A couple of years ago, dropping $10,000 on Mike Tyson. Not to be believed. Tyson on his knees on the canvas dazed groping for his mouthpiece trying to pick it up with his gloved hand. Not to be believed but there it was.
Corky’s feeling anxious hears something outside, yes but it’s just a car in the street, forgets the TV going to the front of the house to check his mail, mainly bills, flyers, throwaways including a Neiman-Marcus catalog addressed to Mrs. Charlotte Corcoran. An actual personal letter but it isn’t Christina: couldn’t be postmarked Washington, D.C., from Corky’s nephew Rickie Payne. One of the kid’s dashed-off word-processor notes bringing Uncle Jerome up to date on his latest news, or lack of it—Looks like I won’t get any summer employment but not for want of trying, I sent out 55 letters! Corky helped send Rickie to St. Bonaventure’s, now to Georgetown Law figuring he owes it to the family, always an obscure guilt about the family, not that the family gives a shit about him. And the younger people, Rickie’s generation, with their college degrees looking down on Corky Corcoran who never went. One semester at Rensselaer Polytechnic, to hear him talk about it you’d think it was MIT and he’d gone four years.
What’s Rickie hinting at in this letter? Can’t get summer employment in a law firm, so he’ll need a summer stipend? Wouldn’t you know it, a Corcoran finally goes to law school and nobody wants lawyers, there’s a glut on the market.
Well, Rickie can go fuck. Get a job at McDonald’s, or parking cars. See what the world’s like.
No son of your own, the least you can do is send Rickie to law school. Also Angie to nursing school in Syracuse, Pete’s kid Frankie to Fresno State. Sure.
Upstairs in the room that’s Corky’s private at-home office, off-limits even to Mrs. Krauss, thus never cleaned, Corky makes a few calls including a call to the Slatterys’ (where he’s due for drinks at 6 P.M., it’s 5:10 P.M. now) explaining to Sandra his circumstances: there’s a possibility that Thalia is going to come by, he hasn’t seen her in some time, doesn’t want to miss her. So maybe they should postpone drinks for another time? Sandra Slattery sounds disappointed, which is flattering as hell—“But, Corky, we do want to see you! Vic was saying how he misses you. If Thalia doesn’t come, or doesn’t stay very long, why don’t you come out here for dinner? Just us, just family. Will you?”
Corky Corcoran feels his very groin stir. Family dinner with Vic and Sandra Slattery!
Saying, “Well, O.K. Yes, thanks. If I can. Sure. What time?”
“Around seven-thirty. And if you can’t make dinner, drop by afterward. Just give us a call, will you? Monday evening will be a madhouse scene, we won’t really have a chance to visit then.”
Corky hangs up smiling, can’t remember when Vic and Sandra last invited him for an intimate dinner, not since Vic’s first term in Congress. When Corky sees his friends, it’s usually in a context of other people. Lots of other people.
Something you don’t want to think about: how friendships are like love affairs, marriage itself. Always one party’s deeper into it, more dependent upon the other. More jealous. As Corky’s been with Vic Slattery since the age of fifteen, his first weeks at St. Thomas watching the big good-looking blond boy secretly, taking every opportunity to talk to him, get next to him in the cafeteria line, in gym class. No accident that Vic’s last name was Slattery but that wasn’t the main reason.
An imbalance of love means an imbalance of power.
With Corky’s women, too. Charlotte, for those years he’d actually loved her. And now Christina. Yes but you can’t trust women. You can trust men.
Corky sits at his desk that’s piled with weeks of accumulated mail, papers. He’s got the radio on hoping for news, a can of Bud and some stale Planter’s peanuts so gritty with salt he’s practically getting a buzz on from it. Studying this promissory note for Nick Daugherty that when signed requires Nick to pay the full amount of his $5000 debt to Jerome A. Corcoran by 1 September 1992. Greenbaum drives a hard bargain but, sure, he’s right: you know he’s right. Just that Corky Corcoran for all his pugnacity in politics and in barrooms, his reputation as outspoken, plain-dealing, hotheaded, can’t imagine how he’ll put it to his old friend. Nick, I’ve got something for you to . . . Fuck that. He can’t!
