. The wall colors on the second floor also. One long one a bright orange, the rest an electric blue. No older person would do that.”

“Last chance to accompany me.”

“And last to give me a hundredten votes. You can afford two beers, why not a magazine? Soul over the mind, Will.”

“I’m sorry, Denise.” I touch her head with my hand.

“I’m from Ohio, you know. Think I should light up a joint?”

“Not for me.”

“I meant for myself. Is it safe here like this from the law?”

“If they come it’ll be by patrol car, so I don’t think they’ll see you. But that’s your business.”

“I think I will. It’s been a long day without one and the aroma will knock a lot of the good people out of their rooms to see what’s cooking. I’m only kidding. But I want to meet all your neighbors if they went in before when I was phoning down the street, or if they never left the building since I started to stay here tonight.”

“Then I’ll see you.”

“Last last chance.”

I wave, take a short walk, have a quick beer, walk at a good clip back to my building, hoping Denise is still there. It’s fairly late. She might have no place to stay tonight or be too far away from it to want to take the bus or train. I don’t care about the consequences. I’ll tell her I spent the few dollars I had on me drinking and the money for the subscription I’ll take is upstairs. She’ll come. I’ll get her to stay. She’ll probably even want to and be thinking about it when she walks with me upstairs. She’s not there.

“Say Will, hold it a second,” Ed says, getting off the same parked car. “Who was that young lady you sent over to sell me books before and vote for her for president or something?”

“Magazines. I thought you might be interested. She was pretty weird, huh?”

“Magazines were they? I thought books. And I don’t know if she was that weird. Times are tough. People are doing anything and working all hours for extra change. In fact, she was kind of a cute kid, physically, with a nice shape and personality. Sparkling. She would have happily bounced down the street to buy me a newspaper if I didn’t insist no. I like kids that way and helpful when most seem so out of it and depressed. Though she had a line all right. Glib. She could have sold me anything if I’d had the dough. And when I came back here and sat on that car, what do you think but she was still on the steps but with a young man now and then went across the street with him to his building while I did my best not to look. I’d say they sold themselves on each other, wouldn’t you?”

“Actually, she was kind of nice in many of the ways you said. But how you doing tonight?”

“Me? Great. Had a fantastic sandwich before at Philly Mignon. Boy, you should have seen all the sliced steak they put on it for two bucks — a meal and a half for me.”

“Glad you can still chew it. See you, Ed.”

“Chew it? Funny guy. That’s not nice. You’ll be losing all your teeth yet yourself.”

Will as a Boy

My father walks down the hall. My father stands by the door. He looks at me from the door. He’s standing with one foot on the threshhold, other just a little inside the room. I’m in bed, sick, not that sick, not sick to death, not sick with an illness that’ll take a couple of months to recuperate from, that’ll even take a month. That’s what they tell me. I’ll be up in a week, at the most two. Altogether that’ll make three. Can I believe them? I want to. I do. In a week, most two. I’m sick though, sick enough not to go to school. To be excused from school. To have my lessons brought home from school. Sick enough not to do them too.

My father’s holding the doorjamb with one hand. With the other he waves. Smiles. I’m sitting up against two pillows, knees raised about level with my neck. I’ve a metal car half the size of my hand. I’ve played with it so much for two years that it could use a new paint job. It’s parked beside me on the bed. I parked it after driving it around on the bed, up and down my covered legs, around my knees, made it jump from one knee to the other, do a few aerial stunts and then land on my chest. Sometimes I let it tide all the way down my thighs by itself. A few times when I did that its ride down was smooth. Most times it rolled over and over as if in a bad crash. Sometimes when I steered it down I rolled it over in a crash. I made noises for the car. R-r-rrr. Crash, bang, boom-m-m. So what am I saying, trying to say? Will as a boy. Father by the door. Hand on the jamb. Smiles, waves, keeps smiling, no longer waves. “So how’s my little Juney-boy today?” he says.

“Fine.”

“Sure you’re fine. You’re always fine. You should change your name to Fine. Will Fine. I bet Will Fine says he’s fine next time I ask.” I laugh. “That a boy. Will really must be fine even if he isn’t a Fine if he can laugh like that. Hey, I can’t come in the room because the doctor says not to. He told your mother you still might be contagious, know what that means?”

“Yes.”

“Though something you’ll be getting over pretty soon.”

“I know.”

“You know everything. So why am I telling you? Your mother’s allowed to come in because she’s nursing you. Oh heck, I won’t get sick — I’m coming in.”

He comes in. He gets about two feet from me when he stops. “I don’t feel faint yet, so how contagious can you be?” Lamp on the night table’s on. Only light on. My father has a tie on, stain in the middle a little below the tie clasp. Has a suit on. He’s just come from his office. He usually gets home around this time. Sometimes when he’s about to close up someone will come in to get a tooth fixed fast. Sometimes on his way home he drops off work at the dental lab so he can have it first thing the next day. I heard my mother say this morning “How can you go out of the house with a tie stained like that?” and he said “I’m only going back and forth on the subway. The jacket and coat cover it. In the office I wear my smock.” “At least wear the clasp over it,” and he said “I don’t fasten the clasp that low.” “Well this time maybe you should try to,” and he said “Don’t worry. I haven’t brought shame to the family yet and I doubt I will with a single gravy stain.”

It’s dark outside. It’s nearly winter and around six o’clock. I’m in the boys’ room. It has a double decker bed and a single bed. My oldest brother, Robert, sleeps in the single bed. He’s five years older than I. My other brother Peter is three years older than I and sleeps on the top bunk of the doubledecker. He doesn’t have to. He could sleep in the lower bunk, where I sleep, but he wants to sleep on top. He could have his choice because he’s older. He can’t sleep in the single bed so long as Robert wants to. That’s the way it works in this family. But both my brothers for the last three days have been sleeping in the living room on mattresses pulled off their beds. Because I might be contagious, which today the doctor who saw me here said I still might be but he’s a little less sure. I think I got that clear. So my father’s in the room. Clear about who sleeps where, why my brothers aren’t sleeping in the boys’ room. Just two feet away from me, taking chances with his health. He says “I wish I could give you a big kiss hello, but I was told not to. Your mother said Doctor Aronoff told her to tell me not to. Oh heck, if I didn’t faint when I came in here, I won’t when I kiss you, and besides, I’m as healthy as a horse,” and he gets down on one knee, puts out his arms. I look at him. “Well come on,” and he shakes his arms.

“Oh, I forgot,” and I put out my arms. His are now still and I go into them. His arms go around my body and now he’s hugging me. I feel good in his arms. I close my eyes. He’s patting my back with both hands as he hugs me. I feel so small in his arms. My face against his cheek. Cheek to cheek, that’s what we are. I’ve seen him dance with my mother that way. Once when Robert turned the radio on to music and my father said “Here, I’ll show you kids how to cut a rug,” and he grabbed my mother’s hands. She said No but they danced. If spinning around a lot and dipping as he called it till her head almost hit the floor sometimes is dancing. Cheek to cheek. She didn’t close her eyes but he did. “You’ll get well,” he says. “You’re not so contagious and you’ll get well.”

“I know.”

He releases me, then holds me by my shoulders far as his arms can reach and says “You’re a good boy. Some of my patients wouldn’t be as brave as you in the same situation.”

“I’m scared of dentists though.”

“No you’re not.” He stands. “What you do today?”

“Played by myself. This car.” I hold it up. “Slept a lot. Drank lots of fluids because I’m supposed to.”

“That’s smart. You’re taking good care of yourself. Want to know what I did today? Something special.”

“What?”

“Pulled out a tooth as big as — let me see your car again.” I show him it. “Half as big as that. Even bigger than half when you include the roots. It’s all in the wrist. I love pulling teeth and hope one day you will too. But you got to stay healthy so you can strengthen your wrists. And I’ll look in on you after supper. Maybe read you a story.”

“I’d like that.”

“Find yourself a good book. Don’t get out of bed finding it. Just think of all the books you have and when I come back tell me which one you want and I’ll read as much of it as I can before I get tired. I’m not a good reader.”

“I can already think of one.”

“Keep it in your head. Don’t lose it.” He kisses two fingers and presses them to my cheek. “What am I doing?” Bends over, kisses my cheek, steps back. “Don’t rub it off. You do, it’ll mean the kiss never took place.”

“I won’t.”

He leaves. I rub it off. I don’t want to. It was wet. Now I’m sorry I did. But it felt uncomfortable wet. The wet’s on the back of my hand now. Maybe I should put it back on my cheek. But I don’t want my cheek wet again. I know it’ll dry in a little while on my hand but I don’t want it there either. I wipe my hand on the covers. Now my hand’s dry but I bet it smells from spit. I smell it. Spit. That smell. I’d like to wash my hand now but I’m not supposed to get out of bed. I look for the wet stain on the covers where I rubbed my hand. None there. Maybe I should rub the covers where I rubbed my hand on it against my cheek. That’s silly. Why would I want to do that? No reason. Just thought of it. I pick up the car and hold it a ways in front of my face. I slowly bring it closer to my face till its front is right up against my nose. Now it looks very real. I can see through the car’s windows to the other side of the room. No people in the car but so what? They’re lying on the floor and I can’t see them. Then how’d the car drive up to my nose? It stopped. Then they ducked down. No, nobody’s inside. If the car doors opened I’d make little people out of clay and put them in all the seats. If the trunk opened I’d make little square suitcases or try to and put them in too.

Later I hear my father say “He must be asleep. I better take the car out of his hand or he’ll hurt himself when he rolls over.”

“Put it on the night table,” my mother says. “He might look for it when he awakes.”

I must have been asleep and now pretend to be asleep. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m tired. And I like to hear what people say about me when they don’t know I’m listening. My mother puts her hand on my forehead. She’s feeling for temperature. I know it’s my mother’s hand because it’s so smooth. I’ve seen her at nights creaming her hands. I hate the sound of the cream squishing in her hands. My father feels my cheek. His hand is rougher but still smooth. Almost as smooth as my mother’s. All that washing up in his office before and after each patient. He has a special pink liquid soap. He lets me use it whenever I’m there even when my hands aren’t dirty. My hands can just reach under the faucet but I can’t, as he does, step on the water pedal and keep my hands under the faucet at the same time. His hand smells different than my mother’s too. From soap. Hers from that cream. “He feels warm,” my father says.

“A little temperature. I should take it now but I don’t want to wake him.”

He puts his hand up my pajama top and feels my back. “He’s warm. Maybe we should take it, just to see what it is.”

“I’m sure he’s no more than a hundred.”

“Still, let’s take it. A hundred’s bad enough, and if it is that, shouldn’t we give him an aspirin?”

“What are you talking? A hundred at night is just about normal for a child his age, and giving him an aspirin will definitely wake him.”

“Still, if it’s more than a hundred, which it feels like, I’d chance waking him. I’ll give it if you don’t want to.”

“Turn him over, but gently, gently.”

I’m turned over on my stomach. I hate having my temperature taken this way. Maybe if they knew I was awake they’d take it orally, but my mother thinks the rectal thermometer is more accurate by a degree. I’d like to say I’m awake now but I don’t know how. They’ll think I’ve been lying. They’ll think I was lying all the other times I pretended to be asleep when they spoke to me or pretended not to be listening when they talked about personal things. I can pretend to be asleep or concentrating but just can’t pretend to come out of sleep. It’d mean rubbing my eyes, yawning, maybe shaking my head and mumbling something, but which of those comes first and what’s the order of the rest? The covers are pulled down to my feet.

“What are you doing?” Robert says.

“Shh,” my mother says. “Taking Will’s temperature. Get out of the room, Robert.”

“Can’t I watch?”

“Do what your mother says,” my father says.

“How my ever going to be a doctor if I can’t watch?”

“Okay, watch,” my father says, “—but from the door.”

My pants bottoms are pulled down. The thermometer’s put in.

It’s warm when I was ready for it to be cold. I’m always afraid it will break inside me. But it’ll only take two minutes or so, faster than it would in my mouth, which is at least one good thing.

“I can’t see,” Robert says.

“By the way,” my father says, “I forgot to tell you — Lucille called today.” Lucille’s my aunt. “She’s having her problems with Arnie again. I didn’t know what to advise her.”

“Leaving him, what else?” my mother says.

“Where will she go? He makes a good living. She has everything she wants. Without him — well he says he won’t provide her with a nickel, and then she and Eugene will have to—”

“Should we really be talking about it with who’s-it’s around?”

“I know about it already,” Robert says. “You’ve said it plenty in front of me.”

“Just don’t talk about it to the others — that’s all I ask. As for Arnie’s big providing,” she must be saying to my father, “tell me if it’s worth it. But she’ll get something. She has to with a child every week. I think we can take it out now. Want to do the honors?”

“Why don’t you?”

“You can drill teeth all day with all the mess in people’s mouths, but you can’t pull out a thermometer?”

“Believe me, it’s not that I’m worried they’ll be dreck on it. Only not my own son, and I wouldn’t know how to read it.”

“Some doctor you are.”

“I don’t have patients where I take temperature.”

The thermometer’s taken out. “A hundred — little above. No need to wake him.”

“I don’t know how much we like sleeping on the floor again.” Robert says.

“Just a couple more nights,” my mother says. “If it’s more, we’ll find someone to put you up.”

“Not with Uncle Arnie.”

My pajama bottoms are pulled up. The covers are brought up to my chin and I’m tucked in on both sides. My mother leans over, kisses the back of my head, whispers “Get well now, just get well.” My father puts his hand on my cheek for a few seconds.

The light’s turned off. They all leave the room. Door’s closed.

“Let’s leave it open a little,” my mother says. It’s squeaked open just a little. They go down the hall. “How bad is he?” Robert says.

I turn over. “Dear God,” I say, “don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. I won’t miss my prayers to you at night again, never. Though you never asked me for them — though no one ever said I had to every night — I do. So say what you want me to do and I’ll do it. I love you more than I love anyone, any person. Any thing. Whatever you are, God, I love you the most. Then my mother and father. Then my brothers. Then my friends. Or maybe my aunts and uncles and cousins and then my friends. And please let me be well by the weekend. Please. But please most of all let my mother and father stay well while I’m alive and then let me grow as old as my father. Then you can let me die. Though don’t let my father and mother die ever. Don’t let either die. And my brothers. If anyone dies out of any of us, let me die first. As for my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, I don’t think it’s important which of us dies first. Though I don’t want them to. I don’t want anyone I know to die. Thank you. Goodnight, God. I love you, I love you, I love you. Goodnight.”

