David Lazar

by Robert Kalich

  their perfection.

  “Being eighty has its advantages,” I tell Elizabeth. “If I were still thirty-three and broke, no way would I have had this opportunity.”

  Elizabeth smiled at me. “Happy Birthday, Mister Eighty!” she softly exclaimed and pecked me on the cheek.

  As Elizabeth and I have grown closer, we’ve had many fun conversations, but more and more what entered our talks was the like of “We have to change the doorknobs, Elizabeth. These old-fashioned screw doorknobs don’t work for me any longer. I need the lever type now to open the door. It’s much safer.”

  But Elizabeth and I aren’t spilt milk. We still make love listening to the moody guitar of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” where he sings, “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Elizabeth can never get enough of that song or of Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Like most of us, though, Elizabeth is a bit of a tennis shoe. She enjoys our paradisiacal country home in North Salem a little too much. The rolling hills, the green lawns, the caretakers that are at her beck and call, the white Benz that she drives, the heated swimming pool and, as much as anything, Elizabeth enjoys getting away from me. My wife loves having the house to herself. One thing I’ve learned: From time to time, everyone needs their private space.

  “David, why don’t you go back to the city this morning? Do some writing, and remember, David, watch what you eat, and make sure you schedule a workout with Maggie Giddens.”

  Maggie makes a supreme effort to help me stay in shape, but the only thing that really works now is my brain. My energy can sustain for maybe two or three hours when I’m at my typewriter. Then, nothing’s left. I’ll only have bagatelles to sputter. Eighty does not leave much room for purging bursts, insightful gems, even spurious memories. Eighty is not seventy.

  Chapter 21

  I decide not to sleep over in the city. I want to get back to Elizabeth. I miss her. When I return to North Salem, much to my surprise, Liam is there.

  “Ba, I’m planning on going to Oxford this summer. Did Mom tell you about the fabulous courses I’ve signed up for? Did she tell you that my French teacher has us reading Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir? You know, how I figure it, Ba, that’s where it all started for you. Thinking that being an existentialist would set you free. With all the famous people you’ve known, did you ever get to meet Simone

  de Beauvoir?”

  It’s tough not having Liam around. I’ve loved him since the sonogram. Liam’s seventeen. Obviously, he isn’t looking back.

  I’m back in the city, maundering over what to tell Elizabeth about Evan Strome. Hiring him in the first place was stupid-dumb in two ways. One was I didn’t listen to my instincts. Two, I didn’t listen to

  my mentors.

  One night at Solomon’s restaurant, I told him, “I hired Oscar Strome’s son, Evan, as a beard. He’s going to school in the Midwest, and I need someone in that area. He’s a sharp kid, Solomon.”

  Later in the week, I received a call from Solomon. “What’s doin’, Davey boy. You want to know something, Davey boy, just ask Nathan Rubin. That Strome kid is not trustworthy. Rubin has a soft spot for Strome’s father. He’s been pals with Oscar for a long time. But the kid, he’s bad news. ‘Do not hire Evan Strome,’ Nathan Rubin said. He left it at that. But for Rubin to tell me that much means the kid’s more than a winter blizzard. Take it easy, Davey boy. Got to get to

  a meeting.”

  I made a visit to Nathen Rubin’s Park Avenue home.

  “The kid’s too ambitious and a steamer, sonny boy. He worked for me when he was a kid. The first quality I can abide. I was the same way at his age. But the second one, being a steamer, that has been the downfall of a lot of guys in this racket. They throw good money after bad. If they lose a bet, they double the next one. Eventually there comes a point when you’re desperate, and rather than be a hero and walk away, you become a coward and end up taking a piss on someone else’s turf. You know what I mean, sonny boy? If you don’t, you’ll find out if you stay with Evan Strome.”

  I was stupid. I kept telling myself that it was my own fault. I kept steaming.

  Elizabeth voice on the phone gives me a welcome respite.

  “David, Liam texted. He’s got a three-day weekend. He’s going to bring some of his classmates to North Salem with him. Why don’t you take a break and come up here, too? I miss you, David!”

