Cornelius Sky

by Timothy Brandoff

  "How you doing, May?"

  She poured him a cup. "Eating?"

  "Two over easy."

  "Bacon crisp?"

  "Please."

  The sun reflected off the Lamston's sign across the street, shot into the diner, and bounced off the mirror behind the counter, cutting Bickford's airspace in half with a smoky cylindrical beam, reminiscent of a movie house projector.

  Connie generally resented food when he was on a drunk, and he knew such thoughts did not speak well of his character—what kind of troubled soul gets offended by an offer to break bread?—but other times he could eat with the best of them.

  "And let me get an orange juice, and, oh yeah, some home fries if you don't mind."

  "I don't mind at all, Con. With the eggs and bacon right there on the plate?"

  "All right, fine, all together, one big happy family on the plate. And then, also, an English muffin."

  "You got it."

  He took a large gulp of water and May refilled it. "Dying of thirst here," he said, and took another gulp.

  Someone seated at the counter in the corner against the wall lowered his paper. He wore glasses and was about Connie's age. He looked around, took a sip of coffee, then lifted the cigarette from his ashtray and took a pull off it. Connie and the guy looked at each other.

  "Good morning," the man said.

  "Good morning to you," Connie said.

  "Water's important," the man said. "To flush out the internal organs."

  "Are you a doctor?"

  "No, but I played a doctor on The Edge of Night once."

  "Is that right?" Connie said. "My wife's favorite."

  "Thank you," the man said.

  Connie considered him. "Why are you saying thank you? It's not your compliment. It's a compliment to the show. They gave you a white smock and a clipboard and a couple lines. Nurse, when is so-and-so scheduled to be discharged? A bit player, correct?"

  "Yes. A bit player," the man conceded.

  "What are you, Greek?" Connie said.

  "Romanian Jew."

  "Born in Romania?"

  "Bucharest. Grew up in Sunnyside."

  "Queens?"

  "Why is that so difficult to comprehend?"

  "Did you go to Sunnyside Gardens?"

  "My grandfather took me to the wrestling matches."

  "That's strange, don't you think, going to the wrestling matches with your grandfather?"

  "In what respect?"

  "Skip it," Connie said, grinning with mischief.

  "You have an interesting conversational style. Did they teach you that in doorman school?"

  "Good one," Connie said, "doorman school. What the hell's your name?"

  They introduced themselves, and the man's name was David.

  "Romanian Jew from Sunnyside by way of Bucharest. Aren't you proud. What high school?"

  "Stuyvesant," David said.

  "Ah," Connie said, "a brainiac."

  "Something of a prodigy, yes."

  "Prodigy of WHAT, you son of a bitch."

  David exploded with laughter. "Mathematics."

  "Is that right?"

  "And music."

  "Listen to you. One area of expertise isn't enough. And here you sit," Connie said, "in Bickford's with me. What a fall you've taken, what depths you've plunged."

  "Speaking of which," David said, "are there any openings where you work?"

  "Leaving your prodigious math and music skills aside for the moment," Connie said, "what qualifies you for the job I do?"

  "More coffee, hon?" May said to David. She filled both their cups. David spooned in heavy sugar.

  "Tell me the most difficult thing about being a doorman, let's start there," David said.

  "All right. Take me, for example. Let's talk turkey and go into detail with specifics."

  "Fine," David said, "I'm unemployed."

  Connie looked for his food, lit another smoke. "You have to know people."

  "Uh-huh," David said. "Know people."

  "Not juggle them, because people don't like to be juggled. Do you like to be juggled?"

  "I'm not sure I know what you mean, but for the sake of your argument, let's say I don't."

  "Point is . . ." Connie said, and he thought, What the hell is my point? before resigning himself to cliché. "You have to be a people person." The space no longer received a direct hit of light, while the mingling aromas of breakfast foods, smoke, and coffee continued to permeate.

  "Are you a people person, David?" Connie said.

  "I'm talking to you."

  "And why is that, do you think?"

  "Teach me, Socrates."