Self Portrait

I wish I could draw myself. I’m sitting in my Morris chair, in the morning, newspaper on my lap, front page glanced at but none of it read beyond that, hands in front of my face and shaped like what? Right now I can’t think of what. A church. A cathedral. A something. I wish I could draw myself. Legs are crossed. Blue jeans I washed while I showered two days ago, hung up to dry on the shower towel rack and then on the bathroom radiator and which are now, about ten minutes after I put them on, still stiff. Actually I’m sitting at my typewriter, not in the Morris chair, but on a black bentwood chair with a thin white cushion on the seat. Now back in the Morris chair, morning, my back to the room’s one window, sunny light in this part of the room, newspaper on my lap, coffee mug, don’t forget the coffee-colored coffee mug on the right arm of the chair, up to my lips, a moving drawing, steaming black coffee at my lips if I could catch it, a sip, coffee’s hot, mug back on the chair’s arm, and now on the table I’m typing on, long white parson’s table I think it’s called and which with the bedroom dresser, night table and bed in this so-called furnished apartment, the only furniture here before I came. Mug on my right side, coffee still steaming, on top of a discarded manuscript page turned over and which I use to doodle on and to jot down notes. Bottle of ink beside that, left there after I filled up my fountain pen just before I went for a walk last night. Ink bottle usually on the table’s far right end beside the bottle of typewriter cleaner. Eraser pencil next to the ink bottle, pencil sharpener with its transparent plastic attachment to collect the pencil and eraser shavings, next to that. Eyeglasses, not my bifocals but the ones just to read with, beside that. Bifocals nor their case are in this room I see, so in one of the other three. On the other side of the typewriter my huge opened dictionary, thesaurus, reference manual, ream box of erasable paper now only a quarter-filled, sectioned dental utility tray with paperclips, postage stamps, rubber bands and coins. Architect’s lamp pulled over the typewriter from its holder attached viselike to the edge of the tabletop against the wall. Lamp on because the table faces a wall at the opposite side of the room from the window and sunlight. Table there because it can’t fit against the window which is between two closets or against the other walls in the room because one has a couch against it that can’t fit anywhere else and the other has one of the closets at one end and at the other the door leading to the bedroom. I adjust the lampshade to get more light on the paper in the typewriter and less on the keys as I type because too much light on them hurts my eyes. I wish I could draw myself. In the Morris chair, legs crossed at the knees, light on my back, newspaper on my lap, chair fitted into the three by three foot window space the closets make, sunlight on the chair arms and trouser legs and floor, hands placed on my face just as they were when the thought first came to me that I wish I could draw myself this way. Get in the Morris chair. Take the mug. I do. I sit and sip. Coffee’s only lukewarm. I cross my legs the way they were before. Light, chair, knees, mug, another quick sip and the coffee’s finished. Mug set down in the exact place as before because the gray heat impression it made in the dark wood is still there. But the architect’s lamp wasn’t on when I sat here before. I get up, cross the room, turn the light off and return to the Morris chair and sit the same way. Eyes are shut. Hands in front of my face, not against it, only the forefingers touching the middle of my forehead. Hands shaped like what? That’s what I need to complete this picture of myself deep in thought. And the newspaper, which I take out from underneath me and put on my lap. Morning, around what time? Have to get the light right. Woman in the second floor apartment directly below mine is just now locking her front door to teach at the same school I teach at. She always leaves at the same time on Mondays and Tuesdays: 8:40 to get to her nine o’clock class. So 8:40 I’ll say, though my watch and clock are in the bedroom — Tuesday, and I now hear her walking downstairs in her clogs. Maybe the location and grade of the sunlight in the room has changed somewhat, but everything else approximately the same as it was fifteen minutes ago when I first had the drawing thought. My face still feeling and probably appearing as puffy from all the wine I drank last night while I read in bed for two hours before falling asleep. Chair springs gone, but is that important for this drawing? Could be, since I usually sit in the chair a little lopsided to the left because of the boards and magazines I put under the cushion to replace the springs and which seem to slide to the right. Maybe the floor’s warped to the right or the house has settled or was always tilted that way. I think I know what I’m saying. Looking at the room now the floor looks straight. Seat cushion yellow, back cushion red. In other words: one’s light, other’s dark. Time around the time I said. Day the day I said. One of the first Tuesdays in March, though I know the exact date. And early 80s. Very early 80s. Chair, mug, eyes closed, knees crossed, newspaper on my lap, missing springs causing me to sit in a lopsided way, sunlight the way I said or thereabouts, hands in front of my face touching my forehead to complete the drawing. Hair to complete it also: brushed back about twenty minutes ago, though it’s probably a little tousled now, and thin on top and thick and curly on the sides with bushy gray sideburns ending right below the lobes. Last shaved last night more than twelve hours ago, fourteen hours ago, so somewhat in need of a shave. Navy blue cotton chamois shirt bought from a mail order house and washed a couple-dozen times since, so a bit faded. Both breast pocket flaps unbuttoned. Only one shirt button buttoned, third one down from the top. Shirt not tucked into the pants. Black garrison belt which can’t be seen except for the silver-colored buckle, and fastened at the first hole. Not because I’m overweight. I’m actually three to five pounds lighter than some health charts recommend for someone my height and age, but because the belt’s been two sizes too small for me for about ten years. I think, thinking I was thinner than I was, I bought it that way. Blue jeans I’ve said. Old blue jogging sneakers or shoes with orange stripes along both sides, laces doubleknotted because they’re so long, and gray. With my right knee crossed over the left, a small part of the dark sock can probably be seen. So that’s how I’m dressed. Shirt collar up above my neck, I don’t know why. Maybe from last night when it was cold in the apartment and I took it off like that when I went to bed, hung it on the back of a chair and put it on today the same way. Window behind me, venetian blinds raised, cords hanging to the floor, the bottom half of one behind the radiator to my right and the other one behind the chair. Three-story rowhouses across the street, sloping green shingle roofs, red brick facades, perhaps only the top floor of each building visible, plus several leafless trees in front of the buildings and one much taller one behind. Blue sky, no clouds, or a few clouds, since it’s been that kind of day. My skin’s light. A pink white I’d say. Hands though. Hair on the backs of them and below the knuckles, nails clipped, clean and even, most of the cuticles frayed. Hands over my face. Not covering it, and shaped like what? Shaped like a steeple I’d say. Steeple-shaped, that’s what, thumbs almost touching my lips and fingertips touching my forehead and fingers covering my nose. So forget the nose for the drawing. Hands also cover my lips, so forget them too. And my chin and most of my neck, which my wrists cover, wrists covered by my buttoned shirt sleeves, shirt covering all but a small part of the green T-shirt underneath near my belt. My eyes, can they be seen? Eyes and eyebrows both, just barely. My eyes are closed, now they’re open. In the drawing they’ll be closed of course and I’ll be thinking. Scars? None that can be seen except for the one that cuts through the middle of my left eyebrow and several chicken pox scars on my cheeks that I don’t think are large and deep enough for the drawing. Anything else? Nothing I can think of, so that’s basically my drawing. Right now that’s what I look like, so to speak, and this is where I am, thinking I’d like nothing better right now than to be able to draw myself, though not with a mirror. To be an artist or just a drawer sitting across from me and drawing me as just another man. I get up and turn on the architect’s lamp and arrange some papers on my table to get ready for work and then think give yourself a few minutes yet and I get up and sit in the Morris chair and read the front page of the newspaper and get up and heat up the coffee in the coffee pot in the kitchen and drink another mug of coffee in the Morris chair while I finish the newspaper and when I’ve finished the coffee and it’s around 9:40, though I say this without looking at my watch or clock, I get up and sit at the table and get to work.

End of Magna

She might think. Well, she might think. Yes? She might think I’m not good enough for her, though not so much in those words. Those were the words my father used. “You’re not good enough for her,” he once said, though all the other times he said “She’s not good enough for you.” When I’d introduce them, my folks, to a new girl I’d been seeing, or would ask her over for dinner, ask them first after they’d asked me several times who’ve I been seeing lately? or “What’ve you been doing with your time lately?” or “Where do you rush off to at nights so quickly after dinner? How come you don’t hang around the house more?” I’d say I’ve been seeing a girl lately and they’d say “If she’s so special why don’t you bring her around for dinner one night?” or I’d say “I’ve been seeing someone lately, someone I really like, would you like to meet her?” and then I’d suggest bringing her over for dinner and if they said yes and they invariably did, I’d ask what night was best, or they’d say “Bring her Friday,” and I’d say to her “My folks invited you for dinner this Friday, I hope you can come,” and she invariably did, would ring the doorbell, I’d answer it even if I wasn’t the closest one to the door at the time, though most of the times I’d pick her up at her home or meet her someplace on the outside and bring her to our home, and sometime the next day, though a couple of times much later that night after I’d taken her back home and my folks or just my father was still up, he’d say “You want my opinion of that girl?” and I’d say “Sure if you want, what?” and he’d say “I don’t think she’s good enough for you,” and I’d say “I knew you’d say that,” But sometimes I’d say “Why do you say that?” because maybe I had some suspicion myself about how good enough she was for me, and he’d say “She isn’t bright enough.” Or “pretty enough.” Or “nice enough…lively enough,” or something enough and sometimes many things not good enough. Though once after I’d brought someone home for dinner and then taken her back to her place, my father said “You’re not good enough for her,” or rather “You know what I think about you and that girl?” and I said “What?” because I knew she’d made a good impression on them, more so perhaps than anyone I’d ever had over for dinner, and he said “I think you’re heading for big trouble with her,” and I said “How?” and he said “Because you’re just not good enough for her and she’s going to know that soon and drop you and you’re going to get very depressed over it, more so than you have with any young lady you’ve been attached to.” I said “No chance of that. She likes me, I like her, I’m good enough for her and she knows it, just as both she and I know she’s good enough for me,” and he said “You want to know why I don’t think you’re good enough for her, as good as you might be for just about every other young woman her age?” and I said “Why?” and he said “Because she’s too rich, too pretty, too smart, too refined, too educated, too imaginative, comes from too good a family, too everything, and no matter how much she might think she likes you now, and it’s clear to your mother and I she likes you a lot, people like her family and friends are going to convince her you’re not good enough for her and that she’s wasting her time when she could have any available guy she wants, and eventually she’s going to think less of you from what people say and drop you though do it with some sadness and sensitivity, and you’re going to get very upset and if you don’t watch it, make the biggest damn fool of yourself you’ve ever been.” I said “Number one I don’t believe it, and two, even if I did a little, which I don’t, I’d chance it because seeing her now is so worth it,” and he said “Don’t come around crying I didn’t warn you,” and a month later she dropped me as he’d said, sadly, sensitively, saying she knew how much this would hurt me but what way was a good way to say what she had to say? and I said “What’s wrong, aren’t I good enough for you?” and she said “It’s not that, it’s just that I don’t want to get so serious with a boy yet,” and I said “Oh bull, you just don’t think I’m good enough for you,” and she said “Okay, maybe in some ways that’s true, but there are also some other things,” but no matter what I said, some of it for me, some against, she’d had it with me and I felt sadder than I had with any girl who’d dropped me before and maybe with any girl or woman since. It took me a month or more, more, a couple of months or more of deep depression, wandering around lost, trying to expose myself to colds, that sort of thing, before I got over her enough to function as a normal human being again. Magna’s like that girl too. She’s too good for me. She’s too beautiful, too intelligent, too perceptive, too creative, too everything. She doesn’t come from wealth or earn much of a salary now, but that isn’t important to her as long as she works at what she enjoys, nor that I don’t earn much either. She’s going to find out soon enough that I’m a little more boring and cynical than she can take. That I’m really not as broadminded and kindhearted as she thought. She’s going to have enough of my silly jokes and ribbing after a while too. She’s going to see lots of things in me she won’t like pretty soon. She’s going to think “I’m seeing this guy too much and that’s not too wise a thing to do because he’s going to want to get married or tie me down some way and though I might like that very much with someone else in the near future, I don’t want that with him.” She’s going to think she can do better. She no doubt has done a lot better. I know she has. She’s talked about some of the men she’s known. Known seriously. Been lovers with. Was in love with when they were in love with her. I have to admit I don’t stack up much in comparison to several of these men. To some I do, to some I don’t, but to a few I really don’t. The latter were all extremely bright, well-liked, handsome, sociable, had jobs or professions where they were already very successful or were soon sure to be, and other good qualities but with none of the negative ones I have, or so it seemed to me by what she said about them. I’ve asked what went wrong with the best of these relationships. Was it sex? Was it family or money? What was it? She said that a couple of these men got scared of a continuing deep relationship and a couple she got scared of. One man was already married and she didn’t want to bust up anybody’s home. Another man wanted her to change her religious faith to his. Another wanted her to change her citizenship to his and move to his country, but she felt that would be a spiritual and creative death. One man died of a heart attack and another in a rock-climbing accident. One wanted to get married but didn’t want to have children. One couldn’t have children but wanted to adopt one or two, while she wanted to give birth to at least one and then maybe she’d adopt a second. I’d love to marry her and have a child, but she’s eventually going to see how wrong I am for her. On some intellectual topics we talk about, for instance, it’s obvious I don’t go far enough for her. She likes to socialize a lot more than I, and her friends are often much smarter than I too. No, it won’t work. I know it. Maybe she knows it by now also but doesn’t want to speak about it yet for any number of reasons. She might be trying to find the best way of telling me without hurting me so much. She’s like that. And I don’t want to get hurt again as I did with that girl twenty years ago and several women since. I can still get hurt that way. Being in love with someone so much, and that person leaves you — there’s no way I can’t get hurt. I’ll miss just about everything about her. Miss talking to her, walking with her, looking at her, making love with her, just being silent and doing nothing with her or nothing but reading beside her. Holding her hand or knee when we’re at a movie or stage show. Her head on my shoulder or chest or my thighs pressed against the back of her thighs when we’re dozing off at night. Going into a store. Sharing some food at a restaurant. Watching her dress. Coming up with the same opinion about someone or something. Differing with her too. Fighting it out and making up. Everything. Miss missing her too, when I was away for a day or so and knew when I got back I’d see her. But for some reason, a very good reason, the reason being it’s inevitable she’s going to leave me pretty soon so better now when I can take it better than later when I’ll be even more used to her and it’ll hurt much worse. So I’ll phone her, right now, and if she’s in, tell her what I’ve been thinking and that we should call it off now.

I phone her and we meet and I tell her what I’ve been thinking lately and she says I’m crazy and she loves me and was thinking the same thing about herself to me, that she’s not good enough for me, not intelligent and insightful and pretty enough and other things, and if I want—”Well is this what you want, because it’s what I want, let’s get married, let’s have a baby, let’s live together, do everything forever together, or as much as we can do together, okay?” I said yes and that’s where we stand today.

I phone her and we meet and I tell her what I’ve been thinking and she says she’s afraid she’s been thinking the same thing lately, the relationship should probably end now before it gets even more serious for me and where she’d have to end it on her own rather than do it mutually as we can do now, and I put my hand out to shake hers, she said “Oh don’t be silly,” and kissed me on the lips and I turned around and walked home and cried inside just about all the way and that’s where it stands today.

I phone her and she’s not in but I get her later and we meet and talk and she says it’s not that she’s too good for me or the other way around or even that we might just be perfectly suited for one another or anything like that but that there’s another man in her life, one of the ones she might have mentioned before, she hasn’t seen him since a few months before we started seeing each other a half year ago, but he called last week and said he’s thought and thought about why their relationship ended and all the things she said would improve it then but at the time he didn’t believe in, well anyway, he now goes along with everything she said and knows she was definitely right for him just as she is now and just as he still thinks and hopes and even prays he’s still right for her and he wants to give their relationship another chance if it isn’t too late and also if it isn’t too late to move back in with her. She’s afraid she still loves him, she said to me, and that her feelings for him the last six months are probably what always kept her a little held back and unrelaxed and withdrawn from me at times. I said I never noticed her being any of these ways with me particularly but if there is this other man and she’s in love with him and wants to resume things and so on, well there’s nothing I can say, can I? especially after I already said I’ve been feeling for weeks she’s just too good for me in so many ways. That’s just not true, she said.

She’s not like that at all. If it wasn’t for this other man she knows we could have worked out in time and had a wonderful relationship. There’s just no saying how far we could have gone. That I have everything she ever wanted in a partner, everything, but just that this man is someone who has, not more than me, it’s not that he’s better or brighter or handsomer or anything like that, and actually on many of those things I do even better than he, but just something mysterious she can’t quite explain or communicate and maybe it’s ridiculous trying to explain it because it is so mysterious, but just something, and for all she knows it could be just his being there before me and suddenly leaving while she was still very much in love with him and didn’t want him to go and also because of everything they went through, and what those things were she doesn’t want to go into. But that’s it, she’s sorry, in some ways she wishes he never came back so we could have continued our relationship and she could have seen how it developed and in time perhaps lived with me and maybe even got married and had a child or two if that’s what it would have come to, but in some ways she’s very glad of course, and she has to be honest about it, very very glad he came back, though also of course what she regrets most is how it will affect me. “But don’t be silly,” she said. “I was certainly good enough for you and you were more than good enough for me.” We shook hands and kissed and I left her at a street corner and crossed the street and turned around when I got to the other side and saw her walking the opposite way from me and she didn’t do what she usually did when we left one another on a street — turn around and look back and wave — she kept going, till I couldn’t see her anymore, till she was part of the big midafternoon crowd walking both ways on the sidewalk. I went home and was surprised I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would.

