David Lazar

by Robert Kalich

  I gazed at Amy, knowing that I had lost her. I started to say something but then stopped, feeling depleted, knowing what I had set out to say was the only inevitable answer.

  “Amy, in a few days, we’re supposed to be going to City Hall.”

  “I know that. I’m ready. This time I won’t run away.”

  I sat there, silently gazing at Amy’s face. Finally, I said, “You know, Amy, I no longer have those romantic notions about us; I’m not holding onto them any longer.”

  Amy’s face brightened. “I knew you would outgrow them. You’re an intelligent man. You’re brilliant! I’ve learned so much from you. So much of what I am, I owe to you. I knew you would let go of them sometime.”

  I choked. For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Finally, I said, “You’re very special to me, Amy. I want you to be happy.” Then, I fumbled again as I searched for the right words. When I recovered, I said, “I want you to get the most you can out of life. You know that.” Amy stared at me. Perplexed. I felt like grabbing her. Never letting go. I gulped down hard. We gazed at each other.

  “David, I love you.”

  “I know you do,” I said, beginning to cry.

  Amy lifted herself from the sofa, kneeled in front of me. “David,” she said, looking up at me. “If it were ten years, even fifteen, I’d stay with you. I can sacrifice ten or fifteen years. But you’re not that old. You’re going to live another forty years. I can’t sacrifice forty years, can I?”

  Amy calmly walked to the closet and took out her night bag. Her jacket. She moved quickly through the foyer. I struggled to find something to say but couldn’t.

  “David,” Amy said. She wiped a tear from her eye and then straightened her shoulders and took several more hesitant steps toward the door. She turned. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I don’t think I’ve finished my relationship with Christian. I mean, you just appeared, and I felt compelled to come back to you. You have a magical hold over me. Maybe if I resolved my feelings for Christian.”

  “You will, Amy. And I’ll wear a tux at the wedding.”

  “You’ll always be in my heart, David—always.”

  “And you in mine.”

  I tried to gather myself together one more time. I took hold of her shoulders. “I love you, Amy.”

  “David, I wanted to give you what you want. I still do, but I just can’t.” Amy paused, and then her whole face seemed to light up. “When I have a baby, I’m going to give it so much love. The kind I felt I missed out on until you came along. I’ll teach it all about spirituality and feeling thankful. I just know it will be a special child. I can feel it even now.” She paused again. “I feel great thankfulness that because of your love, I’m now capable of giving life to another person. It’s something I’ll never forget.” I wiped a tear from Amy’s cheek. “When I have a child, my child will know you as soon as he’s ready to. That I promise you, David Lazar.”

  I opened the front door and stepped out into the hallway. I took Amy’s hand, half pulled her through the door. She began to softly sob.

  “Amy,” I whispered, “you know I can’t take it when you cry.”

  (My father wiped the feces from my mother’s backside when she was dying. He wept salty tears as he cried out, “My life is over without your mother!” My father passed away soon after. I understood my father. I wasn’t my father although I, too, cried salty tears.)

  “Make a muscle, Amy.”

  She looked up.

  “C’mon! Lemme feel your muscle!”

  Slowly, Amy made a muscle.

  “Now, let me feel the other arm.” She did. “Just as I thought—your wings are strong now. So, fly, Amy Cho, fly!”

  A gentle half smile crossed her face.

  “My David,” she said, “My David.” She extended her hand and touched my face. “Goodbye, David,” she said. “You’re the best.” She stepped inside the elevator and flew out of my life, on her own, forever.

  Chapter 13

  A while ago, I went to Bergdorf Goodman to buy a Loro Piana winter coat. On the main floor I saw this young woman behind the counter. She had shoulder-length chestnut hair and a face that belonged to an eighteen-year-old Leslie Kore.

  When I told Elizabeth about it, she said, “I know how much it must have killed you, David, to see that woman who reminded you of a young Leslie. It had to eat your heart out. If I could do something, I would. All I can tell you is...here I am! Let’s go upstairs and have some fun.”