  "You're talking to me because I am the one who is a people person. If I was not me, you'd be sitting here in silence."

  "And you as well. Two to tango."

  "Do you have a résumé?"

  "On me?"

  "I'd be curious to take a look at it and see what I can do for you," Connie said, and at this they both laughed.

  "Two over easy," May said, "bacon crisp, home fries, with an English muffin. Jelly, Con?"

  "Please, May." To David, Connie said, "Ketchup." David passed him the bottle of Heinz.

  "Do you see how I speak to people?" Connie said to David. "Personable, not obtrusive. Do you understand how to behave in such a manner?"

  "Bon appétit," David said.

  Connie started to dig in. "I can't remember my last meal." He went to pour some ketchup onto the side of his plate but none came out.

  David said, "Hold the bottle at a forty-five-degree angle and gently tap the number 57—see it there, on the side—with the bottom of your palm."

  The ketchup flowed. "Son of a sea biscuit," Connie said. "Something new every day."

  Connie mixed the ketchup with the yolks of his over-easy eggs, and got some jelly involved, using the English muffin to scoop it all up. He ordered another English muffin, they were so small, really, and sat at the counter with David. They drank coffee and smoked and talked for two hours.

  David's mother and father brought him and an older sister to New York when David was seven years old. A mathematics whiz as a child, he played the violin with natural élan as well. He broke his parents' hearts when he chose to pursue acting at a school called the Neighborhood Playhouse. After a while he made a little money and some small headway as an actor. He married a beautiful young woman he met at the Playhouse who came from theatrical aristocracy and had family money. David told Connie he used to live in an apartment house where Connie himself might have worked, on 82nd and Park, and that it all came tumbling down six months ago.

  "Where do you live now?" Connie said.

  "In a rooming house around the corner."

  "Anything available?"

  "You serious?"

  "Got kicked out," Connie said, holding up the Hefty bag. "I slept on the subway last night, a bench the night before."

  "I'm on welfare," David said.

  "I grew up on welfare."

  "What is this, a competition?"

  "Are you getting food stamps?"

  "Should I?"

  "My guess is you're going to be up and running better than before. You got too much to offer with all that so-called talent you claim to possess."

  "True."

  "Tell me about this rooming house."

  "Better yet," David said, "I'll show it to you. I think she might have something."

  Connie grabbed David's check.

  "No," David said.

  "Relax. Who is she?"

  "Mrs. Cook, the manager. And if I say you're a friend of mine, well, you can imagine."

  They left Bickford's and walked around the corner on a beautiful spring morning in Chelsea. The rooming house, on 22nd between Eighth and Ninth, didn't look bad, if a bit faded, with only the strange variety of window dressings suggesting a lack of internal cohesion.

  Connie followed David into the vestibule. Just inside on the left was a door which David knocked on. They waited a good w
hile before it slowly opened.

  "Mrs. Cook."

  "Oh, hello, David," an old lady said.

  "Mrs. Cook, this is my friend Connie, he's a doorman as you can tell, and he's looking for a room."

  "Nice to meet you," Connie said.

  "Are you a doorman?" Mrs. Cook said.

  "Yes, yes I am," Connie replied with false modesty.

  "Well," David said, "I'll leave you two alone," starting for the staircase. "I'm ready for my midmorning nap." He stopped, came back, and said to them both, "What's nice about this house is that it's very quiet."

  "Good," Connie said, "I like quiet."

  David shook Connie's hand. "Thank you for breakfast," he said, and, "He's a good man, Mrs. Cook."

  She looked at Connie, letting her eyes scan him head to foot. "Come in." She stood back and opened her door. Connie entered the front room, which smelled of old lady. "Sit down if you like."

  He took a seat in a saggy chair, the room too darkly curtained for the brilliant day. He made a show of removing his doorman's cap and holding it in his hands: you don't wear your cap in front of a lady.