  Elizabeth’s advice made sense. Going on like this was lame.

  The following morning, I call her.

  “Elizabeth, you know what I was thinking last night? That we should build a safe room in our basement. I mean what happens if someone breaks into the house? You’re up there alone so much of

  the time.”

  “David, stop worrying. I’m fine. And we just spent a fortune installing a state-of-the-art security system. Tell you what, I’ll drive into the city next week if you promise me that you’ll come up here this weekend. Oh, you won’t be seeing Liam. He and his friends had to cancel. Something about going to a party he just can’t miss, but we can spend some time alone together. And next week, I promise, when I come into the city I’ll hold your hand. That always calms you down. I love you, David. Have a great day.”

  The “have a great day” feels like steel wool in my ear. Yet, I say that I will take Metro-North up to North Salem on Friday afternoon. The truth is I am disappointed about not seeing Liam.

  I found an uninhabited bench at Metro-North station. Sat down. Started reading The New York Times. I had missed the train for Croton Falls by two minutes, would have to wait for the next one. Fifty-two minutes of catching up with Mr. Trump and other things happening that really aren’t happening. Actually, what I’m trying to convey is reading the news of the day is like using toilet paper. Tomorrow the paper will be just as soiled. So I’m sitting at the Metro-North station and this woman slithers up next to me. She sits down. She has sad brown eyes, is wearing a filthy plaid skirt. Her lips are smeared with purple lipstick. Her hair is matted. On her breast is a two-year-old boy, cute as they come. He’s sucking on a pacifier as my own Liam did

  years ago.

  The woman is just about touching my shoulder, and as I try to inch away a centimeter or two, she starts speaking, “I want to go to Poughkeepsie, Mister. I have five dollars.” She pulls out of a Duane Reade shopping bag a five-dollar bill that she tightly clutches, then waves in front of me. “The homeless shelters in Poughkeepsie are much nicer than the ones here. They’re awful in this city. I need twenty-three dollars, Mister. Can you help me?”

  Her child doesn’t enter the conversation. The little boy seems almost to be a prop. My first thought is, do they let people with babies into homeless shelters? I didn’t know. I looked at the woman. Her eyes were bloodshot, as filled with despair as Latoya Earl’s were that day when I entered her Wagner Project apartment in 1958. I had known too many women in those days just like that. Too, too many. I can still hear my friend Rodney Parker: “There ain’t no hope, Davey. There ain’t no hope.” Of course, these words by my great friend were uttered to me over forty, perhaps fifty years ago, but I can still hear them, believe them, see them on every NY street. I hear Rodney Parker’s voice echoing them right now.

  The woman said, “I can make it if I get to Poughkeepsie, Mister. Besides the shelter, the baby’s daddy is there.” I didn’t question the woman. I felt her plight, her pain, her powerlessness. Her obliterated invisibility. Instinctively, I reached for my wallet. Took out two twenty-dollar bills. Handed them to the lady. As I looked into her bloodshot, sorrowful eyes, I asked the woman her name. “Miriam,” she said. I reached inside my jacket pocket, that’s where I keep my real money. I peeled off ten Franklins and handed the cash to

  the woman.

  “Here’s something to start a new life in Poughkeepsie, Miriam,” I said. The woman stared at the money before taking it. For a moment, it didn’t regi
ster. Then it did. She grabbed the wad and within seconds was racing for one of the exits that would take her to 126th Street and Park Avenue. I watched as she and her two-year-old raced down the street. Within seconds, she and her child had disappeared into the Harlem throng.

  * * *

  I’m reading a note Elizabeth placed under my pillow yesterday.

  Dear David. There may be a younger man. There may be a richer man. There may be a less obnoxious, egocentric man. But they would not be the most incredible, brilliant, clear-headed, wise, multi-faceted, creative genius you are.

  P.S. I do know the difference.

  It was written right after one of our very best days.