  I’m well aware of beauty’s transcendence. No debate. But I’ve matured to where surface looks mean very little. As I always tell Liam, “What means something is the beauty that comes from you know where.”

  Thankfully, I am now able to see the caring and the giving and the kindnesses in a whole person. How could I have been blind for so long to what truly matters? How could we all be so enamored with nonsense? We look at magazine ads! We look at TV commercials! We go to the movies! We look. None of us stop looking.

  I’m already telling my son ad nauseam, “Stop looking!”

  Last year flew by. It’s as if I were on a Metro North train with the stations just whizzing by. The trees I’m passing, the cows I’m spotting, the horses I’m seeing, all of it is a blur. The people I’m thinking about are also a blur. I’m doing the best I can to keep up with the dizzying pace.

  When Liam was returning to Choate, I gave him a hug and reminded him, “Keep texting. I’m going to miss you.”

  I spent some quiet time with Elizabeth. I told her I was happy with Amy Cho.

  “Of course, you were happy with Amy Cho. You were making tons of money during those years. You were relatively young. Being a novelist still meant something back then.” The two of us just held hands and breathed in the crisp North Salem air.

  * * *

  I called Leslie Kore not long ago.

  “I’m glad you called,” she said. “I wanted to speak to you in person. I’m nothing like I was all those years ago. You don’t know me, David. I now believe in one thing only: no game playing. Yes, you were special. I’m not going to deny that. You had the potential to be a great success in business. The problem was that you never had the courage to try. You’re probably still working with filth and sleaze. I did see you. Twice. Once at the American Ballet Theatre. You and Ron Nevins were sitting in the same row as Jackie Kennedy. I was three rows behind you. A second time was at the theatre. I think the musical was Big River. I don’t remember the year. The Asian woman you were with was almost a child. You looked like her grandfather. So many things about you were off-putting, David. Do you have any other questions? I’m getting quite tired.”

  “One more, Leslie. Where did we go wrong?”

  “I won’t continue that conversation unless we can establish a genuine rapport. Right now, I’m feeling anxious. My nerves are bad. I’m losing my hair. At night, I have heart palpitations. I take antidepressants. When I feel this way, I go into myself. I disappear. I felt this way every minute of our marriage. Is it any wonder I disappeared? The truth is, David, during our entire marriage, I was always seeking a way out. I gave to you only what I could afford to give. What we shared was pornography. Do you think I possibly could’ve forgotten how you tried to strangle me? How you lifted me off the ground? Wouldn’t let go? If Ron Nevins hadn’t intervened, why, you would’ve...”

  “Do you remember the cellar?” I asked her.

  “Let’s go down to my parents’ cellar,” Leslie whispered, recreating the moment.

  I remember her removing her shoes. We tiptoed together down the stairs. The cellar meant privacy.

  “Of course, I remember that day, David. We walked on the beach. You quoted Nietzsche aphorisms to me; I recited Shakespeare sonnets. What I recall more than anything else is the blizzard of 1961. I couldn’t go home. Everything was shut down. I had to stay at your 56th Street apartment that night.
You had Nina Simone playing in the background. We were together in bed, and I started complaining about not having any cigarettes. You jumped out of bed and ran all over the neighborhood looking for a pack of Camels. When you got back, you told me that the snowdrifts were as high as your shoulders. Here’s something else I recall: the following morning when I was about to return to my parents’ house, you asked me if you could keep my silk blouse under your pillow so that my aroma would be near you. I slipped on your flannel shirt. Wait! I think I still have it somewhere.”

  Are today’s young people’s friendships that different than the way Leslie and I conducted ourselves during those seventeen years? Today versus yesterday. No right or wrong. Just is.

  I go to see a movie, and then I hobble home. It’s a lovely day. Too lovely to take one of those expensive yellow taxis. How average people can afford cabs is beyond me. And yet, in Manhattan, people do. Meters clicking all the time. I’m one of the fortunates who can yell out, “Taxi!” without worrying about the cost. And then I think what I had to do to make my money. Sold my soul so that I could spare myself walking home?