Corky’s at-home office is even messier than his Pearl Street office, which is at least cleaned from time to time. Here, he’s never wanted anybody in, not even cleaning women. Had a special key made for the lock to keep out Charlotte for eleven years, not that he didn’t trust her he said but it makes him nervous to think somebody, anybody, might be poking around in his office. Like poking around in his head.
Paranoid, Charlotte called him. Sometimes she was teasing, and sometimes not. Wondering if it was an Irish male trait and Corky told her never mind that ethnic bullshit though realizing yes probably, at least a Corcoran trait, men keeping their business affairs private and in some cases secret even from the government and IRS.
So when Corky wants this room cleaned, he has to clean it himself in a fury of impatient vacuuming that burns itself out in about twenty minutes.
The primary secret of Corky’s home office is his files. Which he thinks of, formally, as files; though much of the material is crammed into boxes and cheap accordion files as well as in conventional metal-and-wood office filing cabinets with locks. These files are so stuffed with data, so intricately cross-referenced, though not yet computerized, Corky contemplates his holdings as a bemused and intimidated librarian might contemplate the vast unfathomable holdings of a library whose very purpose is obscure yet whose authority is unshakable.
Corky’s files began with newspaper clippings and diary-notes pertaining to his father’s death. Any documents he could lay his hands on, including Timothy Patrick Corcoran’s death certificate. And sympathy cards—must be over a hundred of them. He’s accumulated more than one dozen twelve-by-fifteen-inch manila envelopes crammed with material once precious, now not glanced at, nor thought of, in years: the file TIMOTHY PATRICK CORCORAN in the oldest of the filing cabinets. Files too for F. (Fenske), T.U.C. (Trade Union Council). All this dating back to the early 1960s, now frayed and yellowed, thirty years old.
Still, the mystery hasn’t been solved to Corky’s satisfaction. There’s something left out—he’s sure.
To make a file on somebody or something is to get a handle on them and Corky likes the idea, he’s got a pack rat’s mentality maybe accumulating data for data’s sake. And so his files contain manila envelopes labeled UCPD (Union City Police Department: data on a miscellany of officers, some of them no longer on the force, from the Police Commissioner on down); U.C. COURTS (County, State, Federal), CITY HALL (through several administrations, all Democratic), MO. CO. DEMS (Mohawk County Democrats), MO. CO. REPS (Mohawk County Republicans). Also U.C. LAWYERS, U.C. BROKERS, U.C. REALTORS, U.C. $$$ (Union City millionaires). Also U.C. ARCH (architecture), U.C. REL (religion, with an emphasis on the Catholic hierarchy form the Archbishop on down). There are personal files on friends, among them V.S. (Vic Slattery), O.S. (Oscar Slattery), R.D. (Ross Drummond). One of the more recent, burgeoning files is D. (divorce: hundreds of documents, photocopies, letters from Corky’s and Charlotte’s respective lawyers, bills and receipts). Other files are mysteriously coded—N.E. (containing data on men Corky believes to be enemies of his, whether business or personal); C. (con games, fraud—Corky’s an admirer of some of these ingenious guys); W. (“wisdom”—folders crammed with articles from sources as diverse as Scientific American, Reader’s Digest, American Lawyer, Fortune, Computer World which Corky’s sure he will study some day). There are files, most of them fairly thin, marked T., S., E., R., S.D. and so forth—Corky’s women. And thicker files, though kept up only intermittently, marked C. and T.C.—for Charlotte and Thalia.
In truth, Corky hasn’t kept up most of these files for years. Nor even glanced at them. Just wants, needs, the information on hand, locked away, in secret, his.
No file for Christina: he’s been keeping thing
s—notes, snapshots, postcards, clippings—in a drawer, loose. Maybe, if they don’t get back together, he’ll throw it all away. So narrow, so unforgiving, is it some Catholic thing.
