by Tito Perdue
He almost never used the elevator, which nearly always had people in it. He hated to stand next to old women who stank of calcite and unguents, or the all-too-common sort of city men hiding deep within their collars. How many criminals lived in New York City? He exchanged glances with a thin person, a bookkeeper, Philip estimated, who had spent the past twenty years escheating his employer. That was when this person exited the elevator in great haste, only to be replaced by an out-and-out murderer, a stout man in expensive shoes and a fleshy face.
His own apartment, Philip’s, was free of these types. Entering in his polite way, he turned on the light and drew the girl in behind him. He had no wish, none, to take her virginity, although that appeared to be her primary worry.
“It’s my time of month,” she blurted out suddenly in an apologetic voice.
“Coffee? Or would you like a glass of wine?”
She applied for wine, a more sophisticated drink. Philip poured it for her, at the same time noticing that he still had a portion of meatloaf in the refrigerator. The girl herself remained in the exact center of the adjacent room, staring at the door. The wine was highly palatable, and after a few tastes of it, the girl consented to sit on the couch.
“Tennessee?” Philip inquired. “Or North Carolina?”
“Sir?”
“Are you from Tennessee? Where they have that waltz?”
“Oh! No, sir, I come from West Virginia.”
“Sorry to hear it. We might have won that war, if you people had been on the right side.”
Covered in guilt, she sipped twice more and began gazing about the apartment, the ceiling, the minimal book collection and framed portraits on the wall. Bringing his chair up close, Philip said nothing for a moment, which is to say until he said this:
“I think you should go home again. That’s my opinion.”
“Sir?”
“You don’t have any business in a place like this. Nobody does. Go home. Home, I repeat.”
“But…” (His emphatic statement had made her nervous.) “But I know some very nice people here!”
“Well, of course. Doomed people. Raw material for stock manipulators. What, you want to marry a stock manipulator?”
“I guess not. But I do have my career to worry about.”
“Great God Almighty, woman, you don’t have any career! You expect to be an actress, is that what it is? A model? You aren’t going to be any sort of actress, for Pete’s sakes!”
“Well, I know that. I just want to be as good a waitress as I can.”
He wanted to weep. “So you can wait on that scum out there?” (He pointed to the window. Or rather he strode to the narrow opening and jabbed his finger four or five times in the direction of the population down below.) “And no doubt that’s why you chose the most loathsome district in the entire city. Waitress? Good Lord, woman, you’re a far better person than them!”
“Yeah, but you don’t need to get all mad about it. Gracious.”
“Don’t you realize how rare it is in this city not to be a sophisticated person? Go home. Go home and be a waitress in…”
“Wheeling.”
“Wheeling! Better to be a waitress in Wheeling than a millionaire’s wife in Snot Gardens. Better to shine shoes or be a restroom attendant. Better…”
(He had begun moving about the room, touching various objects as if they were preciosities never seen by him before.) “I say this, you stay here another month or two and you’ll be so hardened to this…” (The window again.) “… so messed up they won’t even let you back into Wheeling anymore! Got any money?”
She reached for her purse, a thing of fabric that appeared to have been manufactured when women’s accessories were conspicuously unlike today’s. Career? He predicted for her perhaps a hundred days before her corpse be discovered under a bridge somewhere.
“I have twenty dollars. See? But I get paid tomorrow.”
“No, no, no, I mean altogether. How much do you have altogether?”
Somewhat reluctantly she removed her bankbook, a two-page pamphlet of about three inches by five, bound in green.
“I have a thousand dollars. Almost.”
“Jesus.”
“But I need a new outfit.”
“Good, good. Anyway, you do have enough to get you home again. But don’t you have some parents back there, or something?”
“My uncle.”
“Well all right! That’s something. Is he a good man?”
“He used to be.”
“But is he good now — that’s what I’m getting at.”
“I guess so. Pretty good.”
“Well all right! Besides, you don’t need any ‘new outfits,’ for Pete’s sakes. No, no, no, I think you should get on the bus tomorrow and never come back. Otherwise you’ll end up like…” (He had started to say ‘Nathalie.’) “Want some meatloaf?”
Twelve
He spent the following week thinking back over his good works, and then on Sunday took up his sketch pad and colors and hiked up to Central Park, where a pretty accurate cross-section of northern humanity was on unashamed display. It was just a little bit chilly and he had brought his cap with the bill on it, good protection against the queers who might otherwise get a view of his uncommon face. But it wasn’t until almost nine that he found a bench where he could position himself in a reasonably comfortable if not altogether commensurable place.
He had brought a half-pint container of milk and the residues of his meatloaf and chilled potatoes. He watched a bent man plodding forward with no destination in front of him and then, further, an exceptionally well-dressed woman who, judging from the hauteur, the yak-skin handbag, and her impatience, had chosen to put her career — he knew these types — ahead of everything else. For a moment, he thought of chasing her down and seducing her in the open air, but then opted against it, owing to the mediocrity of her physique. She carried, this representative of new-age womanhood, hundreds of dollars of clothes on her back, enough to have provided Chatterton with another two years of a genius’ life.