The Beginning of Something

The wind is wet. That sounds nice but doesn’t make much sense. Any sense. I wrote it because it sounded nice. In my head. Wrote it as I usually write something to start off a story, or rather, as I often do. I don’t know where it came from. The wind is wet. Wet wind. The windy wet. Any of those could have come and I suppose a wet wind and Wind is wet could make some sense. It doesn’t make for good reading though. They don’t and The wind is wet doesn’t. At least I don’t think it does. And make for good writing, I mean, since it hasn’t really led to a second and then a third, and so on, sentence. Maybe in rewriting it or just writing it over, rather, I could make it better. I’ve done that before several times and it sometimes worked.

The wind is wet. That sounds nice but doesn’t make much sense. Any sense, or very little. I wrote it because it sounded like a sentence that might be the, or rather, a suitable beginning of a story. I don’t like Suitable but I don’t want to lose my line of thought. Because I sat down to write a story. When I sit down to write a story and nothing’s in my head when I sit down, I usually write the first thing that comes to mind when I start typing. The first thing I think of. The wind is wet was the first thing I thought of. It sounded right. As though it might lead to other things — sentences, phrases, etcetera — that would connect one after the other to be the first draft of a story. It’s happened before. I’ve written opening sentences in a similar way. Meaning I wrote the first thing that came to mind when I started to type and which had no connection to anything around me, since not only wasn’t there a wind out when I started to type but it was and still is a dry sunny day, and they’ve often led to follow-up sentences or dialogue, which became paragraphs and then pages or just one long paragraph, and once one nine to ten pages, which became in the end first drafts of stories. This one I don’t think will. It doesn’t have what? I don’t quite know, or rather, I can’t quite put it into words, but something — a force, some action, some staying or holding power, something. I knew I couldn’t quite put it into words. Not Quite.

I couldn’t put it into words at all or just about. But what I meant to say was that it doesn’t have what my instincts tell me a story must have to be a good story. Good meaning, well, Good. Meaning what? Now I’ve lost the line or thread or whatever it is that also keeps a story from continuing. Not From but just Keeps it continuing. Maybe if I write that first line from the first paragraph again or just start to write that whole first paragraph or even this paragraph from the beginning I’ll eventually come to a good beginning and can start the story from there. Is that what I’m aiming for or am I aiming to just write a story with a whole bunch of beginnings and rewriting of beginnings and rewriting or pretended rewriting of paragraphs, etcetera? For this is the first story I’ve started in more than a month. Actually, the first thing I’ve written, except for a letter to my mother and about three dozen postcards, several to my mother, in more than a month. I’ve been away. Explored prehistoric caves. Not so much Explored as Visited these caves. Paid the full admission fee if the ticket sellers wouldn’t, when I showed them my faculty card, charge me a reduced fee or let me in free, and went in with groups of ten to twenty people and once with about forty French schoolchildren and their chaperons and teachers and was guided through various caves with prehistoric paintings and engravings on the walls and one cave with both those and another with the painter’s hand stenciled on several of the walls, in the Dordogne region of France. The Department of France. Or maybe the Dordogne region in the Perigord Department of France. I left my map of that region or department in the Paris hotel we stayed in our last day in France and there isn’t an atlas in this summer cottage we rent in Maine. Anyway, all that has little or nothing to do with what I’m writing now except to say I haven’t written a stitch of fiction in a month because I’ve been away and wanted to start writing today, the day after we got back from France, and this is what I’ve written so far. I should have started today’s writing with a letter or postcard to someone, but I usually do that first thing after I’ve been away from writing for a week or more and I thought I’d try something different this time to see what would come out. This is what did. Not much for sure. I’ll probably put it away uncompleted or just throw it away, and if I don’t throw it away now, pick it up in half a year or so and see its worthlessness and then throw it away. But first see if something can come out of it now. Start, as an exercise, from the beginning of the last paragraph and see what happens. Or just start, since you already started from the beginning of the last paragraph, which was the beginning of the first paragraph you started, and as an Experiment, not an Exercise, from any place of the three written pages you blindly put your finger on. You’ve never done that before. So do it. I’m going to. Not because I never did it but because it seems like a good idea. I’m going to do it right now.

To other things. That’s what my finger landed on. I closed my eyes, shuffled the three pages and spread them out on top of the dictionary on my right side and put my finger down on page one’s second to last line. It actually landed on To other, so maybe I should have been true or something to what I said I’d do and just put down To other. Nothing much has come of the experiment so far, so maybe that’s what I’ll do right now.

To other. To other what? Two other what? Not either of those Whats but just To other. But To other what? That wasn’t a good idea. Or maybe it was but I just happened to land on the wrong words or one of the grouping of words least conducive or adaptable or malleable or whatever to start something going on the page. Maybe no grouping of words from those three pages would have started something going just then, but how could I ever know? I couldn’t. So it’s ridiculous thinking about. All I can conclude is that something might have started some other time with that grouping or any grouping of words from those three pages or even a single word my finger might have landed on, but didn’t when I tried it before. So try it again. Not blindly putting your finger on one of the pages, though I could also do that, but with To other, as now might be that Other time.

To other. Tother. Tuther. Tether. The wind is wet. I like that best. Or rather, I like it better than the rest. Wind is wet. I am wet. I am not. Not wet. I’m. Writing The wind is wet. I’m sitting here writing The wind is wet and Wind is wet. Magna’s downstairs writing whatever she’s writing. She’s writing something. Her typewriter’s going. She’s angry at me, or rather, she still might be if she’s still thinking about the spat we had about half an hour ago and which was most if not all my fault. Seems difficult for something to be All my fault. Anyway, I lied. The wind is wet wasn’t the first thing I wrote since I came back from France — I wrote — where is it? — I wrote — I’m going to look for it now — I wrote — just before I started this piece — This time I’m going to make it work. I’ve ruined all my other relationships. I know what I did. I knew it while I was doing it I didn’t even put in a period. I just stopped writing it and threw it away. I didn’t throw it away though would have if I had a waste basket or large paper bag or something like that here to throw it in. I put it at the right end of this table thinking that later I’ll go downstairs and get a paper bag, as the one waste basket in this cottage we’ve rented the last three summers has been beside Magna’s desk, and put in all of today’s trash: eraser pencil shavings — first thing I did when I sat at this table was sharpen two eraser pencils — and discarded manuscript pages and the like. Used tissues and pieces of toilet paper, since I’ve the start of a head cold and know I’ll be blowing my nose. In fact I’m going to blow my nose now with a tissue, not because what I just wrote gave me the idea to but because I suddenly have to.

I just blew my nose and put the wet tissue at the right end of this table and will put it in the paper bag along with the page that starts with This time I’m going to make it work, and probably along with these six awful pages I’ve written so far and whatever I might add to them. The tissue is wet. The wind is wet. This awful piece or whatever it is is wet. The ground outside’s wet. Coffee I’m drinking or just was is cold and wet. I just dried my nose and eyes, which were wet, with a dry tissue I made wet. I’ll also put that tissue in the paper bag when I get it. Oh, put on your glasses, tie the laces of your wet sneakers so you won’t trip going downstairs and the two cats when you come downstairs won’t think the flicking lace tips on the stair boards are the nails of a dog as they’ve thought several times before. Or just take off the sneakers, since they are wet, and put on your loafers and go downstairs and say something nice to Magna. Say you apologize. Say you’re sorry, very sorry. Say you’ll try to see that it won’t happen again. Say you’ll do your very best. Say you had a dream last night you want to tell her, Is it all right? If she says yes, say in the dream she said An FBI man told me they’ve done a thorough report on you and that you are fou, and I said A fool? and she said You know what I mean: that vous êtes fou, crazy! and I said So what does that mean to you: that you don’t want to continue living with a fouy man, a crazy man? and she said Yes, you being fou is just one of the many things that make me not want to live with you anymore, and I said Ah, the hell with it and walked out of the hotel and along one of those narrow barge roads by the Dordogne feeling very depressed and thinking what will I do, commit suicide here in France? Because I can’t live without her. I need someone like her to tell my dreams to and many other reasons and she’s the last one left, and the dream ended then. I woke up. The room was black. I didn’t think it was a room but a cave. I felt for Magna. She was on her side, her back to me. We had what I thought was an animal hide over us and were lying on soft ground. I looked at the ground. There was a little light on it now and it looked like water or mud. I reached out to feel it. It felt like water. I felt the small rug on the floor though didn’t think yet that the floor was a floor and rug a rug and the rug felt like grass. I don’t remember falling asleep here, I thought, but maybe everything I remember before waking up was a dream. Then how’d I get here? How do I get my food? Who’s Magna? I turned to her. The hide became the top sheet covered by blankets, the soft ground a bed. I could see windows now. We were in our rented summer cottage, not a cave. All this while I was awake. I pressed into her from behind. Got or had an erection. I wanted to talk to her about my dream and maybe to make love, but she seemed to be sleeping. I pressed the erection against her thighs from behind and put my arm over her under the blanket till my hand covered her breast. She didn’t move. I pressed into her a little harder, put my lips against her neck and blew softly on it, thinking that might awake her. Few seconds later she said I can’t right now, what are you doing? What do you mean what am I doing? I said. I didn’t get closer to you to make love, just to be warm and safe. I want to go back to sleep too. You have no consideration, she said. I didn’t know you were up, I said, So I didn’t think you’d feel me. Not feel what, she said, Your blowing on me? How could I not feel it? Who blew on you where? I said. I didn’t blow. If you felt my breath on your neck it was probably because I was breathing through my mouth while falling asleep, that’s all. No consideration, she said. Oh, none at all? Then little, she said. I’m sorry, I said, I’ll move away and stop breathing, and I moved to the other side of the bed. All you want to do or just about always when you’re in bed, no matter how I feel or what state I might be in, is make love. Because you knew I was sleeping. I’m exhausted. I’ve jet lag. We’re six hours behind. It’s really six or eight in the morning, not midnight or two or whatever time the clock says. I know and I’m sorry, I said. Christ, she said. Oh the hell, I can’t sleep with you constantly complaining when I didn’t mean what you think I did and making me feel even worse than I should, and I got out of bed, said We’ll work it out in the morning, went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch with my raincoat and one of the cats on top of me. About an hour ago she said I think we better speak about last night. We were having breakfast, hadn’t talked much. Polite talk. Pass the this, etcetera, while she read and I looked out the window. Oh, skip all that. Talk, argument, anger, tears from Magna, I walked out of the room, up here, she left the cottage and came back twenty minutes later and went to her desk and started typing, is, I’m typing, and that’s where I am now. The wind is wet. It sounded so nice. I thought it would be a good beginning. I wanted to write, when I sat down, something about why I’m always fighting and lying on and off with women and making myself so hard to live with. I wanted to explore that particularly and why I want those characteristics in me to stop. But I wrote slop: This time I’m going to make it work. Then nonsense: The wind is wet. Then what followed right up till this. Forget the writing: I should go downstairs now to try to work things out. Not because I can’t work well up here so long as I know Magna’s sad and getting if she’s not already fed up with me, though if my work did improve because of it I’d certainly be glad, but because I want more than anything and as much if not more than I’ve wanted with anyone to stay with her and be loved by her and because I eventually want to find out why I do some of the wrong things I do and what I can do to change them. Something like that. But I’m going to do it. Meaning, I’m going to go downstairs now.

I went downstairs. Magna was still upset. I said I hate for her to be so upset. I said lots of things. I’ll skip most of it. I said I know I must change. She said she thinks so too. I said if I changed somewhat does she think she’d still want to live with me? She said maybe only if I changed more than somewhat. How much more? I said and she said A little more than a little more. One very important thing though, she said, No, two: you have to think more of me than you do. Not to dote on me, but just to be more considerate of my feelings than you’ve been and, this is the second thing, more aware or just more truthful of your own. All right, I said, And I’m not saying this just because it sounds good: I’ll do everything I can to be that way and do what you say. I will, I said, I promise, okay? Okay, she said. I then wanted to kiss. She said Not quite yet. She asked what I’ve been typing upstairs and I said The beginning of something. It’s not working out. I started it several times. I think I was feeling too miserable because of what happened between us and what I knew you were feeling. It includes something of what we recently went through, I’m afraid: last night, my dreams, our breakfast, that I want our relationship to work out so much. She asked if she could see it. That she knows I don’t like anyone but editors and agents to see my work till it’s published, but could she? It’d give her the assurance, she said, that I trust her more than I seem to and value her opinion of my work more too and even if I might not agree with what she says about it each time, that I’m at least able to listen to it. And also that she can perhaps be of some use to me in my work more than just as a fictional character, just as she likes it when I give good advice in the work she does. I said You know I don’t like to show my work — but you already said that. Okay, but you have to realize it’s junk. That it’s something I’m almost sure I won’t be able to or just won’t want to end. That I started it, and probably in the wrong mood for such a piece — a dejected mood or just about — to be something, started it to, but nothing much materialized. That I’ll probably dump it into a trash bag in a few minutes to an hour if I don’t save it for half a year and then look at it and dump it then. She realizes all that, she said. She knows most of my work habits by now and also that I’ve occasionally searched frantically through garbage bags and cans for the beginnings of stories I threw in and then worked on them and finished a few and one even got published and became if she’s not mistaken my only major anthologized piece. Which reminds me, I said. While I’m down here I should get a paper bag for my trash, because I’ve a cold coming on — You do? she said. I’m sorry, you must’ve gotten it that last rainy night in Paris when I insisted we see St. Chapelle and Notre Dame — And I already have two wet tissues upstairs that should not only be in a trash bag but for your sake probably burned. She laughed. I smiled. I took her hand. I said Please let’s just have one small kiss? It’ll mean a lot to me. How much is a lot to you? she said. A lot more than a lot, I said — I don’t know, but a whole lot, which should be enough. Sure, she said, Fine by me. We kissed. Kissed several times. I love you, I said, You know that. Sometimes I don’t, she said, But I love you too. Oh Christ, she said, Let’s be good to one another and helpful and truthful as two people can be to one another, though I know you must think this is all garbage psychotherapy talk, or at least work towards what I’m asking for and not so often hurt one another and all the other good things? All right, I said. You are right and as my dad used to say, though that’s not to say he practiced it. In fact — well anyway, When you’re right you’re right, he used to say, and you are right. That’ll be the program from now on: truth, help, not hurt, all the good things together, etcetera. Good, she said. Will you now let me see your upstairs’ work and even let me comment on it if I feel my comments might help it? Yes, I said. And your comments couldn’t do anything but help this work, not that it’ll end up to be anything — the work, that is — and I think your comments could probably help all my work. So get it, she said. The bag first, I said. I got a large paper bag from the kitchen, went upstairs, got the ten pages, brought them downstairs, she read them, said I don’t mind The wind is wet. It’s in a way, well, poetic. And the wind can be wet, so why are you fretting so much over it? Sure the wind can be wet, she said. A foggy wind. A rainy wind. The kind of wind with rain in it we get so much of around here. Wind with rain in it, I said — I like that. I don’t know why, but I really like that line. Wind with rain in it. Wind with rain in it. And the truth is, she said, If you rewrite this as it is, or without, if you’ll permit me, adding much more to it except maybe a quick curious finish, it might to a lot of readers be an original story; if that was your original intention. If it wasn’t, well, accidents happen, so think about making it your intention. Not of course that a work has to be original to be good, though I think this one would have to. Wind with rain in it, I said. The wind is wet. This wind with rain in it is. I don’t know about all that, she said. Nor, if you want my advice, about including all those, if that’s what you have in mind, for the purpose of originality or not. But if this turned out not to be a story or not quite one or not quite much of anything publishable, let’s say, original or not, or whatever happens to a story once you think you’ve finished it, it had some purpose. It helped you think about us, if I got it right. It brought you downstairs to talk things out with me. So it served a very useful purpose, or just a useful one, and that’s as a reconciliatory story for us. So maybe it only deserves two readers, you and me, and for our purpose the story’s finished, and for the story’s purpose — well, it might not have one except for the reconciliatory reason I gave. And so actually, and without much regret for the work you put in and the time I did right now, it could be thrown out, depending on how important you think that reconciliation is. Very important, I said. Wind with wind with wet with rain in it this is. That makes a lot of sense, she said. Oh, it doesn’t? I said. And if you are planning to keep this piece and maybe even add to it, she said, I suppose you or both of us should try to recall if others might not have done something of the same order as this. Maybe you know but you’re not saying. No I don’t, I said, though I don’t read as much as a lot of others do. Wind with with with wet with rain within it is this. Whatever, she said, But I have to get back to my work. Want to go for a run in an hour or so? If I’m not too busy with my wet wind writing, I said. See you then, she said and handed me my ten pages and I went upstairs and recorded or tried to record as close as I could what went on since the end of the last paragraph, or rather, since I went downstairs to try to work things out with Magna. Things seem to have worked out. I feel good about that. Now to finish and later read it over — say in a few hours or tomorrow morning or after my run with Magna, if she still wants to run and if I want to — to see if I have anything here. I did bring up the bag — I mentioned that — and will now put in it those tissues and eraser pencil shavings and a third tissue, because I have to blow my nose again, and that page which begins with This time I’m going to make it work.