Corky’s trying to balance one of his checking accounts cursing and sweating with his pocket calculator aware irritably, anxiously of the time, assuming by now, 5:35 P.M., Thalia isn’t coming or she’d come and, asshole, he’d missed her when he hears a sound behind him and turns to look and there in the threshold of the doorway of this office she’d never been allowed into while growing up, this secret off-limits room of Corky’s she’d referred to as Bluebeard’s Castle—there’s Thalia. Smiling at him.
“Thalia, for Christ’s sake!” Corky says. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Thalia laughs. “Corky, aren’t you expecting me?”
Corky has to hand it to his adopted daughter. This Braunbeck-sired daughter, this stranger to his blood and his sensibility and his very comprehension—in the first moment of any encounter, she’ll turn the blame, the need for defense, back upon Corky.
Anyway she’s smiling, that’s a good sign. And looking pretty good. Not healthy exactly, but then Thalia’s curious beauty has never seemed healthy, her skin pale and a tawny-lemon light in her eyes, a bruised look to the eyes like she’s been crying. But she is smiling, gypsy-festive with a sprig of lilac in her hair—no doubt torn from one of the bushes outside. Teasing, on the edge of taunting, “I’m sorry, Corky. You do look a little scared.”
Corky jumps up to hug Thalia risking her stiff-arming him as she’s done unpredictably since the age of fourteen, this time she lets him though without hugging back, stiff in the spine, and Jesus how thin—Corky feels her rib bones through the layers of clothing. Asking how’d she get here, he hadn’t heard any car in the driveway, he’d been waiting for her and just about given up, hearing his voice rattle on reminding him, God damn, of Charlotte, that love-reproachful way of hers that only makes Thalia defensive, hostile, so he’s quick to add, smiling warmly at her, “Never mind. I’m god-damned glad to see you, honey.”
Thalia says dryly, “Why?—you didn’t think I was going to commit suicide, did you?”
“Of course not. But—”
“I’m not that easy to dispose of. You’ll see.”
Corky isn’t sure he’s heard right. “Thalia, what?”
But Thalia ignores the question. Glancing about, rueful, though somewhat breathless, as if she’s been running; as if she’s come a long way and isn’t certain where she is, or why. “The door was unlocked downstairs, I just walked in,” she says. “That isn’t like you, Corky, is it, to leave a door unlocked? It’s weird to be a trespasser here, where I used to be—used to live.” Saying, teasing, “‘Blue-beard’s Castle’—where Jerome A. Corcoran keeps his secrets.”
How formal, how bitter the name “Jerome A. Corcoran” in Thalia’s mouth. By Corky’s request she’s never called him anything other than “Corky.”
Corky says quickly, seeing Thalia’s peering at some of the papers on his desk, “—This? This crap? It’s just paperwork. Shit-work. I’m trying to balance my checking account.” Adding, even as he blocks Thalia’s way, “The IRS is after my ass again. This time it looks serious, Corcoran, Inc., could go under. I feel like a rat in a maze. I’m a driven man.”
Thalia asks, “Can’t you get advice from Grandfather? He knows all the tricks, doesn’t he? You and him, you have a lot in common.”
Thalia’s voice is heavy with irony, cruel, that juvenile irony that pissed Corky off for years. Living with it, for years. Like Thalia’s of a purer stock, or a hippie of the 1960s—never speaks of money except to suggest there’s something grubby, shameful about it, dirty. Though Corky happens to know that her grandparents are leaving her a bundle—must be beyond $4 million in investments, properties, cash. It’s Charlotte’s fear that Thalia will give her inheritance over to one or another of her organizations and Corky thinks that might just happen but he’s out of it, now—no more sucking up to Ross Drummond hoping to get him to change his mind about anything.
Corky’s strategy with Thalia is usually to play it straight. Pretend you don’t get the irony, sarcasm. Cut through the girl’s bullshit and appeal to her sympathy which every woman has, you can count on it. Corky tells her about the latest IRS audit of Corcoran, Inc.’s, pension plan plus the limited-partnership failures, and Howard Greenbaum who’s going to change Corky’s life, he knows it—“A truly superior person. One of the finest money men in the city but classy, too. At lunch we talk about morals, religion. He’s Jewish, of course—I think we’re going to be friends.”