How unfair all things were, the underlying principle of nature and states. Everywhere he looked, people were benefiting from undeserved advantages and/or giving orders to those better than themselves. Really, where was the honor in participating in such an arrangement? This, then, was the general direction of his thinking when another person, whom he could only very partially evaluate out of the corner of his eye, came and sat somewhat nearer to him than the bench required. He leapt up at once, Philip, but after moving off a few paces, had to return for his art supplies. The day itself, encroaching upon October, was furbished with leaves of umber and orange and, except for the presence of human beings in the city, he couldn’t have asked for more.
He had learned to paint without an easel, but when he tried to render the white marble fountain with fauns in it (since torn down) and had failed badly in accomplishing what he wanted, he turned instead to the horizon, or “wall,” he called it, that stood against the “real reality,” he said, that lay outside of human ken. Sometimes that barrier would seem to be breaking apart for him, a conceit available only to life-sick people. Or “film,” it seemed, that had deteriorated from soaking too long in its own exudations. Or rather an obstacle made of a child’s building blocks that needed only one thoughtless nudge to push it down. A splotched thing rather, very thin, that grew yet splotchier the more he glared at it. Or, finally, a “curtain” that billowed in and out from the causation of too much thought, a deception that had given rise to the beginning sentence of this present account.
Every day was different, but on this day he felt himself unusually near the mystery of things. From world to world he had been traveling throughout eternity, each new iteration requiring him to forget what he had learned. For example, he had most definitely seen that building before, the one that cut off all egress from Hopkins Street. As to the several smells that characterized the meatloaf and pickle, the park and its vegetation, his own s
tarch and aftershave lotion, he had entertained every one of them when he was young, or in dreams, or in previous existences. Not that he put credence in the lunatic theory of the eternal repetition of the very same thing over and over again, no, because he was certain that he was always getting better than he was.
He had brought a book with him, an early edition of Gildas, whom he had very probably known in one of his previous existences. Or perhaps not. Perhaps all times existed simultaneously, as certain physicists claimed, and that man yonder with a dog on a leash might be Gildas himself.
Truth was, he was tired, and had read too many books for his age. Had heard too much music and been forced to affiliate with too many average persons. Required to bathe and shave and sustain half a dozen inconvenient lusts. Condemned to carry out his ventures in company with a body he would have preferred to give away. Made to travel on legs and feet in place of wings. (For example, he might wish to be back in his apartment, but had first to rise in order to travel, and then travel in order to get there.) He might wish (he did!) to know the full histories of every nation, all languages and grammars and gazetteers. And sometimes he would call out loud, this man who seemed so calm, and run back and forth within his narrow room.
Other times, the best of them, he could imagine that he was alone on the planet and could travel in straight lines without the interference of cars and human beings. The shops and grocery stores, the libraries and his bleak apartment, surely these offered enough for the remainder of his chthonic career.
He had forgot that the time had come around for his appointment. Luckily, he had brought home two days earlier a pound of Apalachicola oysters, now freezing to death in his refrigerator. The meat was so tenuous, the secret was to fry them quickly, wasting no time on the project, and then follow it up with lemon juice. Meanwhile, he had made daiquiris for himself and the other person in order to fortify himself against the decision he had made in regard to their arrangement.
She arrived a minute too early in a tangerine-colored skirt that fell four inches below her knees. He wasted a moment kissing her about the ear and neck, and then testing her panties to verify that she had been celibate for the last few hours at least. Given her evident prosperity, he couldn’t guess how many clients she had. It is true that she had aged a little since their last meeting and was now perhaps a full ten years older than he.
“Have you been missing me?” she asked.
“Lord, yes. Especially this morning.”
“What happened, then?”
“You weren’t here.”
(She smiled. Another year and she’d be 43.)
“No hurry this time. I can stay all night, if you want.”
Even so, he set to work at once. They knew each other well, even if sometimes she confused his predilections with those of others. Hardly had they gotten into position before she began to suggest a thing they had never tried before. Shocked, Philip demurred.
The oysters, served with sliced tomatoes, were good, but the daiquiris only average. The night was lucent and from the window they could view all the way to California, it seemed. Speaking in his soft and very southern voice, Philip said this:
“Nathalie. This will have to be our last date, I’m afraid.”
The woman broke free and stepped back a pace.
“What?”
“I’ll have to break it off I’m afraid. Lost my job.”
“That’s not the reason. Anyway, you don’t have to pay me. As you well know.”
“No, that wouldn’t be fair. No, no, it just wouldn’t be the same.”
“Liar. I know you. No, you want to know how many things you can do without. I’m right about that, aren’t I?” She pointed to the austere apartment and the absence of the usual things.
“Nonsense. It’ll be the death of me, without you.”
“I hope so!”
“Maybe I’ll have an operation,” he said, smiling ineffectively.
“Well, damn you then. Are you serious Philip?”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
“Well, damn you to hell then. No, no, I don’t want your money,” she said, pushing away the large payment he had decided upon. “You’ll be sorry.”
“Anyway, I’m leaving town.”