Magna Takes the Calls

Magna says “It’s Ruth. She sounds a little upset,” and hands me the receiver, collects her students’ exam papers and goes into the bedroom.

I say “Hello, mom, how are you?” and she says “I’ve some bad news for you, Will. Aunt Rae called a few hours ago and said Uncle Saul died last night.”

“Oh God, that’s terrible, awful. I’m very sorry.”

“His heart. I just spoke to him last week. We all knew he didn’t have that long to live — the doctor told Rae that a few months ago. That he was just waiting around to die. But when you hear that it’s happened, it always comes as a shock. I’m just glad he never knew how bad off he was.”

“I’ll say. It’s awful, awful.”

“He in fact called me — when was it? — two months ago and said he’d be in for Christmas for a week. I told him he could stay with me, there was plenty of room here, but he said he’d be staying at his sister-in-law’s — Rae’s sister Dolly. I don’t think you ever met her. When I spoke to him last week I asked what about his Christmas plans and he said they’d have to be pushed back a ways but he’d see me in no later than three months.”

“I’m really sorry, mom. I loved Saul. He always took an interest in us — in you, your kids. He was like a second father. In some ways, what I wish dad had been more: interested.”

“Your father was interested. Maybe in a different way than Saul.

Silently. He didn’t express himself much, except maybe to his cronies, but he certainly felt things. Saul was actively interested in all of you — that’s true. You want to hear how it happened?”

“If you want to say.”

“Rae said he was watching television last night. That that’s where she last saw him — in front of the TV — when she left him to take a shower. He was watching the eleven o’clock news, or the ten. I forget exactly what time she said.”

“I think the news comes on at ten in L.A.”

“That’s right, you lived there. But maybe it’s changed since then, or like us some of their stations have an hour of local news and then national. When she came out she said ‘Anything important happen in the news today, Saul?’ and he didn’t answer. She saw him slumped over — just a little to the side — his head. So he died peacefully.”

“That’s good at least.”

“He had no means to prevent it. It was the heart muscles — there was no way to repair them with a new valve and he was in no condition for a heart transplant. He knew he was going to die, though nobody told him. I could tell by his voice in that last phone call we had that he knew he’d never see us again.”

“It’s terrible, mom — I can’t tell you. For you, for Rae, for myself. I hate to think of him gone.”

“I know he knew you appreciated him. He felt the same to you. He always respected you. And since they moved out there, when we talked he asked after you every time.”

“How are you holding up?”

“You mean by knowing it?”

“Yes, is anybody with you? Maybe you should go to Leslie’s tonight or have her and Ben or just Leslie stay with you there.”

“I’m all right. He’s not my first brother to go, just my youngest. I miss him already. I wish I had called him yesterday when I thought of it. I always get the time zones mixed up. I think eight here is eleven there and he might be in bed. I forget it’s the other way around. But I don’t need anyone with me. It’s good talking to you about it. That’s what happens when you come from such a large family. So many brothers and sisters to lose. Sometimes I wish I’d gone first. Before my parents even. I’m sad, though, that’s true. I’ve had two drinks and feel tired already, so I’ll sleep okay. But tell me what you think. Rae wants me to hold some kind of ceremony for Saul in New York. He’ll be cremated out there, but she wants me to put an announcement in the Times about his death and a brief service at my place for his family here and friends. It’ll be a lot for me to do, I don’t think I’m up to it, but I’ll do it if Leslie and Ben help out.”

“I’ll come in for it and help.”

“I was hoping you could. I’ll make it on a Friiday — you don’t teach that day I remember — and you can get back to school by Monday. You think Magna will want to come? She met Saul, didn’t she?”

“A couple of years ago. I’ll ask her. It’ll also give her a chance to see her folks and you.”

“I look forward to seeing her. Probably next Friday or the one after. Before sundown, because it has to be. All right, I don’t want to keep you any longer. Give my love to Magna.”

“Goodnight, mom. Thanks for calling.”

I hang up and go into the bedroom. “What was it?” Magna says.

“Something wrong as I thought?”

“My Uncle Saul died last night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Will, I’m sorr.” She puts her pen down and comes over to me. I start crying. She holds my hand, touches my cheek. I break down and she puts her arms around me and pats my back and I sob for a while. I try to speak. I say “I loved…I loved…” I wanted to say “I loved the old guy very much,” She says “I know how you feel about him, you don’t have to say. He was a very nice man. He was like a second father to you.” I nod. “Did he have it rough?”

“At the end?”

“It wasn’t bad for him, was it? I remember he had a very bad heart. The walls. I hope not.”

“He died peacefully while watching the news. He must have just went — quick. Nothing painful. Maybe just a second — I don’t know. He didn’t suffer if he only felt pain for a second or two. That’s not suffering.”

“No. You poor dear. And his poor wife. They didn’t have children, so she must feel very alone. Want me to get you a drink?”

“No, I’ll be all right. And it’ll only make me sadder.”

“It also might relax you. No? Water then? Some apple juice?” I shake my head. “Maybe I better rest.”

“Maybe you should. Want me to work in the other room?”

“No no, I like having you here.”

I lie on the bed. Magna goes back to grading papers, turning around to me every other minute. I close my eyes. Images and thoughts of Saul go past. Shaking hands. Wagging a finger at me. Talking to me through his car window. Smiling. Smiling Saul his family called him because of his cheerful disposition. His very bald skull. Wearing a hairpiece for a year before he gave it to Goodwill. “Too vain,” he said, “and what am I hiding? I happen to have a very nice-shaped head.” Teaming up or playing one on one basketball with him in Central Park. He’d been first-string forward for NYU and he was only five-seven. “In those days, “he said, “if you were five-ten you automatically played center.” He wrote me encouraging letters when I was out of work and included a ten or twenty dollar check in the envelope. “Go out to a fancy lunch with it. You’ll feel better after, which will make you more appealing to your interviewers.” He’d get miffed if I didn’t tell him the more important personal and professional news of my life. “Remember, I’m the official Bederman Family Circle chronicler.” He once took a composition class with Thomas Wolfe. “We called him The Giant, but only because of his size. We didn’t know who he was then. We were all sons of European immigrants, so his southern accent had to be translated.”

“Will, your mother on the phone again,” Magna says. I’ve been asleep for more than an hour. “She sounds even worse than before.”

“Something about Saul?”

“I’m not sure. When I told her you were sleeping she said not to wake you, but she’s so distraught I knew she had to speak to you.”

I go to the phone. “Mom?”

“I’m sorry to wake you. I told Magna don’t. I have some more bad news to tell you. I didn’t want to so soon after Saul, but I promised Mr. Koven I would.”

“Larry’s father? Something happened to Larry?”

“Not to. Larry. Mr. Koven said he didn’t have the heart to tell you himself, but as Larry’s best friend you had to know.”

“We haven’t been best friends for twenty years. I mean, I like him and I’ve seen him when he came to Chicago on one of his business trips and lance visited him in Phoenix—”

“That’s just it. His trips. He was away — for over two days — I don’t know to where — and the previous week their dog had died.”

“Their dog died?”

“I know it sounds strange, but it’s important to what happened.

Larry’s very rich according to Mr. Koven. Lives in a mansion with a big swimming pool.”

“It’s not a mansion, but what is it I’m supposed to know? Their children?”

“No, they were safely away at college. I don’t like telling this, but he insisted. I said I just told you your uncle died, and he said he was sorry and gave us both his condolences but that this was more important. That uncles die of old age — heart, blocked arteries — but that this is today, somebody young wiped out by tragedy. He wouldn’t sleep unless he knew I told you tonight, because right after it you were supposed to call Larry. He said Larry had asked him for you to call.”

“His wife?”

“‘Murdered!’ he screamed into the phone. ‘Murdered, murdered!’ The dog died naturally a week ago, and when Larry got back from his trip he found the house ransacked and his wife strangled. “

“Oh God no.”

“They have windows that come right down to the ground, he said. Maybe that’s how they got in. And with no dog barking — maybe they saw Larry leave with his bags and knew about the dog and that the children were away and so came in. They took a few dollars and the stereo and that’s all.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I wasn’t being petty. Believe me, it’s horrible for me speaking about it. I knew Larry as a boy for twenty years too and Mr. Koven and his wife are always polite to me on the street and several times he’s helped me with legal papers and tax forms. I was talking about the absolute senselessness of it all.”

“I know. I’m sorry, mom, sorry.”

“So you’ll call him?”

“I’ll call. But you sure he wants me to?”

“Mr. Koven said Larry had definitely asked you to tonight.”

“Then I will. But what a day, huh? Unbelievable.”

We say goodnight, I hang up and look at Magna.

“I heard,” she says. “Are you going to?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I think you have to, don’t you?”

“But tonight? After Saul?”

“If you can’t, you can’t, and I can certainly understand why you couldn’t, but he might be expecting your call.”

“What do I say to him?”

“You say how you feel. Or that you’re too numb to feel anything now. Though I think you’re just supposed to ask what you can do for him. If you can also tell him how I feel about it, please do.”

“Okay. But I’m not going to wait.”

I get a glass of vodka and ice and call Larry. He answers and I say “Larry, it’s Will.”

“Yeah, my dad just phoned and said he spoke to your mother and you were calling. I didn’t ask him to ask you. He got it in his head to speak to you. That maybe only you, because we were so close for so long, could help get me through this, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. But he hasn’t been the same since the funeral Sunday. He’s actually been a bit crazy — wants to sell everything and pack up and go back to Germany, but I told him ‘Nobody’s there now, dad.’ He’ll be okay though.”

“I can well understand him. And I’m sorry, but I didn’t know around when it happened. Maybe my mother told me, but if she did it went past.”

“Sure. And my dad told me about Saul. That’s when I almost blew up at him for getting you to call me, but kept it in. I liked Saul. Great guy. Powerful too — oh boy. He was like your oldest brother almost, so to me like my best friend’s oldest brother. Or let’s just say your favorite uncle, right? I loved it that he used to play ball with us. I told June about that a lot. How he came around a few Saturdays a year and got us out to the park with a bat and gloves, or even into the street for stickball, and played till we got tired, not him. A fantastic athlete. So my condolences to you.”

“And I can’t tell you how I feel about June.”

“I can’t tell you how I feel either. Maybe they’ll get the crazies who did it, but you never know. Even if they do, where’s it leave me? Oh, questions — forget it. If I say another word about it I’ll crack up right over the phone to you. The girls are with me. They’re fine, they look good. They’re staying another week, so we’re all okay for the time being. I’ll write you maybe. And visit you next time I get to Chicago. I’m a mess, Will, no doubt about it, that’s the biggest truth I’ve said to you so far about me, but a mess is the only way I should really be now, right? And I’m awfully sorry about Saul.”

“Thanks. Magna wants me to tell you how she feels about June too.”

“I’ll speak to you.”

I hang up. “How my going to get to sleep tonight, Mag? How my going to?”

“Why not just finish your drink, have another if you want, and then call it a night. I still have a dozen papers to grade by morning, but if you want me to I’ll come to bed with you now.”

“No, I’ll be all right.” I finish the drink, kiss her goodnight, take off my clothes, get into bed and shut off the light.

Time to Go

My father follows me on the street. He says “Don’t go into that store and don’t go into the next one you might want to go into either. Go into none, that’s what I’m saying.” But I stand in front of the door of the jewelry store I heard was the best in the city and am buzzed in. My father’s right behind me, and I nod to the guard and say to the saleswoman after she says “Can I help you?” “Yes, I’m looking for a necklace — amber — I mean jade. I always get the two mixed up. But jade’s what I want: long-lasting, forever, is the symbol, right? This might sound funny, but I want to present the necklace to my wife-to-be as a prenuptial gift.”

“Doesn’t sound funny to me and you’ve come to the right store.” She takes out a tray of jade necklaces. All have gold around or in them, and when I ask the price of two of them, are too expensive.

“I don’t want any gold in them, except maybe for the clasp, and these are way too expensive for me.”

“Much too expensive,” my father says.

“I’ll show you some a little lower in price.”

“Much lower in price,” my father says.

“Maybe a little lower than even that,” I say.

She puts away the tray she was about to show me and takes out a third tray.

“These seem darker than I want — to go with her blue eyes and kind of pale skin I mean — but how much is this one?”

“You can pick it up,” she says. “Jade doesn’t bite.”

“Just the price,” my father says. “But go on, pick it up. You’ll see how jade’s as cold to feel as it is to look at.”

I pick it up. “It feels nice, just the right weight, and seems”—holding it out—”the right size for her neck.”

“Is she around my height?”

“Five-five.”

“Then exactly my height and this is the size I’d wear.”

“I’m sure it’s still too expensive for me.”

She looks at the tag on it, which seems to be in code: 412xT+. “It goes for three-fifty but I’ll make it two-seventy-five for you.”

“Way out of my range.”

“What is your range?”

“You’re going to wind up with crap,” my father says, “pure crap. If you have to buy a necklace, go somewhere else. I bet you can get this one for a hundred any other place.”

“Around a hundred, hundred-twenty-five,” I tell her.

“Let me show you these then.”

“Here we go again,” my father says.

“I have to get her something, don’t I?” I tell him. “And I want to, because she wants something she can always wear, treasure — that’ll remind her of me. That’s what she said.”

“Fine, but what’s she getting you?”

“How do I know? I hope nothing. I don’t want anything. That’s what I told her.”

“Oh, you don’t want anything to remind you of her?”

“She’ll remind me of her. I have her, that’s enough, and besides I don’t like jewelry.”

“You thinkers: all so romantic and impractical. I wouldn’t get her anything if she isn’t getting you anything. Listen, I like her, don’t misunderstand me: she’s a fine attractive girl and you couldn’t get better if you tried for ten more years. But tit for tat I say. He who gives, receives, and one should be a receiver and giver both.”

“You’re not getting my point. She wants something and I don’t. I accept that and I wish you would.”

“Sucker,” he says. “All my boys are suckers. None of them took after me.”

“Some people might say that was an improvement.”

“Stupid people might, just as stupid people might make jokes like you just did. If you took after me you would’ve been married sooner, had almost grown-up children, a much better job, three times as much income and been much much happier because your happiness would’ve been going on longer.”

“Look at this batch,” the saleswoman says, putting another tray of jade necklaces on the counter. I see one I like. A light green, smaller beads, nicely strung with string, no gold on it except the clasp. I hold it up. “I like this one.”