  Mrs. Cook disappeared through a curtain as Connie continued to feign behavior. He watched himself act the innocent, holding his cap as if a simple immigrant who never had a sexual thought in his life, instead of the deranged American deviant he knew himself to be. Because if Mrs. Cook apprehended the truth concerning that which persisted in Connie's wretched heart and mind, how could she in good conscience offer him a room? She returned with some Pepperidge Farm cookies fanned out on a tray.

  "Would you like a cookie?"

  "I'd love a cookie."

  Mrs. Cook moved slow, spoke slow, and Connie wanted to strangle her. She might have been in her eighties—but you don't ask a woman her age. Through the room's shadows Connie spotted a portrait of John's father on the wall, the man gone ten-plus years. It looked as if the photograph had been retouched with some cheap colorization: a little rouge had been applied to the assassinated president's cheeks, with a faint dab of lipstick.

  Mrs. Cook placed the tray of cookies between them on the coffee table, and took a seat across from Connie. "David told me you were a nice man," she said.

  "That's nice of him."

  "And you're a doorman."

  "Yes," Connie said, modestly touching the lapel of his uniform.

  "Could your supervisor provide a reference?"

  "Sure, Mr. Mezzola. No problem. Would it be possible," Connie ventured, "to move in today?"

  "I don't see why not," Mrs. Cook said, "but you haven't seen the room yet. Let me get the key."

  "I'm sure it's lovely," Connie said, and wondered who just said that. He smiled at Mrs. Cook, eager to have the question of shelter resolved, when he flashed on the bedroom he shared with Maureen, bringing forth the room's scent as well, of love and home and the small touches of comfort his wife attempted to provide—but no, he would not miss the mirror of her eyes reflecting the failure of his life back at him.

  He let Mrs. Cook lead him up the staircase. She took one step at a time. Connie noticed her left shoe had an orthopedic lift, and the sight of it helped to temper his impatience.

  "I hope I brought the right key with me," she said.

  "Me too," Connie chuckled, and again he thought, Why am I being such a phony? It's just a room in a rooming house. Mrs. Cook, he realized, reminded him of his mother, if only in that she was an older Irish-American woman.

  Connie had done a dance for his mother his entire life, until he started to avoid her altogether, and when she died he felt enormous relief, which he felt inclined to keep hidden. Thank God, he had thought. Finally. Let her be dead already. About fucking time. These sentiments became part of the guilt cloud under which he roamed.

  How did I come to hate my mother? he wondered. Do a lot of people hate their mothers? Did he really hate his mother? Was it more common than he suspected? My sainted mother. With her one tattered housecoat, always talking about what a saint her own mother was, and therefore, what, I should talk about what a saint you are?

  Connie spotted a black-haired, blue-eyed woman at the top of the stairs. Beautiful and disturbed, in a sexy way, to Connie. Black and blue, a rare steak. Mrs. Cook didn't see her, but Connie did, and when he locked eyes with the woman she moved out of view, and Connie heard a door shut on the floor.

  Mrs. Cook fumbled with the key but managed to open a door at the top of stairs.

  "Nice and bright," Connie said.

  "It might be a little noisy in the front."

  "I was raised on noise's knee."

  "I can find you a pair of clean sheets and, let's see, a pillowcase, and a blanket or two, unless you have your own linen."

  "No, I could use some linen, thank you," and this he said in a voice closer to his own.

  Mrs. Cook said the room cost $155 a month, Con Ed included. It was May 15, so she said, "Let's say seventy dollars for the month of May."

  Connie told her he would give her the money tomorrow if that was all right, and Mrs. Cook said it wouldn't be a problem.

  "It's a very easygoing house," she said. "And I have a feeling you're a decent man." She placed the key to the room flat in the palm of Connie's hand, and started back downstairs.

  "Oh, would you like a few towels?" she called.

  "Yes please."

  He turned, looked at the room. The ceiling was high and the window was large, its scale a nod to former grandeur, and Connie imagined the house prior to its getting chopped into cubicles, seeing its bearded sea-captain patriarch surrounded by a half-dozen rosy-cheeked children clamoring for his attention after his return from a long voyage.