  This isn’t one of my best days, far from it, but there has never been a day that I hold my wife’s incredibly soft, seemingly weightless hands in mine that the feeling isn’t special. It’s as if I’m having a sensual experience, a feeling that reaches deep inside of me, that, yes, is sexual, but so much more, more in the realm of true intimacy, that is what I feel whenever I hold Elizabeth’s weightless hand.

  My eyes are wet. I can’t bear to lose this woman.

  This evening I wrote to Elizabeth. Didn’t talk. Just wrote. You can read what I penned now, but the truth is I ripped it up before she had a chance to read it. Why did I do that? Don’t ask. I’m not equipped with a rational answer other than to say I’m a coward.

  Dear Elizabeth. You are so vulnerable and so strong at the same time. It’s difficult to believe all that you are handling and that I, of all people, can cause such distress.

  I’ve always been your biggest fan and think the world of you: your totally alive soul, your intelligence, bottom-line values, visceral connection to pain and beauty, your personal admiration of integrity.

  That said, you are now in distress and have placed much too much importance on my words, opinions, attitudes and spontaneous ignorance. You are your own person. There is nothing to hold onto outside that. Things disappear as quickly as people. In this octogenarian’s universe people do not disappear—THEY DIE. What’s left are ashes. Twenty-four seven home care reprieves. Breathing corpses. If you can call us that. Don’t take me that seriously. I stopped believing in anything other than the moment, Liam and you years ago. Liz, of course you are important to me, but you have your own young life, don’t screw it up, put it together as best you can, without my two cents of interference or ten cents of help. That’s how I see it. If you want to believe that I am all-knowing and can offer more than that, feel more than that, control more than that, then you’re being romantic, blind, obtuse. Please, let’s stop fighting. As I have written in several of my books, people are strange, violating animals. I, too. What is important is what I always tell Liam: Place one foot in front of the other. Take responsibility for your own actions. Think for yourself. Don’t rely on anyone more than your own right arm. Make sure you can summon from deep within the virgin clarity that you were born with, and remain who you are. That’s great. I’m not.

  Today I’m struck by how I see both sides at the same time and how it’s paralyzing me. It is the way I’ve been thinking for some time, as if everything were gray, principles mute, virtues on both sides, not incomprehensible. My comprehension has never been more acute. I’m finding justifiable reasons for each of my thoughts. Everything is fusing. I can defend either choice. I’m going crazy with neutrality. The very opposite is equally dangerous. Somewhere in my brain I keep asking, “What is it all about?” I’ve never had less certitude. But this new way of seeing with both blindness and clarity makes me feel better than I have in a long time.

  Now I feel like facing my decision. One thing’s certain, I’m still alive. I had a life. I have a life. I’m still going strong.

  For years silence has been my middle name. I told Elizabeth and Liam as little as possible. I buried the truth inside my deepest reservoir of blood and howling. When my every motive and intent was to make their lives better, why tell them things to make them worse, things they didn’t want to hear, things they wouldn’t, couldn’t fathom? It was easier to manage the truth than to tell the truth. I made handicapping sound romantic, made my worldly success sound like achieving the American Dream. I was so much less than the man I presented.

  Most people would rather have two cars, a country home, shining-

  faced children, and a wife whom they love and who knows next to nothing about where the money comes from than to live with debts and a week-to-week paycheck that can run out at any time. Isn’t it worth keeping secrets from those you love, who wouldn’t be there if they knew the immoralist you are?

  So, I told Elizabeth that Evan Strome was a good deal like me. Hungry, good at what he did, and ready to stand up and live a lonely life of secrets so that he could reap money. Greed, maybe, but it was more than money Evan Strome was after. Like me, he lived with a belly rumbling for more. His identity, like mine, needed to prove its worth. If not in a traditional way, then in a way that most citizens disapproved of. For me to judge him as an enemy seemed ludicrous. He did things I did. I’m sure of that. The problem was he started doing them to me.