  As I reach Columbus Circle, two six-foot-tall identical twins interrupt my thoughts. Now what flashes in my head is 1961. These twins are as perfect as Gunilla Knutsson, Miss Sweden, was when I took her to Jilly’s. Nicky De Francis was at the piano bar singing “Foggy Day.” Tony Powers was on drums. In 1966, Gunilla was on everyone’s TV as the “Take it off—Take it all off!” Noxzema girl.

  As pubescent as I was at twenty-four, I walk up to the identical twins and am ready to say, “You two should see how spectacular the city looks from up high. I live in the penthouse down the block.”

  Though I’m aware of the obscenity of my age, it still seems natural to make a move on these young women. I don’t feel like a dirty old man. As I’m about to say something dumb, I see the second twin’s look, and out of the corner of my eye, I see how pedestrians walking by are noticing me. I realize how weird it must seem to everyone but me. Elizabeth has warned me a thousand times, “Act your age!”

  I shrug. The women keep walking.

  It’s more than just a geezer’s lech. Yes, I’m an octogenarian, yet my awareness—call it a preoccupation—with youth and beauty is still a healthy yearning. The more beauty is missing from my life, the more I long for it. It’s not sex, lust, passion, or a love of the chase that’s missing. It’s beauty. When I’m with Elizabeth, we’ll hold hands. Sleep side-by-side. But in the morning, she’ll peer at me and gravely ask, “How do you feel?” She worries about me constantly. That’s the real violation in being wed to someone who is thirty years younger than you are. I watch as the identical twins walk into the crowd to find their own adventures, and, as they disappear, the loss of their beauty makes me sad, sadder than even when summer disappears.

  I keep thinking how the loss of Leslie Kore drove me to handicapping. I made my money through hard work, handicapping the games as if I had three Ph.Ds. from MIT. And once I took off, I had a crew of beards working for me. All these math geniuses scratched their heads at my—for lack of a better word—meta methods. My success wasn’t luck. It came from fourteen-hour days, preparation, studying numbers, trends, understanding the game, match-ups, discipline, money management, maximizing and minimizing, going to war, and ultimately picking winners.

  Leslie Kore dumped me for the right reasons. I didn’t make a living. A caseworker for the city. “What kind of job is that?” Leslie would scream. I wanted to be a novelist. Write the Great American Novel. Leslie couldn’t take having an in debt, gambling wannabe for a husband. It doesn’t take me much effort to make Leslie sound all bad. Just as I can make myself sound all bad. There is conflict, rage, violence, ambivalence, love in all of us. I didn’t put out the trash or bring home the cereal. I stayed out way past two in the morning with friends. Not women! That is one thing I can say. With all the women I’ve ever loved, including Leslie Kore, I never cheated on any of them. Not once! If I tell you, “I love you,” it sticks. I’m lucky that way. The woman I’m with is the woman I want to be with. For almost fifty years, my parents were married. Their lessons in fidelity and devotion and their unconditional love still holds much as a whole truth inside of my psyche.

  “What are you screaming for, Leslie? You should be happy for me. If I’m happy hanging out with friends at two in the morning.”

  Why should a young person such as I was stay home when this city offers unending adventures? So many things to do. So much culture. So much to take advantage of from theater to the Philharmonic to ballgames to friends. Yes, women! So many women! Nines and tens. Even more so today with all the gyms and diets and cosmetics and water bottles and jogging lanes and bicycle paths. Every five or even a three can turn herself into a seven, an eight, or even a nine. As many near-to-perfect specimens being created as if they were on a Henry Ford assembly line. But Leslie Kore was from no one’s assembly line. She was a natural ten. So why am I so fucked up? Perhaps because my day has passed me by.

  I’m driven to write this to my son.

  To Liam, who is experiencing female issues for the very first time.

  I remember, Liam, when I was twenty and my ‘first girlfriend,’ Sheila, was about seventeen. We had been seeing each other for two-plus years every Saturday night. Every weekend I was taking the BMT subway into Brooklyn to Sheepshead Bay, and then subwaying back to the city with Sheila to see a movie and, if I could afford it, a Chinese dinner, and then back to Brooklyn to take Sheila home, and then about one in the morning, taking my return trip to Manhattan to my own bedroom.