“Hedge, hedge,” my father says. “Then ask the price and offer her half.”

“How much is it?” I ask her.

“A hundred-ten.”

“Fifty-five or sixty — quick,” my father says.

“Sounds fair, and this is the first one I really feel good about.”

“That’s the only way to buy. Janine,” she says to a younger saleswoman, “would you try this on for this gentleman?”

Janine comes over, smiles and says hello to me, undoes the top two buttons of her blouse and starts on the third.

“It’s not necessary,” I say.

“Don’t worry,” the older woman says. “That’s as far as I’ll let her go for that price.”

Janine holds the necklace to her neck and the older woman clasps it behind her. “Feels wonderful,” Janine says, rolling the beads between her fingers. “This is the one I’d choose of this box — maybe even out of all the boxes despite the more expensive ones.”

“Who are you working for, him or me?”

“No, it really feels great.”

“Don’t fall for their patter,” my father says. “Sixty-five — go no higher. She says seventy-five, say ‘Look, I’m a little short what with all my wedding expensives and all, can’t you take the sixty-five — the most seventy?’ But you got to give them an excuse for accepting your offer, and no crying.”

“How much is this one again?” I ask her.

“One-ten,” the older woman says, “but I’ll make it a hundred.”

“That’s just fine. I didn’t mean to bargain down, but if you say it’s a hundred, fine, I’ll take it.”

“Idiot,” my father says. “You could’ve had it for seventy easy.”

“Terrific. Janine, wrap it up special as a prewedding gift. Cash or charge, sir?”

“You’ll take a check?”

“Janine, I don’t know this guy, so check his references. If they’re okay, let him pay by check. Thank you, sir. What about calling Michaels now?” she says to a man at the end of the counter and they go in back. I take out my wallet.

My father sits in a chair next to the guard. “My son,” he says to him. “Nothing like me. Never learned anything I ever taught him and I tried hard as I could. He could’ve been much more successful if he’d listened. But he was stubborn. All my children were stubborn. Neither of my girls had the beauty of their mother and none of my sons the brains of their dad. Health you’d think they’d have had at least, but they didn’t even have that. Oh, this one, he’s healthy enough — strong as an ox. But two I lost to diseases, boy and a girl, and both in their twenties, which was hard for my wife and I to take, before I went myself. So, there you have it. And I hope his bride likes his present. He’s paying enough. Though why he doesn’t insist on getting something in return — hint on it at least if he doesn’t want to insist — or at least insist her family pay for the wedding, is a mystery as much to you as to me. To everyone including his bride, who I admire — don’t think I was just buttering him up there — he says he’s too old to have anyone but him pay for the wedding, and she makes it worse by praising him for what she calls his integrity. Make sense to you? Doesn’t to me. Since to me integrity is great in its place but is best when it pays. All of which is why I hound him the way I do — for his benefit and his only. So. Think it’ll stay as nice out as it is? Ah, what’s the difference?”

I get off the train from Baltimore, get on the subway for upper Broadway, suddenly my father’s in the car standing beside me. “Welcome home,” he says. “You still going through with giving her that present and making the wedding all by yourselves? Anything you say. I won’t interfere. I can only tell you once, maybe three times, then you have to finish digging your own grave.”

“If that’s really the last time, fine by me,” and I go back to reading my book.

“Just like when you were a boy. You didn’t like what I said, you pretended I wasn’t there. But I’m here all right. And the truth is, in spite of all the mistakes you made with your life and are still making, I’m wishing you all the luck in the world. You were okay to me at the end — I won’t deny it. I can’t — who could I to? — the way you took care of me when I was sick — so I suppose I should be a little better to you now. Am I right? So do you want to be not only family now but good friends? If so, let’s shake like friends. We kissed a lot when you were young — in fact, right to when I went and then you to me a few seconds after that, which I don’t think if the tables were turned you would’ve got from me — but for a first time let’s just shake.”

The car’s crowded. Late afternoon Christmas shoppers returning home but not the rush hour riders yet. I’m squeezed right up to him. “Look,” I say, “we can talk but don’t remind me of how sick you were. I don’t want to think of it now. I will say I respected you for a lot of things in your life, especially the way you took the discomfort and pain then, something I told you a number of times but I think you were too out of it to understand me. But you also have to realize, and which I maybe didn’t tell you, how much you screwed me up, and I allowed you to screw me up — whatever the causes or combination of them. I’ve worked out a lot of it, I’ll try to work out the rest, but no real complaints from me for anything now for I’m going through absolutely the best time in my life.”

“Good, we’re friends,” and he shakes my hand.

I get off at Magna’s stop. Today began my school’s winter break.

I head for the revolving exit gate at the end of the platform. A boy of about sixteen’s between me and the woman exiting in front of him. But he’s hesitating, looking around and behind him, at me, the downtown platform across the tracks, the woman who’s now through the gate and walking upstairs, back at me sullenly. I don’t know whether to walk around him or go to the other end of the platform and the main exit. Maybe I’m wrong. He might just be an angry kid who’s hesitating now because he doesn’t know which exit to take, this or the main one. I walk past him but keep my eyes on him. As I’m stepping backwards into the gate he turns to me, sticks his left hand into his side jacket pocket and thrusts it at me, clamps his other hand on my shoulder and says “Give me all your money.” I say “What? What?” and push backwards and revolve around the gate to the other side and he has to pull his hand away or get it caught between the bars.

“Hey, wait,” and he revolves around the gate after me, rips the satchel off my shoulder and runs upstairs. It has the necklace, my writings, student papers, a framed drawing I bought for Magna, some clothing. The boy’s already gone. I yell upstairs “Police, police, catch that kid with my satchel — a canvas one,” as I chase after him. On the sidewalk I say to that woman “Did you see a boy running past?” and she says “Who?” but he’s nowhere around. A police car’s across the street and I run to it. The policemen are in a luncheonette waiting for their takeout order. I go in, say “I’m not going to sound sensible to you, believe me, but I was just robbed, he might’ve had a gun or knife in his pocket, a kid, boy, around sixteen with a gray ski cap on his head with the word ‘ski’ on it, down in the subway exit there, he took my satchel with some valuable things in it and then ran upstairs. I’m sure if we—” “Come with us,” one of them says and we rush outside and are getting in their car when the counterman raps on the luncheonette window and holds up their bag of food. “Later,” the policeman shouts out his window as we drive off.

We drive around and don’t find the boy. The policeman says “There are so many young thieves wearing the outfit you described. Parka jacket, fancy running sneakers, hat sort of extra tall and squeezed on top, sometimes with a pompom, sometimes not. Tough luck about your necklace and painting though.”

“I could’ve told you,” my father says, seated beside me. “Fact is, I told you — a thousand times about how to be wise in New York, but you always got your own ideas. You think I’d ever exit through a revolving gate when there’s no token booth there, even in what they call the better days? That’s where they leap on you, trap you against the gate on either side or on the stairs leaving it, but you never want to play it safe. Now you’ve lost everything. Well, you still got your life and it’s not that I have no sympathy for you over what happened, but it seems you were almost asking for it it could’ve been so easily avoided.”

“Layoff me, will you? I already feel bad enough.” I get out of the car in front of Magna’s building. “Thanks, officers.”

“As I say,” my father says, going in with me, “I can understand how you feel. But this one time, since your life depends on it, I wish you’d learn from your mistake.”

I go upstairs and tell Magna about the robbery. My father sits on the daybed she uses as a couch. “Every week closer to the wedding she gets more radiant,” he says. “You got yourself one hell of a catch. She’s smart, she’s good, she has wonderful parents and she’s also beautiful. I don’t know how you rate it but I’m glad you did.”

“It had your special present in it,” I tell her, “plus some drawing for you I know he’s going to just throwaway. I won’t tell you what the special gift is. I’ll try to get something like it or close to it. God, I could have killed that kid.”

“That wouldn’t have helped,” she says.

“It certainly wouldn’t’ve,” my father says. “Because in the process you could’ve got killed in his place, and those kids always got ones working with them or friends for revenge. This is what I tell you and hope you’ll remember for all time: stay out of other people’s business, and if something like a robbery happens to you, shut your mouth and give everything you have. Twice I got held up by gunmen in my dental office and both times my advice worked. They not only didn’t harm me but gave me back my empty wallet.”

Magna and I go to the Marriage License Bureau. The line for applications extends into the hallway. “I hate lines,” my father says. “I’ve always avoided them by calling before to see what time the place opens and then trying to be the first one there.”

“It looks like the line for food stamps,” the woman in front of us says to her mate.

“To me like the one for Welfare,” another woman says. “Unemployment insurance,” Magna says to me. “I’ve been on them. Didn’t want to but had no choice. Have you?”

“Him?” my father says. “Oh, he was too pure to take unemployment. He deserved it too but you know what he did? Refused to even go down to sign up for it. He was living home then and I told him he was crazy. I said ‘I always want you to have a job, but if you’re fired from one or laid off, well, you paid for that insurance, so take it.’ But him? Always too damn pure. That can work against you as much as it can for. Must’ve got that trait from his mother, because he certainly didn’t get that way from me.”

“I could have got unemployment a few times,” I say to her, “but I always had some money saved and so thought I’d live off it and write at the same time. To sort of use the time break to produce some writing that might earn me some money but not intentionally to make me money—”

“There he goes again with his purity bent. Look, I never encouraged my children to take anything that wasn’t theirs. Oh, maybe by my actions I occasionally did, but I never encouraged them personally to take like that. But he wouldn’t listen about that insurance. We had terrible fights over it. Of course he never would’ve had to reject or accept any unemployment insurance if he’d’ve become the dentist I wanted him to. I pleaded with all my sons to and each one in turn broke my heart. But he out of all of them had the brains and personality for it and he could’ve worked alongside me for a few years and then bought me out of my practice. I would’ve even given him the practice for nothing if that’s what it took to get him to become a dentist, though with maybe him contributing to my support a little each month, mine and his mother’s.”

“I wasn’t good in the sciences,” I say to him. “I told you that and offered my grades as proof over and over again. I used to almost regurgitate every time I went into the chemistry building and biology labs. I tried. I was predent for more than two years.”

“Regurgitate. See the words he uses? No, you didn’t want to become a dentist because I was one. You wanted to go into the arts. To be an artiste. The intelligentsia you wanted to belong to. Well, now you’re able to make a decent living off it teaching, but for how many years you practically starved? You almost broke my heart then, seeing you struggle like that for so long, though you still have time to become one. Dentists average even more money than doctors today.”

“Next,” the clerk says.

Magna gives her our blood tests results. She gives us the application to fill out.

“Can we come right up to the front of the line after we fill it out?” I say.

“You have to go to the back,” she says.

“Why aren’t there two lines as there are supposed to be? Why’s the other window closed?”

“We’re a little shorthanded today. You think I like it? It’s double my usual load.”

“There are three people typing over there and two putting away things in files. Why not get one of them to man the other window till this line’s a little relieved?”

“Shh, don’t make trouble,” my father says. “You can’t avoid the situation, accept it. It’s the city.”

“I’m not the supervisor,” she says, “and the supervisor can’t just tell someone to do something when it’s not that person’s job. Next,” she says to the couple behind us.

Magna pulls me away. “Wherever we are,” she says, “I can always count on you to try to improve things.”

“Am I wrong?”

“You’d think at the Marriage Bureau you’d tone it down a little, but no real harm. It’d be too laughable for us to break up down here.”

“He was always like that,” my father says. “Always a protester, a rebel. Nothing was ever good enough in life for him. He’d see a Broadway play that maybe the whole world thought was great and which’d win all the prizes, he’d say it could’ve been much better. Books, politics, his schools, the banks — whatever, always the same. I told him plenty of times to run for mayor of this city, then governor, then president. He never took me seriously. I suppose all that does mean he’s thinking or his heart’s mostly in the right place, but sometimes he can get rude with people with all those changes of his he wants. He doesn’t have the knack to let things roll off him as I did. Maybe that’s good. I couldn’t live with it if that was me. You’ll have troubles with him, young lady.”

We go to the Diamond Center for wedding bands. “How’d you find us?” the man behind the counter says.

“We saw all the stores and didn’t know which one to choose,” I say. “So I asked this man who looked as if he worked in the area ‘Anyone place carry only gold wedding bands?’ He said ‘Nat Sisler’s,’ who I suppose, from the photo there, is you, ‘4 West, down the middle aisle on the right. There are forty other booths there but you won’t miss his. He’s got the biggest sign.’”

“Just like me on both my office windows,” my father says.

“Biggest the city allowed for a dentist. If they’d allowed me to have signs to cover my entire window, I would’ve.”

“Too bad you don’t know this man’s name,” Nat says. “We always like to thank the people who refer customers to us. But he was right. We’ve nineteen-hundred different rings, so I promise you won’t walk away from here without finding one you like. Anything particular you looking for?”

“Something very simple,” I say.

He holds up his ring finger. “Nothing more simple and comfortable than this one. I’ve been wearing it without taking it off once for forty-five years.”

“That’s amazing,” Magna says. “Not once?”

“I can’t. I’ve gained sixty pounds since I got married and my finger’s grown around it. Maybe he’ll have better luck with his weight. He’s so slim now, he probably will.”

“More patter,” my father says. “Then when you’re off-guard they knock you over the head with the price. But remember: this is the Diamond Center. The bargaining’s built into the price. Here they think it’s almost a crime not to, so this time whatever price he quotes, cut him in half.”

“Single or double-ring ceremony?” Nat says.

“Double,” Magna says, “and identical rings.”

“Better yet,” my father says. “For two rings you have even greater bargaining power. Cut him more than half.”

Nat brings out a tray of rings. “What do you do?” he asks me.

“You look like a doctor.”

“I teach at a university.”

“So you are a doctor, but of philosophy.”

“I barely got my B.A. I write, so I teach writing. She’s the doctor of philosophy.”

“Oh yeah?” he says while Magna’s looking at the rings.

“Turn your ears off,” my father says. “Next he’s going to tell you you’re a handsome couple, how great marriage can be, wish you all the luck and success there is, which you’ll need, he’ll say all that stuff. Though they love bargaining down here, they love making money more, so act business-like. Ask him right off what the price of this is and then that. Tell him it seems high even if you don’t think it is. Tell him you’re a teacher at the lowest level. Tell him you make almost zero from your writing and that she won’t be teaching next year, so you’ll have to support you both. Tell him any other time but this you might have the money to pay what he’s asking, but now, even if it is something as sacred as marriage, you’re going to have to ask him to cut the price more than half. And being there are two rings you’re buying—”

“What do you think of this one?” Magna asks me. It looks nice. It fits her finger.

“You have one like this in my size?” I say.

“That’s an awfully big finger you have there,” Nat says, holding my ring finger up. He puts several ring sizers on my finger before one fits. “Ten and a half. We’d have to make it on order. When’s the wedding date?”

“Ask him how much first,” my father says, “ask him how much.”

“The fourteenth,” Magna says. “But I’m sure these will be much higher than we planned to pay.”

“That a girl,” my father says.

“Hey,” I say. “You’ll be wearing it every day of your life, you say, so get what you want. I happen to like it.”

“How much are they?” she asks Nat.

He puts the ring she wants on a scale. “Seventy-two dollars.

Let’s say seventy. The professor’s, being a much larger size — and they’re both seamless, I want you to know. That means they won’t break apart unexpectedly and is the best kind of craftsmanship you can get — is eighty-five.”

“Sounds okay to me,” I say.

“Oh my God,” my father says. “I won’t even say what I think.”

We go to the apartment of a rabbi someone told us about. His wife says “What would you like to drink? We’ve scotch, vodka, white wine, ginger ale—”

“Scotch on the rocks for me,” I say.

“Same for me, thanks,” Magna says.

“So,” the rabbi says when we all get our drinks, “to your health, a long life, and especially to your marriage,” and we click glasses and drink. He shows us the certificate we’ll get at the end of the ceremony. “On the cover — I don’t know if you can read it — but it says ‘marriage’ in Hebrew.”