  A rush of exhaustion hit him. He sat on the room's naked mattress, smaller than a twin, closer to the size of a cot. He took off his cap, removed his shoes. He bent over, head in hands, and said a quick prayer to some god he did not believe in, not really, a word of thanks for a place to sleep. "Thank you, Lord," Connie said, "for this room, for this spring day."

  He went to the window and shucked it open. A lovely tree-lined block, what it was. And there, where a branch the height of Connie's window met the trunk of a tree, a nest. Connie watched one bird bouncing. He saw two chicks pop into view. Sure enough, here came another bird, and this one's got something in its mouth. Beak-to-beak they eat. Connie watched the chicks get fed and found it too marvelous for words.

  If a bird knows how to live. If a bird can make a nest.

  He had learned, he feared, from his mother how not to get involved in the world or its people in any intimate way. What a terribly sad thing. My poor mother. To wind up with a man like Pete Cullen, you have to be sick, no? Such a locked-down life, and Connie picked up on it, the art of isolation. In the middle of some party, surrounded by people who only wanted to love and care for you, and there you stood behind the wall of your apartness, there but not there.

  People along the way had showed Connie love. His sense of humor and other positive traits did not spring from the head of Zeus after all, but finally he could not stand people looking to be in his life in any authentic way.

  He watched the birds with a smile, and the people walking down the block. He daintily produced his work schedule, and realized it was a Wednesday. He had the day off.

  Out in the hallway a door opened and closed. Connie pushed away from the window and went to his room's threshold. The woman with the black hair and blue eyes came into view from the far side of the floor.

  "Hello," Connie said.

  The woman said, "Hello," moving toward the staircase, and Connie said, "What's your name?"

  "Susan," she said.

  "I'm Connie. Do you live here?"

  "I do. Did you just move in?"

  "Got the key from Mrs. Cook two seconds ago."

  "Welcome to our humble abode."

  "Thank you," Connie said.

  They smiled at one another, then Susan turned down the staircase.

  Connie watched her descend, and without look
ing back she said, "I like your socks, by the way."

  A pair of green argyles adorned Connie's feet. And he knew with Susan's compliment the possibility of them making love existed. It's how his mind worked. What's more, he oftentimes proved himself correct in these matters. Connie became instantly taken with this woman named Susan, and since they now lived together, so to speak, it only made sense they should get to know one another in that special way.

  He closed the door. The thought of trekking down to Mrs. Cook's for linen seemed too much. Let me just lie down here a minute, he thought. The naked mattress cradled his body decently enough, before he sat up with a sudden force of will to remove his jacket, shirt, and pants. He went to the window, closed it most of the way, returned to the bed, and curled up on his right side.

  His mother always told him to sleep on his right side. When he coughed his head off at night she'd appear in the doorway of the bedroom he shared with Danny and Patrick and Edward. His mother would say, Who's coughing?

  Con, his brothers would say.

  Turn on your right side, his mother would say, and disappear.

  He lay down and, tired as he was, his mind ran. He did the thing he read about: he stepped onto an imaginary escalator heading south, an escalator of wooden steps with large spaces between its teeth, like the ones in Gimbels. Only this, an infinite escalator, traveling to forever. Slowly, slowly he descended, and his mind eased up, unhinged itself from the workaday world, the escalator's gentle, steady movement gliding his body down, down, and Connie thought, I'm falling asleep, when he suddenly twitched from an incident in an already-forgotten dream, and it stirred him back to the texture of his naked mattress. He readjusted his body, curled tight onto his right side, like a fetus in the womb of the world, a grown man yet unborn, and stepped onto the escalator in his mind.

  Four hours later he woke to a knock at the door.

  * * *

  "My mother likes you."

  "Does she?"

  "Heard her on the phone."

  "Surprised."

  "What you did to the lobby floor. Could get you a job across the street, she said"—meaning the Met—"restoring works of art."

  "Hardly says boo to me."

  "It's kind of how she is sometimes, Con. She's been through a lot."

  "I know she has, John."

  "Check."

  "Check how check?"