  One night after those two-plus years, Sheila told me, “David, I’ve been thinking a whole lot about us. You’re always serious and thinking and reading books and, well, people like that are just never happy. And I want to be happy, David.”

  And after that jolt, Liam, came a quick goodbye. I didn’t see Sheila again until we bumped into each other at Saks Fifth Avenue when she was shopping for her daughter’s wedding.

  Back to the breakup. I went home and knocked my head against my bedroom wall for two days. For the next three months, I cried myself to sleep every night. Then I met another young woman and things got a whole lot better.

  The point is, Liam, even a jaded guy like me started out in ‘Rookie Camp.’ Was overwhelmed by a female and a depth of feeling. Of course, with your mother, things are different. Mommy is so perfect that all I can complain about is her nagging about my staying on my diet and my exercise lapses. And, of course, with my relentless aging, there is more of her nagging than ever.

  Hobbling over to The Smith this morning. At this stage of my life, it’s a supreme effort to walk four blocks. The Smith is my favorite hangout place for coffee and a “scooped” bagel. On the way, I spot a long-legged woman walking in front of me. I can’t catch a glimpse of her from the front, but from the back she reminds me of Leslie Kore. So, what do I do? I rush after this woman like a crazy person. I want to see what she looks like.

  For the life of me, I can’t break into a fast-enough shuffle to catch up to this long-legged woman. She makes every light, and after three blocks I run out of both wind and curiosity.

  I phone Liam from The Smith. “No reason for you to be nervous.” Squirt is worried about his acne. What’s brought this vanity on is that he has a blind date this weekend. I don’t know what to say. Just about every time I speak to my teenage son, I feel as if whatever I say is dumb. I get tongue-tied. I started rambling on and on. I mention to Liam everything that pops into my head, and then I think of Leslie Kore.

  “The first time I telephoned my first wife for a date, Liam, I left my parents’ apartment, walked to a phone booth on the corner. I went to a phone booth because I didn’t want my mom or dad to hear me when I spoke to her. I was that uptight, Squirt. I made notes on what I was going to say. Squirt, right now, if I close my eyes, I can still feel myself shaking when I dialed Leslie’s number.”

&n
bsp; “Geeze, Ba, that’s exactly what happened to me.”

  I wonder if I’ll ever be able to tell my good and decent son about the day that my bodyguard Champ Holden and I were in a shootout

  in Harlem.

  I am wide awake by 5:00 A.M., having tossed and turned throughout the night. Every second thinking of one thing. How I would approach, which something in my mind believed necessary, this horrible incident with my bodyguard, Champ Holden. A bad choice to start the day with, yet I must start somewhere. I knew I wanted to do this. I had consistently obsessed about doing this. Was I going to reveal this to Liam? To Elizabeth? At the very least, I had to face it myself. This shoot-out in Harlem might be of negligible consequence to everyone else, but to me, it’s as paramount as a death in the family.

  Champ Holden’s pants cuff come to mind. The blood on the bottom of the right cuff, which measured two inches. Champ Holden always wore two-inch cuffed slacks, and, on that eventful day, he did the same. His blood, the color of which was not as red as you would assume but more the color of pavement, was smeared over his cuff like a large blot. It also covered the thigh part of his trousers. A gaping rent in the trousers.

  That day I had gone to Angelo Ferrari’s office on 117th Street and Pleasant Avenue to collect. Ferrari was one of my heavyweight bookmakers who had the balls to take large amounts on a game without changing the line.

  Angelo Ferrari paid me. I stuffed the rubber-banded Franklins into my socks and shook his hand. I didn’t count the cash. Never did. Respect is given in many ways. My not counting the money was one of them. Ferrari shook my hand again when Champ and I were leaving. Two of his men grinned, then looked the other way. Champ Holden didn’t say a word. He never did. So that wasn’t unusual.