“It’s a little bit gaudy for me,” I say. “You don’t have one with fewer frills? Oh, I guess it’s not important.”

“It is so important,” my father says. “That certificate will end up meaning more to you than your license. And it’s beautifully designed — good enough to frame and hang — but of course not good enough for you.”

“You’ll have to provide two glasses for the ceremony,” the rabbi says. “One with the red wine in it you’ll both be drinking from.”

“Dry or sweet?” Magna says.

“What a question,” my father says. “Sweet, sweet.”

“Whichever you choose,” the rabbi says. “You’ll be the ones drinking it.”

“A modern rabbi,” my father says. “Well, better than a modern judge. Ask him what synagogue he represents.”

“By the way,” I say, “do you have a congregation? George said he thought you’d given that up.”

“Right now,” he says, “I’m marketing a wonderful little device that could save the country about five hundred thousand barrels of oil a month, if the public would just accept it. I got tired of preaching, but I’ll get back to it one day.”

“What he’s not saying,” his wife says, “is that this gadget will only cost three and a half dollars retail, plus a slight installation fee, and will save every apartment and home owner about fifty dollars a month during the winter. The oil companies hate him for it.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, “but I will say I haven’t made any friends in the oil industry. But the effectiveness of the device has been proven, it’ll last without repairs for up to fifteen years, and someone has to market it, so it’s almost been like a crusade with me to get it into every oil user’s home. Wait, I’ll show it to you.”

“Wait’ll he comes around to telling you the cost of his ceremony,” my father says.

“The other glass,” I say, after we’ve passed the device around.

“Is that the one I’m supposed to break with my foot?”

“Scott has the most brilliant interpretation of it during the ceremony you’ll ever want to hear,” his wife says. “I’ve heard it a dozen times and each time I’m completely absorbed. Actually, except for the exchange of vows, I’d call it the highlight of the ceremony.”

“Would you mind if we don’t have the breaking of the glass? We’ve already decided on this. To us it represents the breaking of the hymen—”

“That’s just one interpretation,” he says, “and not the one I give. Mine’s about the destruction of the temples and other things. I use biblical quotes.”

“Wait wait wait,” my father says. “Did I hear you don’t want to break the glass?”

“It’s also just a bit too theatrical for me,” I say to the rabbi. “Just isn’t my style.”

“Isn’t your style?” my father says. “It goes back two thousand years — maybe even three. You have to break the glass. I did with your mother and her father and mine with our mothers and their fathers with our grandmothers and so on. A marriage isn’t a marriage without it. It’s the one thing you have to do for me of anything I ask.”

“I can wrap a lightbulb in newspaper if it’s only that you’re concerned a regular glass might cut your foot,” the rabbi says. “But if you don’t want it.”

“If they don’t, they don’t,” his wife says.

“We don’t,” Magna says, “but thank you.”

“Then no second glass,” he says. “It’s your day.”

“That’s it, my father says. “Now you’ve really made me mad. That she’s on your side in this — well, you must’ve forced it on her. Or maybe not. Anyway, I’m tired of complaining. From the man’s point you’ll be missing the best part of the ceremony, not the second best. I won’t even begin to advise you about anything about the rabbi’s fee.”

“I know what your advice will be,” I say, “and I don’t want to bargain with him, is that so bad? Because what’s he going to charge — a hundred-fifty? two hundred? So how much can I cut off it — fifty, seventy-five? What’s fifty anyway? What’s a hundred? And he’s a professional. A professional should not only do his work well but know what to charge. You always let your patients cut your dental fees in half?”

“If I thought they’d go somewhere else, sure. Because if I wasn’t working on them I’d be sitting around earning nothing in that time. But if your rabbi asks four hundred?”

“He won’t. You can see he’s a fair guy. And I’m not a complete jerk. If I think his fee’s way out of line, I’ll tell him.”

“That’s not the way to do it, but do what you want. I’ve said it a hundred times to you and now I’ll say it a last time. Do what you want because you will anyway. But I’ll tell you something else. Your mother didn’t give you three thousand dollars of my insurance policy benefit to just piss away.”

“That money was nine years ago. I didn’t ask for a cent of it but she thought I deserved it because of the four years I helped her with you. And I used it to good purpose. I lived off it and worked hard on what I wanted to work on for one entire year.”

“Oh, just pay anything he asks no matter how high. In fact, when he says his fee, say ‘No, it’s too little,’ and double him. That’s the kind of schmo I sometimes think you can be.”

We’re being married in Magna’s apartment. The rabbi’s talking about what the sharing of the wine means. My mother’s there. My brother and sister and their spouses. My nieces and an uncle and aunt. Magna’s parents and cousins and her uncle and aunts. A few of our friends and their children. My father. He looks tired and ill. He’s dressed for the wedding, has on his best suit, though it needs to be pressed. He sits down on the piano bench he’s so tired. The rabbi pronounces us married. I’m trying. Magna smiles and starts to cry. My mother says “What is this? You’re not supposed to be crying, but go ahead. Tears of happiness.”

“Kiss the bride,” my sister says. I kiss Magna. Then I kiss my mother and Magna’s mother and shake Magna’s father’s hand while I kiss his cheek. I kiss Magna again and then my sister and brother and brother’s wife and my nieces and aunt and uncle and Magna’s aunts and uncle. Then our friends and Magna’s female cousin and I shake the hand of her male cousin and say “Oh what the hell,” and kiss his cheek and the cheek of my sister’s husband and the rabbi’s cheek too. I look over to the bench. My father’s crying. His head’s bent way over and he dabs his eyes with old tissues. He starts making loud sobbing noises. “Excuse me,” I say and I go over to him, get on my knees, put my arms around his lower legs and my head on his thighs. He’s sitting up straight now and pats my head. “My boy,” he says. “You’re a good sweet kid. I’m actually having a great time. And there was no real harm meant between us and never was, am I right? Sure, we got angry as hell at one another lots of times, but I’ve always had a special feeling for you deep down. It’s true, you don’t have to believe me, but it’s true. And I’m so happy for you. I’m crying because I’m that happy. I’m also crying because I think it’s wonderful you’re all together today and so happy, and I’m glad I’m here. Your other sister and brother, it’d be grand if they were here too.” I look around for them. “Maybe they couldn’t find the right clothes,” I say. I get on one knee and hug him with my cheek pressed against his and then he disappears.

Eating the Placenta

Class is over, I go to my office and call Magna.

“Will, listen, you must come home. I think it’s started.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve had contractions since five o’clock and bleeding. There — there goes another one. I’m not in pain, just a little uncomfortable, but please hurry.”

I look for a book to bring to the hospital. The doctor said the whole process might take fifteen hours, might take thirty. Two books, just in case. I slip into my jacket pockets two books I’ve been wanting to read for a long time.

“Mr. Taub, may I speak to you a minute?”

“I’m sorry, Gene, I’m in a rush — my wife. She just called. I mean I called her. We were supposed to go swimming at the gym, but she said her labor contractions have started. Today might be the day we have the baby.”

“Oh, that’s really something. Really, congratulations. They’re premature congratulations, but I know everything will turn out all right for you both. But this will take only a few seconds. It’s about what you said on the story you handed back to me today.”

“Honestly, Gene, whatever I said doesn’t mean anything right now. It means a lot to you — that’s not what I’m saying — just that I have to go.”

“I understand, but I just wanted to know—”

“What? Please, I said I have to go. My wife’s gone into labor.”

“Of course. I shouldn’t have stopped you. I didn’t know, and now I shouldn’t still be stopping you. And regular office hours would be better. Could I see you here Friday at your regular two o’clock appointment time?”

“If I’m here, Gene, if I’m here. Excuse me, I have to lock up.” I look for my keys.

“Your keys. Over there on the desk.”

“I’m a little nervous, you can see that. So forget anything I say or do from now on.”

“Sure, the baby — who wouldn’t be? Mind if I walk part of the way with you? We live in the same direction. You are heading home, am I right?”

“Home. I’m going to have to walk fast.”

“No problem, I’m a fast walker.”

I lock the door, we leave the building. “Maybe along the way,” he says, “you can explain to me what you meant on the second page here, third paragraph”—he holds out his manuscript—”that my narrative ‘shows no movement forward,’ I thought the point of my story — the point I wanted to make, at least, and whether I did it successfully isn’t for me to judge, I think you once said. That the judges are the readers, not the writers. That the writer’s job is just to—”

“Did I say all that? If I did, I don’t know what I meant, at least not now.”

“Still, my point wasn’t to show plot but style, not to move forward in the story but to remain stagnant, not to—”

“Look, I can’t talk about it. You’re holding me up, and I have to hustle. I’m in fact going to run.”

“Because your wife’s in labor?”

“What do you think?”

“Was this the first time she called to say she was having contractions?”

“Yes.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry. I know something about it and the first time or two is usually a false alarm. It was with my mother when she had me and my older brother and my younger sisters, but the last two she didn’t overreact on. False alarms all four times. I think they call them false contractions.”

“She’s had those false contractions for months.”

“I didn’t mean false contractions. I know what those are too. But false alarms. Or false labor. When the contractions can actually be timed. With the false contractions they can’t be timed — the stomach just stiffens up. So I wouldn’t run if I were you because sooner you get home, sooner you’ll probably want to go to the hospital. And I bet after the doctors examine her they’ll send her home. That’s what they did with my mother the first two times till she learned. And my older brother’s wife too. But only once with her. A week after she went to the hospital with that false alarm or false labor, she got real labor pains and that’s when the hospital admitted her. She lost the baby though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It practically devastated her. My brother took it badly but okay. Anyway, I hope I got my point across before about this thing,” waving his manuscript. “That my story wasn’t supposed to move forward at all. It was supposed to—”

“I know. It’s clear to me now. And if you don’t mind I’m going to go.”

“Not at all. I hope I haven’t detained you too long.”

“To tell you the truth, Gene — yes, why not? To tell you the truth I’m kind of surprised that — well, just that I think you have kind of a nerve detaining me as long as you have and I’ve been kind of stupid or remiss or something in letting you.”

“I don’t think that’s fair. What did I do? Actually, if you take what I’ve said about labor pains seriously, I’m probably stopping you both from rushing to the hospital and then being sent right home.”

“Stopping us? Hey babe, maybe my wife is in pain right now, did you ever think of that?”

“I’m sure she isn’t, if these are her first contractions, but I’m sorry — you should go. And I just hope this isn’t going to affect your attitude to me in class and my grade.”

“You know what I think about grades in my class.”

“Then just your attitude to me.”

“I don’t see how it can’t, but I’ll try not to let it.”

“Thank you, because I didn’t mean any harm. And I certainly don’t have anything but the greatest respect for you as a teacher and also as a—”

“Forget your respect and telling me how much you have. You know what I think about that too.”

“Right. ‘Don’t you praise me, let me just praise you.’ A bit onesided perhaps, but I’m sure your line of reasoning in that area is valid and very fair. But could I — as long as we’re thrashing it out — mention one more thing about my story and then let you go?”

“What are you—”

“It’s a minor point. You said at the end of your critique — and I appreciate every one of them, especially for their thoroughness, despite what I’ve said about anything else here — that my story has no ending. I think I discussed with you in our last conference that one of my principles, if you like, about my writing is not to write stories with endings. That life — though we as creatures die — has no ending, and that stories, when I finish them — ah, let’s scrap that ‘life’ business for the time being, since it’s weighing it down too much and I think complicating my argument unnecessarily. Just that my stories or longer fictions have no endings, period. I just don’t like the contrivance of endings and I doubt I’ll ever write—”

I take his story from him. He points to the second page of my critique and says “Right here you said it.”

“Do you have a copy of this original?”

“This is the copy of the original. You told us to make at least one — that you wouldn’t be responsible for losing a manuscript turned in, though you’ve never lost one in four years of teaching.”

“You know where the original is?”

“Sure, in my writing desk, why? What are you going to do, tear this copy up?”

“That’s right, I am.” I tear it in half and throw it in the air. “Did I make my point or do I have to go after your pen and pad?”

“Sloppy,” he says, looking at the pieces on the ground. “Who do you think picks them up, God? An angel? Hardworking workmen pick them up. Or concerned passerbys, if we’re lucky, who don’t like seeing messes like this blowing all over the campus. It’s unaesthetic.” He picks up the half still stapled and some of the other pieces. I grab the stapled half from him and tear it into smaller pieces and stick half of them into my jacket pocket and try stuffing the other half into his shirt pocket.

“What are you doing?” he says, pushing my hand away. “You’re crazy, did you know that? I’m dropping out of your class.”

“Good,” and I walk away.

“Besides all that, I hope your wife has a very safe delivery.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say without turning around, and start running the five blocks to my apartment building. I’m three blocks from it when a bicycle pulls up beside me and continues moving at my speed.

“I had to steal this bike to catch up with you,” he says. “I’ll get it back before the owner finds out. Stupid guy, just had a chain wrapped around it with no lock.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?” I say, still running.

“It’s a man’s bike. But you’re probably right. A writer should be an acute observer of the most seemingly trivial things in life, you once said, but also shouldn’t make summary judgments or general statements in his fiction without providing the reader with the correct facts.”

“‘Correct facts’? ‘Summary judgments’? No, no. Again, you either misquoted me to some incredible degree or are mixing me up with another teacher. Anyway, I’m going to stop saying things that sound anything like a quote or maxim or whatever if students are going to start repeating me.”

“That’s what I like about you and the way you teach — that you don’t pretend to know all the time why things in writing work. That’s what everyone likes about you in class.”

“Good. Look, you stole a bicycle, so it must be important what you have to say.”

“I wanted to apologize to you. I can understand why you tore up my story, and I don’t want to drop out of your class.”

“Tearing it up was dumb of me — overwrought, sensational; and you want to stay, fine, stay.”

“Do you know if it’s a girl or boy yet?”

“No.”

“I thought because of your age and your wife’s you would have had an amniocentesis done.”

“We did but didn’t want to know the sex.”

“While your doctor knows? That’s interesting. But I can also understand why you wouldn’t, though I’d want to know.”

“Hey. It’s difficult to talk and run at the same time. And even if I’m going at a good speed, I think I could run faster if you weren’t right next to me and scaring me that at any moment you’ll lose control of a bike you’re unfamiliar with and swerve into me.”

“How about if I pace you then? I’ll stay a few feet in front and in that way provide a service to your getting home sooner.”

“I’d feel safer if I did it alone.”

“Okay. Just wanted to be helpful. And if I haven’t said it a million times, I think you’re a terrific writer, Mr. Taub, whatever I think of your teaching — which is good but not as good as your writing. And much luck to you and your wife — if not today, if you don’t have the baby, then whenever when.”

“Thank you.” I wave. He turns around.

I reach the building, run up the three flights and unlock the front door. “Magna?”

“In here.” She’s in the kitchen making a pesto sauce in the blender. Big pot of water’s coming to a boil on the stove. “Salad’s already prepared, though you might want to do a dressing.”

“What’s this? Contractions stopped?”

“No. Here.” She points to her lips and I kiss them. “Since we probably won’t have to leave for hours, I thought you should have dinner. I can’t. Then we might even read or you read to me, and if the contractions still aren’t regular, we’ll go to sleep and see what happens.”

“Great, fine, but I thought we had to go to the hospital now.

And I’m sorry, I would’ve been here much sooner, but this student — Gene Kyplie? — I’ve mentioned him before.”

“‘Big mouth Gene’?”

“I can’t believe this kid. Today he—”

Phone rings. “If it’s one of our parents,” she says, “say nothing. That I’m okay, everything’s the same — resting now — but let’s not tell them things have started or they’ll never stop worrying.”

“Got you.” I run to my workroom. “Hello?”

“It’s Gene. How is Mrs. Taub?”

“She’s fine.”