  I had large trash drawstring bags, thirty-gallon capacity, two feet six by two feet nine by 1.05 mil, fits up to a thirty-gallon can. That was not what I wanted. I had Denny Vargas, a porter in my building, find industrial bags that were giant size. Evan Strome did the same. He copied my every move. It was as if I were Lebron and he a rookie learning the game. Strome picked up on everything I did. From numbers to information. From contacts to codes. I didn’t mind. He was making me money. He was the most talented and effective beard that I had. If I reached out and needed Evan Strome, he was always there.

  “Evan, I need you to get me down eight dimes on Miami of Ohio at four and one half. Don’t take less. Can you do it?”

  “‘I don’t know, Mr. Lazar. I’ll try.’”

  Invariably, Evan Strome came through. I made tons of money because of him.

  “Mr. Lazar, I know for a fact that Zack White isn’t playing in tonight’s Toledo–Akron game. And Toledo’s sixth man is out as well.”

  Information like that, Strome provided. Information even more valuable. Things like finding me half-points in your favor. The difference between winning a wager and losing a bet. Evan Strome was my number one beard.

  Then Solomon heard from his friend, the bookmaker Willie Alter, that Evan Strome was screwing me. “Willie Alter opened a Colorado–Iowa State game at six and a half. Strome jumped all over it. But Strome reported to you that he got down at five. What are you going to do about it, Davey Boy?”

  I told Liz it took me a week of sleepless nights to decide. I demanded that Strome return the money he had made all the time he worked

  for me.

  “Get out of the country,” I said. “Disappear. Your father can’t help you. I won’t. Solomon Lepidus went crazy when Willie Alter told him how you screwed us. I strongly suggest you disappear!”

  I liked Evan Strome. He had been great for me. Made me a whole lot more than a dozen giant-sized industrial bags filled with hundreds. He was opportunistic, motivated to make it, ballsy, sharper than any other beard I had. Maybe as sharp as me.

  I told Solomon I got every dollar back. I told him that Strome was no longer living in the States and wasn’t coming back. “The truth is, Solomon, I still think of Evan Strome as a reckless kid brother. What was I to do?”

  “Davey boy, he’s a twenty-three-year old man. But if you can live with it, so can I. Take it easy.”

  I grabbed Solomon’s thick wrists as he was walking out of his restaurant. “Listen to me, I’m serious. Leave Strome alone. He did nothing that I wouldn’t have done. He was hungry to make it. You remember those days.” That was the end of the conversation.

  Elizabeth shook her head and smiled. Once again, I had told her a fabrication. The story was accepted. Our life together was okay.

  Chapter 22
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  This is how Evan Strome met his maker. A week later I received another phone call from Solomon Lepidus. He advised me that Strome had fled to Morocco.

  “Besides screwing you on numbers, Davey boy, he gave out at least ten of your code names: George Koch. John Brody. Mark Korman. Allie-for-One.” I had dozens of code names so that each of my beards could call in multiple bets without the bookmakers changing the lines on me. One beard didn’t know the other. I had over 100 beards in my operation, and I kept them disconnected from each other. It was going to cost a lot of money to settle the problem once the bookies found out what I was doing. Money I had made, my partners had made. Evan Strome had betrayed me, often. I did go to Morocco. I did look up Evan Strome. I did...

  I have this weird feeling. A part of me wishes my son had some street smarts, some street attitude, some of that which I needed to make it. It only comes from having your back against the wall, having nothing, beginning from scratch and a $250 bankroll. That is not part of Liam’s experience. Liam has privilege and decency. Evan Strome reminded me of me.

  Chapter 23

  I was in the city when I received a text from Elizabeth thanking me for loving her. I texted back, The easy part is loving you. The more difficult part is staying relevant in your life. We have a good-to-great marriage. I couldn’t have asked for more. I don’t think Elizabeth feels that way, but she does love me.

  Liam now has a girlfriend. She goes to a privileged school not far from Choate. How they hooked up, I’m not sure, but both Elizabeth and I think it’s great that they did. His girlfriend is more than we asked for. She is competent, intelligent, musical, attentive, healthy, and real. And the most important part of the partnership between her and Liam is that she genuinely likes my son. They have something that I think has a chance of lasting.