“And that’s another mistake. What will you do out there? Oh, you’ll be so sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
But Philip didn’t think so.
Thirteen
His possessions were surprisingly few, which is to say unless you were acquainted with his underlying character. Also surprising was his wardrobe, the best and most costly of everything he owned. His suits were dark and well-maintained, and his ties had been selected at the best places, and only then after a good deal of thought and consideration. To ignore his own beautifulness and fail to do what he could to foster it… That would be a crime against those who had bequeathed it to him.
He was grateful for his looks, his talents, his exceptional mind, and a large number of other things as well. But was not at all grateful for the direction his country had taken, nor for the number of alien peoples setting up housekeeping where but until recently law-abiding Caucasians had dwelled. These were his thoughts as he brushed and folded his suits and stored them away in a leathern suitcase along with his ties and underwear. Of course, he daren’t put his small collection of liquors in the same trunk, not unless he wanted the bottles to leak over his clothes and set up a chemical reaction with the mothballs. Next, he brought his money together — $172,441 in cash and bonds — and apportioned it among the pockets of his one pair of blue jeans and seventeen suits. This completed the inventory of that essential piece of luggage.
He needed three trips to carry downstairs the nineteen books he had decided to allocate to Chris J. Martin. He left certain foodstuffs in the same location and then returned to his own apartment to rest and regroup, and to sketch out a note to the next tenant concerning certain difficulties pertaining to the heating system. Finally (and this was his last action), he took the six volumes he intended to retain and wrapped them in good-quality twine and brown paper. Not to dawdle over the actual titles, one of them was a seventeenth-century edition of Bede bound in vellum with marbled endpapers and a bit of gold tooling on the spine. He especially admired the type, the spacious margins, the imperishable pages, and the low-grade Latin that seemed to hearken back to those hideous days when the British Isles were full of ignorance and bloodletting. Truth was, he gravitated naturally to long-ago epochs free of sophistication and big cities, the time of monasteries with barbarians lurking all about. Those were the days, certainly, when a man’s life need not go on for longer than it should. When the opportunity for learning wisdom was necessarily curtailed and, as it were, had to be more concentrated, so to speak. But as to how he, of all people, had ended up in this century… Suddenly he laughed out loud, remembering his promise not to dawdle away the time.
A full quarter of an hour went by before a taxicab strayed to within hailing distance, driven by an Ethiopian or something of that kind. Philip waved it off and carried his books and suitcase to the next intersection where he ought to have a better chance for a Caucasian-driven cab. The day wasn’t half finished, and yet he was exhausted enough for it to have been evening already. He witnessed two girls in short skirts, their clothes and makeup saying “Pick me! Pick me! And help fulfill my fate!” Saw a policeman playing with his baton, two automobiles screaming at each other, men and women suspended in midair with nothing but a building made of glass to hold them there. Addressing himself to his soul, Philip said, half-aloud, “Take your last look, old boy, upon what all those centuries, all those geniuses and brave men have added up to.”
A habitat too primitive for bacteria, far less for dogs and cattle. He summoned the next taxi in spite of the driver’s ethnicity and tossed his books by error into the lap of an abnormal-looking rider who had preempted the space. Worse still, Philip perceived that the driver was lacking the greater part o
f his nearest ear. And then, too, the floor of the car held some of the same sort of material more usually to be found in public movie theatres. Supporting his books in his lap, he remembered not to touch anything with his hand, which in any case was full of the suitcase handle. That was when the driver asked a question, using an accent that Philip with all his knowledge was unable to disambiguate.
Even with the best intentions, no one could pass a day in New York City without coming into proximate contact with at least a hundred other human beings. He had visited restrooms in this city, telephone booths, had used the silverware. He had invested in breakfast cereals holding insect parts, and more than once had drunk the water. He had used the subways over and over, drawn back irresistibly by the decor. And had been required by his quondam occupation to shake perhaps 200 hands.
He was transported posthaste to Penn Station and emptied out near the entrance, where people without facial expressions were moving in and out. Succumbing to his inbred courtesy, he disposed of his cigarette and then summoned a Negress — she ignored him — to help with his luggage. The books and suitcase must have weighed full forty pounds and he was by no means as strong as in his adolescent days. Nor could he actually drag the suitcase across the tiled floor without making an unacceptable amount of noise.
Even so, he did manage at last to come to the counter, where two defeated-looking men were dispensing tickets with the help of an androgyne in a yellow visor. Transferring his wallet from his back pocket to his vest, the linguist loitered over the schedules and fees that would carry him to a certain small town in Tennessee that lay just outside a 250-mile perimeter of Hallerton in northern Kentucky. He would have preferred Alabama, of course, but feared the place had been preoccupied by Leland Pefley and his wife.
Instead, he carried himself and his books to the nearest bench and then came back quickly for his suitcase. No one knew the number of thieves who patrolled this central location, and yet he was pretty sure of one of them at least, a phthisic youth hiding under a tin hat with a retractable bill. He made haste, Philip, to open his suitcase and retrieve his sketchpad, though by this time the thief had gone away.