“I was thinking. If you need a ride to the hospital — and I’m not saying on a stolen bicycle — or feel too nervous to do the driving yourself, I could—”

“We’re not leaving yet.”

“False labor?”

“No, seems real enough. Just that we’re going to spend the first hours of it at home.”

“That’s smart. That’s what my mother did with my two sisters. Why go unless the contractions are coming regularly? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll just get bored to death there and then have to come home, just as I said. It’s going to be a long haul. The first one always is. But let me give you my phone number in case you do need a driver. I can drive you in your car or mine. I’m only a five-minute walk to your place, and by car, less than two.”

“Gene, we’ll be all right. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.”

“No problem. You’ve been more than thoughtful to me in class. And your long written critiques and some of the office discussions we’ve had—”

“Good, I’m glad, but I have to go.”

“Before you do may I ask one more thing? I mean, since there’s no emergency now.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about my story. Is it okay to speak of it now?”

“Go ahead. One thing. What?”

“You once said that every first line of a story should get the reader right into the story. Should sort of pull him right in. That’s the same thing, I realize. But you said the first line should usually be brisk, brief, with almost no adjectives if we can help it, and be something like the first line of a news story. To get the how, why, what—”

“I didn’t say like a news story. I said—”

“Anyway, it’s been one of the greater points of our disagreement. Since you also said that there are no rules to writing except one which really isn’t a rule and that’s to write as well and as honestly and uncompromisingly as one can. Terif. I go along with that. What’s not to? So why the rules that a story must have an ending and that the first line should get the reader right into the story? Because don’t believe and never have and maybe I never will, though I admit I’ll change some of my attitudes about writing in the future and maybe this will be one of them, that a story should grab the reader from the start. I believe the first line should show the style of the writing rather than the content of the story. Should stamp the writer’s mark on the page rather than the narrator’s. Should say to the reader ‘Okay, pal — or enemy, or whatever you are to me — I the writer—’”

“I got to go, Gene. Seriously, something’s changed. My wife, she just came into the room and — oh my God, she’s having the baby right now. Hold it, honey, wait — there, my arms are out, let it come — push, push — holy God, I can see the head.”

“If your arms are out — since one of your other big points about writing is plausibility, something else I can argue against strongly — how are you able to hold the receiver?”

“Lots of ways. It could be one of those receiverless phones you can talk to from any place in the room. But it’s between my shoulder and neck — how could you have missed that? — and now — hold it, Gene. — Okay, honey, here comes another contraction. Push, push — one more should do it — got it. What do you know, a boy. What do you want to name it? Gene? Nah, I don’t like that name. Here, let’s get the mucous out of its nose and mouth before we do anything. There — great — and sponge its top and then in a blanket and under the light bulb to keep it warm. Want me to bite through the cord now?”

“I’d wash its eyes first. That’s almost the first thing they do after the birth — to prevent infection, I think.”

“Right. Eyes. Clean. And boy he’s a big beaut. I’d say around nine pounds. And why don’t I like the name Gene? You relaxed now? Yeah, baby’s just fine. Well, you know, you just about always associate the name you’re going to give your kid with the people in the past who had it, and I once had a Gene in my class — that right, the—”

“I’m still in your class. I haven’t dropped out but I am thinking of it again, though it wouldn’t be the courageous—”

“Well, this kid Gene — all right, not a kid — a student — was kind of a pest. Not just extrapolating too much in class and hogging a lot of the talk. But lauding me one minute, damning me the next. And on the students’ evaluation reports of their teachers last year — for the course guide they publish for themselves? I got one comment that was so nasty and cheap — that I was only in teaching for the money? Remember that one? ‘Mr. Taub says he can’t teach writing, that we can only teach ourselves. So why is he at this university then? I’ll tell you.’ That my chairman wanted to speak to me about it, because he said one of the deans had called him — not that I gave a goddamn — and you know who I think wrote that report?”

“I hope you’re not saying it was me. I know who wrote it — or at least have two good possibilities, since I think it was a combined effort — but I of course can’t give their names.”

“Not only that, this kid Gene likes to take his shoes off in class, and he doesn’t wear socks. And he occasionally picks his toes or plays with them during most of the class, which wouldn’t be so bad if he sat at the other end of the table — bad for me I mean — but he always sits a seat or two away from me. I’ve hated this habit of his but never said anything. Okay, I’ve given plenty of reasons why it can’t be that name, so enough complaining. And baby’s nice and comfy now. Cord’s neatly tied, face and body thoroughly sponged. He’s as clean and healthy as can be. What a kid. Want to feed him now?”

“I don’t think your wife will have much luck feeding him so soon, with a bottle or by more natural means. And what about the placenta? Has it come out yet? If it hasn’t at the next contraction you should get her to push.”

“The placenta, honey. Has it come out yet?”

“You’d know if it had. It looks like the raw horsemeat they feed the lions in the zoo. I was there when my mother had my youngest sister. I watched the entire delivery — special permission for siblings sixteen years and over — she was a change of life baby, in case you’re wondering — and my parents also told the doctor I was pre-premed. And she couldn’t feed Ramona for two days, till the milk came. Even after that it was rough for weeks.”

Magna’s standing by the door. “What are you yelling about a placenta for? Who’s that?”

“Gene you-know-who. Here, take the baby and see if it will feed, honey,” and lodging the receiver between my shoulder and neck, I pretend to give her a baby.

“Are you really talking to a student that way? You don’t want him to think you’re insane. You shouldn’t get so close to your students. Dinner will be ready in three minutes. Spaghetti’s already in and you like it al dente.”

“Make it softer tonight.”

She leaves. “But you were saying about me, Mr. Taub?” Gene says.

“Whatever it was, I got to go. Nice talking to you.”

“But if you had the baby and she’s feeding it or is trying to, you have time to talk a few more moments, right?’”

“About your work?”

“More about the principles involved in writing and technique overall. Because, quite truthfully, not once have I ever fully agreed with a thing you’ve said about technique, as much as I admire—”

“Oh stop that nonsense and leave me alone. I’m busy and I wish you’d see that and I shouldn’t have joked around with you on the phone in the first place and I’m hanging up now, Gene.”

“Oh say, a real conclusion. A hanging-up. My teacher is going to hang up on me. What finality.”

“Not on you. I’m simply putting the receiver down. My dinner’s ready. I’m very hungry.”

“You’re right and I guess I have taken enough of your time. Too much, probably. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Sure.”

“And my offer still stands, despite all the things that went between us. You need a driver of your car or someone to drive you in his car—”

“You return the bicycle?”

“Yes, why?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t want you to get in trouble or the bicycle owner to think his or her bike was stolen.”

“Very kind of you. You were always a very kind guy. You always have something nice to say about everyone’s work in class. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but there it is. And come to think of it, since we do disagree so strongly about the principles of writing and because I did take you already for one term, maybe I should drop out of the class while I still have time.”

“Maybe that’s a good idea. Do what you think best.”

“You do want me to drop, though, don’t you?”

“No, you’re okay. You cause a little excitement in class that I kind of like. And also having you there as an adversary sort of my countering your ideas as much as you countering mine. Something like that. You can understand if I’m not too articulate tonight.”

“I don’t know if I like being used in class like that.”

“You aren’t, entirely. Listen—”

“And if you really didn’t like my playing with my toes, as you called it, why didn’t you just say so? I’m not addicted to the practice.”

“I was hoping someone else would before me. But the class is too damn tolerant.”

“Except for me.”

“Dinner’s on the table,” Magna says at the door.

“That was my wife. She says the placenta’s ready to come out but she wants to do it in the bathroom where it’ll make less of a mess than in this room. So, must go, Gene. Goodbye.”

“I’ll wear socks from now on and won’t take my shoes off once. I’m staying in your class, in other words. I also like the exchange of ideas we have and—”

“Anything you want.” I hang up.

“You okay?” I say to Magna.

“No, there’s another one,” holding her stomach. She looks at her watch. “The last three have come more regularly. I think we should go soon. First eat up. You’ll need the food. I’ll be resting in the bedroom.”

I walk her to the bedroom, then go to the dining room and start eating. Phone rings. “I’m not going to answer it, Magna,” I yell out. “Don’t answer it either.” Phone keeps ringing.

“I’m all right enough to get it,” she yells back and she goes down the hallway, picks up the receiver, says “No, Professor Taub can’t be disturbed, Gene. He’s eating the placenta and it’s bad luck to stop the father in the middle of that rite…I’m feeling fine, Gene, thank you, and you’re wrong — I’m telling the absolute truth.”

Wheels

A man wheels his child. Wheels or pushes? he thinks. She’s in the stroller and he wheels her to the shopping mall about a half mile from his apartment house. At the supermarket in the mall he’ll get a quart of skim milk for his wife and the green can of Similac and food for tonight and deli for lunch and fruit and cellophane tape she said she needed and bran muffins and low-fat cottage cheese and the pint or quart container of yogurt, depending on how heavy he thinks the total load will be, and also something to cook for the cats for the next few nights she said, turkey legs if they have, turkey wings she knows they always have. He’s also to pick up the prints at the camera shop at the mall. His wife said they’re mostly of his daughter alone or with his wife’s mother when she was here last weekend. If the weather holds he’ll then wheel her to the little park near the mall for a half hour to an hour. He’ll carry the food and photos in the canvas bag he has her diapers and things and a complete clothes change in, while he pushes the stroller with one hand. Every block or so he’ll switch hands. He’ll sit on the bench in the shade if it’s available. If it’s not, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, since it’s been available since he’s gone to that park to sit on it, and it’s the only bench in the shade there and he doesn’t like to sit in the sun. If the baby sleeps while he sits, he’ll read. If the baby isn’t asleep by the time they get to the park and doesn’t fall asleep soon after, he’ll play with her: stand her on his knees and on the bench seat, keep her, balanced as she stands and holds on to the top of the bench or tries to climb up the back slats, let her pull his handkerchief — which he’ll put there for that purpose — out of his shirt pocket or jingle his keys but not put them in her mouth, cradle her, make funny faces for her, show her the photos of herself — if they’re ready — to see how she’ll react to them, give her the teething ring to play with or chew, hold her high under her arms and fly her down to his lips or to where their foreheads can touch, hold her not upside down but at a downward angle where the blood doesn’t suddenly rush to her head, so she can rip grass from the ground.

He looks down at her as he wheels her. She turns around, smiles at him, turns back around. She has on three layers of clothing. It’s sunny but a little cool, so he doesn’t think she’s overdressed. Her undershirt, stretchie, jogging outfit he supposes it could be called — looks just like the adult ones — and a sweater, but because only one button will stay buttoned, it could be too tight. So, four layers on top, three on the bottom. No, four there too if he counts the rubber pants, and he should since they can make her genital area very warm. Because two of these clothings don’t cover her from the top of her legs down, he doesn’t think the bottom part’s overdressed. But her shoulders are bunched up with clothing. Undershirt and probably the jogging jacket under the sweater must have inched up and she looks humpbacked from behind. She also has a baseball cap on. He bought it yesterday in the variety store in the mall, sewed it smaller in back and cut off the “Little Slugger” patch over the peak. “They had no pink baseball caps,” he told his wife and then a couple of people in their apartment building who commented on a blue cap for a girl, “and the red ones they had,” he only told his wife, “didn’t come in size small or they were all out of them.” He didn’t ask. He should have perhaps — red would have been better — but he doesn’t like to ask sales people for things he can’t see or find. Then they go through drawers and display cases or into the stockroom and usually come up with nothing and he always apologizes for their efforts. His wife liked the cap but said “People will say this proves you wanted a boy,” which would be untrue; he just wanted a safe delivery and a healthy child. So he bought the last size — small blue cap because neither his wife nor he liked the typical sunbonnet or baby’s white hat.

But her clothes bunched up in back. It reminds him of his father when he wheeled him through Central Park. He lived with his folks then and wheeled his father almost every mild Saturday and Sunday through various parts of the park. Sometimes across it — they lived in the West Seventies — to the Metropolitan Museum and once to the Whitney. His father didn’t like the paintings there but did the elevator—”Nice and big,” his hands and expression said, “—never saw such a big elevator in my life.” “It’s for the paintings,” he told him. “Oh,” his father’s expression said, impressed. And the Jewish Museum, but it was closed because it was Saturday. “Should’ve known,” he probably told him because he really should have known, and if he did say something like that, his father probably raised his shoulders signifying “No big deal.” And the Guggenheim — maybe on that same day because the two museums are so close — but his father got scared at the top of the ramp where the elevator let them off, gestured that Will might look too intently at one of the paintings and forget the chair he was holding and it could roll out of control, so they took the next elevator down, looked at some prints on the ground floor and left. “You want to try to get our admission price back?” his father gestured, and Will either shook his head or said no.

But his daughter’s cap from behind. His father wore what he called a fishing cap, though he never fished in his life. “I eat fish, I don’t fish,” he used to say when he could still speak. Beige, perforated, a long peak, when the cap wore out he always bought the same exact kind. There was a store near his office that had been selling that cap for forty years. When his father had to give up his office because of his illness, Will went downtown to buy him that cap. So both sports caps for nonparticipants in those sports and both to keep out the sun. Their hair’s similar also. Very fine and thin and light. His father had little hair — he was bald on top — but the sparse side hair was almost white by this time. His daughter is blonde and doesn’t have much hair either. She’s not bald — just that it’s thin and fine and only grown two to three inches. It’s also the way she’s slumped. She’s in the sitting rather than the reclining position of the stroller — a Maclaren Buggy, English, very sturdy and safe. Except when he hung the canvas bag filled with groceries on the handles, which the Maclaren instructions advised not to — the stroller isn’t built to support such a weight on the handles; it falls backwards. It fell over twice with her in it. Once she hit the back of her head on the sidewalk. There was no bump or bruise but he was scared that day that she might have been hurt worse than she seemed. She cried for several minutes, didn’t smile for an hour. He observed her carefully the whole day for signs of a concussion. At night he got up several times to make sure she was all right. He does that occasionally — every second to third night — but that night did it every couple of hours. Touched her temples, felt her forehead and hands for warmth, held his hand an inch over the back of her head to feel the body heat, listened for breathing and movement. He told his wife about the accident. Not the first one, since their daughter wasn’t hurt. But he did the second time so she wouldn’t put anything heavy on the handles. He should have figured that out after the first fall, but he didn’t. Also told her so she’d observe their daughter for any signs of illness. His wife said she’d never hang anything heavy on the handles. “The instructions said specifically not to. It can’t support too much extra weight there. I asked you to read the instructions when we bought it.” He didn’t and still hasn’t, not that he knows where they are now, though she might. She puts lots of things like that away, also the cartons that things like strollers come in, in case they have to be sent or brought back. When they lived in her apartment in New York they didn’t have the room to. But he knows how to open and close the stroller in seconds, and what else could go wrong with it?

But she’s in the sitting position. Canvas bag with her things and his book hanging on one of the handles. Seated like his father in the wheelchair, which only had one position. So both vehicles have handles he holds. And because she is in that position — less comfortable, it seems, and not as easy for her to be in as the reclining position — she has to use her backbone more to sit up — she slumps over a little to the side. As his father slipped to the side in his wheelchair. But he was always to one side or the other in the chair, never straight up for more than a few seconds. He didn’t have the strength to sit up. And both strapped in at the waist, she with a seatbelt that’s part of the stroller, his father with a thick terrycloth bathrobe belt that Will tied around him and the back of the chair. He’d press his father’s hand and say “Squeeze hard as you can,” just to see what his father’s strength was that day, and his father would usually give a little squeeze to almost none, then a look which said “Well, what can I do? Not the grip I had when I was pulling teeth all day.” Never a look though of “Boy, life is hell. Don’t ever grow old. Kill yourself or have someone do it for you if you ever get as sick as I. Plan for it ahead of time, in fact. Even put away over the years a lethal dose of sleeping pills for that day.”

His father liked the park better than the museums. Museums he tolerated because Will wanted some variety in these outings. But his father liked most of all to face the sun and just sit in his chair overlooking a big field or meadow, with Will on a bench beside him, and read the Times, which will put on his lap and turned the pages for him, or watch people playing and going by. If he made in his pants Will wanted to get him home fast as he could. That happened just about every time they went to the park. Sometimes when they passed a park restroom will said “Do you think you have to make one or two?” and his father usually nodded. “Which one?” and his father usually put his hand over his crotch. Will then wheeled him into the restroom and helped him urinate into the plastic urinal he brought along in a shopping bag with other things, which he then emptied into the toilet. Or stood him up, walked him into the stall and sat him on the toilet if it was clean. If it wasn’t he held him in a squatting position just above the seat. Then he wiped him, pulled up his pants and opened the stall door if there was one and sat him back into the chair. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes his father had already made by the time he got his zipper open or pants down. He never went out of his way to be near a park restroom. He knew where they all were in the park area they went to, so he could have easily directed them past one every time. Sometimes he thought men coming into the restroom would think they were perverts and he’d have to explain. He got angry at his father sometimes — usually late at night when his father was in bed — and shouted things like “I can’t clean up your crap again — it’s just not in me — can’t you hold it in till I get you on the toilet?” and then felt very bad over it and apologized. After the apology, his father usually nodded but never smiled. “Never again will I yell at him for anything,” he always told himself after, but a month or so later he shouted at or scolded his father for the same thing. But he thinks he did all right by his father then. He exercised him, fed and dressed him, was mostly soft-spoken and patient to him, helped give him showers and baths, injected him, massaged his feet and hands, shaved him and cut his hair, installed an intercom system between their bedrooms and any time at night his father seemed to need him — heavy breathing, groans — he was there in seconds. He did this for four years but his mother did three-quarters of the work.

That was his father those last years, now he’s with his daughter.

With both of them he always carried a book to read in the park. And the shopping bag and now the canvas bag. She’s so much easier to take care of than he was. Maybe cleaning up his father prepared him for cleaning up his daughter. Some men flinch at their child’s feces, not so much the piss, but he went right at it from the start. And just taking care of him — feeding, washing, wheeling — might have been a preparation too. His brother said that when he had to change his daughters when they shit, he tied a handkerchief around his nose, dabbed it with after-shave lotion, put on disposable plastic gloves and held his breath throughout most of it, but he still gagged every time Will gagged the first few times with his father and a few times after when his bowel movements were especially messy or large, but his reaction to his daughter’s excrement isn’t much different if she pisses or shits. He checks her diapers every half an hour if she’s awake and he’s alone with her. If she’s wet or has shit he tends to it methodically, even if he has to change her on a changing pad on top of a park bench; though her shit is more difficult to take care of, as he has to shake and rub it off the diaper in a flushing toilet bowl and then squeeze the diaper with the same hand so it doesn’t drip.

He kneels in front of her and checks her diaper. “You dry, honey, you dry,” in the black dialect he often affects when he tells her this. She’s looking at his hand inside her diaper and then turns her head back to the workers and machines doing street repairs. “Ah my little chee-choo,” and kisses the top of her head and smooths back her hair. Her eyes look up at him, blink from sun. She twists around as if she’s going to suddenly get cranky, which she does sometimes when the sun’s in her eyes or he’s wheeling her and stops awhile.

He gets behind the stroller and wheels her. He feels sad again because of the way she looks from behind. Humpbacked, strapped in — he should have pulled down the bunched-up clothing underneath. He still could but she’ll get cranky again if he stops and maybe cry. Get so cranky he might have to hold her the rest of the way to the mall and then inside. Maybe he didn’t pull the clothing down because something in him is enjoying the sadness. And the baseball cap. He should have bought a sun bonnet instead. For one thing, it can be tied under her chin so she can’t take it off. So far today she hasn’t, but she likes to drop it on the ground and a few times he had to go a block back to find it. The cap looks like the kind a child wears who’s recovering from a brain operation — that could also be the cause of sadness. They’re almost at the mall. Skim milk, Similac, cottage cheese, yogurt, other things — some of them not food — he should have made a list as his wife said. But what he forgets today he’ll get tomorrow when he wheels her there. He doesn’t mind going to it. It’s a cheerful enough place and designed with some expense involved and with a little style. Small, as malls go, with several services they use, since it’s the closest shopping center or really shopping anything to their street. Dry cleaners-tailor where one can also get keys made. Stationer, classical record store, drugstore, twin movie theaters they’ve never gone to because they don’t trust anyone to babysit yet and a restaurant they’ll never go to because it’s an all-you-can-eat place for $4.79. And an optician he did use when his daughter twisted is glasses’ temples out of shape. She loves to grab glasses off of faces and has a grip that’s not easy to break. But he’s sad. The similarities, etcetera. Her back and his. His father was round-shouldered, probably from bending over patients for fifty years. And while he’s thinking about which mall entrance to use, he starts to cry. He did all he possibly could for him but it wasn’t enough. His penitent look whenever Will rushed out of the apartment shouting “I’ve got to take a walk around the block.” He takes out a handkerchief and wipes his eyes. And as long as it’s out, leans over the stroller to see if he can do anything for his daughter with it and wipes the little drool at the side of her mouth. He couldn’t have done more for him. It just wasn’t possible at the time. Still, he did a lot. His daughter he does more for than he maybe should. Maybe it’d be better to let her be more independent — try things out more — than he does. But he loves holding her, doing all these things for her, feels awful and sometimes unreasonably irresponsible when she falls or pulls something down on herself and is hurt. He liked doing many things for his father also, and by doing them helping out his mother with him, but it was so much tougher.

He’s all right now, not crying, eyes dried, and wheels her inside the mall to the photo shop. He says to the salesperson “Excuse me, but I think my prints are ready,” and holds out his stub. She looks at it, doesn’t take it, says “Last name?” he says “Taub,” and she goes through a box of envelopes and pulls one out. She rings up $8.28 on the cash register, he gives her a ten and she gives him the envelope and change. The shop seems hot and he looks down. His daughter’s sleeping. He wheels her into the public corridor where it’s cooler, parks the stroller along a wall so nobody will run over it and takes the prints out of the envelope. His wife took them all. It’s still too warm for his daughter and he very carefully, since she can use the nap, unzips her jogging jacket and takes off the cap. Two are of him holding her. He doesn’t look good in photos anymore. He used to be considered good-looking, but he’s got too jowly, put on too much weight, lost too much hair, even the neck flesh has loosened. He’s going to tell his wife “No more photos of me in any pose.” She’ll say something like “Not even with your daughter? She’ll want them when she’s older and your mother likes to get them now.” “I just don’t want to be photographed. Pictures of people should be taken of the very interesting, pretty or young.” He doesn’t necessarily believe that but if he has to he’s going to say it. He doesn’t like to look this old or bad. If he has to he’s going to say that too.

The rest of the thirty or so photos are of his daughter alone, in the baseball cap with the peak snapped up, with the peak down but in back, reaching for the tail of one of the cats, three of her sleeping outside in the stroller with the baby blanket up to her neck, about ten of them with her grandmother — his wife’s mother: grabbing for her glasses, snagging them, waving them in the air, hugging them to her chest, two of her sucking on one of the temples’ ends, several with her grandmother trying to get the glasses back, one of her holding his daughter with one arm while lowering herself to pick the glasses off the ground, another of her putting them back on and his daughter reaching for them. There aren’t any of his wife because her mother says she doesn’t know how to take pictures and Will didn’t go with them on that walk. He’s not going to tell his wife that while he was wheeling his daughter to the mall he thought about his father — that it started when he looked down at her from behind. He doesn’t think she’ll like him comparing their daughter to his father. From everything she’s heard about him, and most of these things were told by Will and his brother and mother and others in a flattering or at least nondisparaging way—”He had a good sense of humor though maybe he told the same joke or made the same sardonic riposte too many times”; “He didn’t take guff from anyone unless there was some money to be made”; “He was a happy-go-lucky guy so long as things were going his way”; “People confided in him and came to him for advice, though a lot of it was on how to get away with something they didn’t earn or deserve”; “He liked to pair off his unmarried patients, but got a little miffed if in the end there wasn’t something like a new suit in it for him”; “He was a devoted son and brother”; “He was a diamond in the rough”; “His friends usually came before his family”; “He truly believed that it mostly wasn’t what you know but who you know”; “He loved to beat the system, often just for the fun of it, and to pull the wool over what he thought were pompous people’s eyes”; “Maybe because of the poor home and tough environment and times he came out of, but he was what you’d consider cheap, when it wasn’t throwing around money for show, and also felt he had to keep working till he dropped, ten hours a day, six days a week, fifty weeks a year”—she doesn’t think he was a very tender, sensitive, scrupulous, well-meaning, fatherly man. But it’ll be more the morbidness of the comparisons that’ll annoy her. Healthy young child, sick old man. That he has to think morbidly. That these rather than healthier ideas come to him when he’s wheeling their daughter. He still might tell her. At the dinner table tonight or after they shut the bedroom light and are about to fall asleep. During these times he often doesn’t know what he’s going to say to her. The dinner talk sometimes comes because he can’t stand the silence there too long so he’ll reflect on the interesting events that happened or sights he saw or thoughts that occurred to him that day. And in bed late at night because he’s just too sleepy to restrain himself, so things he never thinks he’ll tell her will suddenly pop out.

Reversal

She cries, he listens. She cries, he puts down the newspaper, takes a quick sip of coffee, goes to her room and listens. She cries, he goes inside and says “Hey-y-y; Kitzie, Kitzie, it’s okay, I’ll take care of you in a second.” He raises the shade. It’s starting to get light. She cries, he turns around and says “Oh-h-h, what’s wrong, my little sweetheart?” She’s on her back, crying, looking at him, one hand rubbing an eye, covers are off, she’s worked her way to one of the far corners of the crib, other hand clutches a railing bar. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” and he grabs her under the waist, she arches her back, he lifts her up slowly till she lets go of the bar, holds her to his chest, her chin rests on her shoulder, he kisses her neck and back of her head and says “Good morning, my little baby, but why you up so early?”

She’s quiet. He goes into the bathroom with her, grabs one of her little wash rags off the shower curtain rod, runs the hot water tap till it’s warm, puts the rag under it, takes it out and squeezes it, carries her into her room and puts her on the changing board on his wife’s work table. She starts crying. “It’s all right, I’m going to make you comfy now, honey.” He wipes the tears off her face, unsnaps her stretchie. She cries louder, whines. “What is it, what is it?” He makes clicking sounds with his mouth, she stops crying, stares at him. “Click-click,” he says. “Click-click. Let me see you go click-click too.” She’s been imitating his clicking sounds lately and he thinks it’s the sweetest thing she’s done so far. She doesn’t now. “For daddy?” Click-click, his mouth makes. Click-click. Click-click. She stares at him, stretches, yawns. “Da-da,” he says, “da-da — no?” He pulls her legs out of the stretchie, takes off her rubber pants and the safety pins. She starts crying and he says “Why, what’s wrong, baby? It’s okay,” and she stops crying and smiles. He raises her bottom by holding her feet up in one hand, slips the double diapers out from under her, sets her down, keeps one hand on her chest so she won’t roll off the changing board to the floor, drops the wet diapers into the diaper pail and closes it. He cleans her with one hand and moves his face nearer to hers and holds her head. “Hi, Kitzie, remember me? Now it’s better, isn’t it? Sticky old smelly diapers off and your little butt clean?” She smiles. He rubs her nose with his, kisses her neck, cheek, forehead, keeps their faces cheek to cheek. “Ah, my little Chickie. Daddy loves you so much. I’ll get you all fixed up and then mama will feed you.” She squeals, blubbers, tries to flip over, smiles, laughs. “Ga-ga if not da-da,” he says. “Da,” she says. “Da-da, da-da.” he says. “Da,” she says. “Close.”

He gets a clean diaper off the pile on a chair, dries her off with it. In twenty years or so — folding the clean diaper on the table to put under her — she’ll be looking at my dead body I bet. As I look down at her, she’ll be looking down at me. Twenty to thirty years, but the way I drink and have drank and run myself down for so many years, I wouldn’t say more. Fifty-eight, sixty-eight, seventy-eight — sure. She’ll be a young pretty woman then. I hope so. I hope no disfiguring sickness for her. No sickness or very little, unusually little. Or just normal and very little pain throughout her life: physical, emotional. I’ll be in a coffin. I’ll have said — weeks, months — before I died, that I want to be cremated, but something got screwed up. Or I am cremated, nothing got screwed up. But I’m on a hospital bed and have just died. She’ll be beside the bed with her mother. Another daughter or son? Perhaps. One two or three years younger than she, but that’s all the children, and he or she will be in some other state or country, couldn’t get back in time or just couldn’t be reached. So just she and her mother. They were there, I died, they were asked to leave the room for a few minutes, were called back in, I’ve been cleaned and the tubes have been taken out of me, bed’s been made, sheet up to my neck, eyes closed when perhaps when I died they weren’t, they look down at me, one’s holding the other around the waist, a nurse or aide or both stand behind them in case one or both of them fall, she and her mother are crying, she bends down and kisses my forehead and cheek, maybe even my lips, takes my hand, bends down again and kisses my fingertips, says “I think I’ve said my goodbye — do you want to be alone with dad for a little while?” her mother says “Maybe longer,” she asks the nurse or aide or both if they would leave her mother alone in the room, she and the hospital people start to leave, at the door she turns and looks back at me, studies my face, closes her eyes, stays still for about a minute, says something to herself, leaves without opening her eyes on me again, quietly shuts the door.

He pins the other side of the diaper and tries to get her rubber pants on. She squirms, turns over on her stomach and grabs the vaseline jar with both hands. He says “No, now please, honey, let me finish changing you,” and grabs the jar out of her grip and puts it at the end of the table. He turns her over on her back. She cries. “But sweetheart, all I want to do is to get your suit on — then fool around all you want. I’ll give you back your jar.” He kisses her feet. She doesn’t smile. Usually she does when he kisses or nibbles at her feet. He pulls up the rubber pants, makes sure to get them over the diaper at the waist and legs, sticks her legs into the stretchie, starts snapping her up. She’s stopped crying, reaches for his nose. He bends down so she can reach it. She pulls it, gets a finger inside his nostril and scratches it. “Ouch,” and he takes her finger out of his nose, holds that hand and looks at it. He’ll have to get his wife to cut these nails. No, he’ll do it. Watching her cut them so many times, he should know how by now. He kisses her hand. She smiles, big wide grin. “Ah, I love when you smile like that, little Kitzie.” He kisses her cheek. “That’s just the twentieth of your minimal thousand kisses from me today.” He picks her up, she rests her head on his shoulder, suddenly lifts her head and looks behind her at the window when the pane rattles, rests her head on his shoulder again. He kisses her ear, pats her bottom, looks outside. It’s much lighter. He wants to get back to his coffee and newspaper.

He brings her in to his wife. “Hi,” she says. She’s in bed, covers off, unsnapping a flap of her nursing bra, pushes both cats off the bed to make room for the baby. He sets the baby down beside her, rests her head on the pillow, says “How’d you sleep?” “Well,” she says, “and you?” “Not so hot. Had some bad dreams. No problem though.” “Maybe you should drink a little less wine at night or not so close to when you go to sleep.” “Maybe that’s it. I squeezed some orange juice for you. I’ll bring it in.” “Thanks, love,” she says. “Hiya, darling,” she says, bringing her breast to the baby’s face.

Content

Time to Go
Time to Go

I

The Bench

For a Man Your Age

Meeting Aline

Don

Encountering Revolution

Goodbye to Goodbye

Come on a Coming

The Package Store

II

Will’s Book

Will as a Boy

Self Portrait

End of Magna

The Beginning of Something

Magna Takes the Calls

Time to Go

Eating the Placenta

Wheels

Reversal