Innocently Thalia says, “I thought you didn’t trust Jews, Corky.”
“What, me? Of course I trust Jews.”
“Didn’t you used to say, ‘Never trust a Jew unless you have him in your pocket’?”
“Honey, that was your grandfather. That is your grandfather. Don’t mix us up.” Corky’s laughing but Corky’s annoyed. And the way Thalia’s standing there sizing him up like she’s, what—assessing him?
Corky manages to usher Thalia out of his office, locks the door and leads her downstairs, looking at her sidelong but keeping his expression neutral. Try not to comment on your daughter’s physical appearance even when it alarms you one of the doctors told Corky and Charlotte after Thalia’s hospitalization, but, Jesus it’s hard, up close Thalia doesn’t look so good, bruises under her eyes, inflamed eyelids, skin sickly-pale and even blemished at the hairline, and her hair snarled and matted falling to her shoulders uncombed, unwashed—Corky smells the strong sweet lilac scent but a ranker smell beneath, Thalia’s oily hair. Thalia’s body. The crotch of that leotard, the yeasty-cunty odor.
Thalia’s nose even seems longer, narrower. Waxy at the tip and the interior of the nostrils moist, pink as if inflamed too, feverish. Her lips are bloodless and parched-looking. Corky doesn’t doubt she’s running a fever, she’d be hot to the touch.
So don’t touch. Keep your distance.
Corky knows better but can’t help himself, in the kitchen saying, “Jesus, Thalia, you look like one of the homeless, have you been sleeping in the park?” running his eyes up and down the length of her, she’s wearing a shapeless ankle-length skirt of some flimsy black material, a maroon satin jacket of some ethnic design, not very clean, missing a button, and beneath the jacket a black sweater, good quality, looks like cashmere, stretched at the neck. On her feet are scuffed black flat-soled shoes Corky’s sure he’d noticed last night in her closet which means she’s been back to the apartment since then.
Thalia runs her hands through her hair, says insolently, “So what, maybe I have.”
“What the fuck’s that mean?”
“I’ve gotten in the habit of sleeping where I am. Where sleep overtakes me.”
Thalia smiles strangely. As if there’s something secret and erotic about this. As if sleep is a lover.
Corky asks, “Why? Are you afraid of staying in your apartment?”
Thalia says, fixing him with that sickly-bright look, “No more than anywhere else, Corky. Should I be?”
Now Corky knows that Thalia’s place was broken into, and is she going to admit it, for sure she isn’t. For all Corky knows, the place had been broken into before he came along. “Well, that neighborhood,” Corky says, stumbling a little, “—you know how Charlotte feels. And your grandparents. And—”
“And you?”
“Of course, me. You know we’re all worried about you, honey.”
“Me! What about yourselves?” Thalia’s peering at Corky suspiciously. “What’s that on your forehead, did you hurt yourself?”
“No, it’s nothing,” Corky says quickly, annoyed.
“It looks like a—”
“It’s nothing.”
In this exchange Corky hears that note he hasn’t heard in, Christ how long, a child’s fearfulness of an adult’s injury or weakness, the adult who isn’t maybe equal to his role. How Corky never knew his father to show any we
akness, none. Not in Corky’s presence at least.
Only the death, the dying. The blood. The smell of shit.
If that’s a weakness.
Corky’s concern for Thalia seems to have touched her, at least she’s quiet now, broody and downlooking. Leaning against a kitchen counter as if she’s storing up her strength.
The raw, reddened, grainy edges of Thalia’s eyelids. A yellowish cast to her eyes, faint too beneath the skin’s pallor, what does it remind Corky of, shit he doesn’t want to acknowledge: that corpse flat on his back, deader than dead, a can of diet chocolate soda on his chest. Corky shivers.
Also, reminds him of his friend whose skin went yellow from jaundice, poor bastard caught hepatitis from screwing around and nearly died and maybe by now (Corky hasn’t run into Foxy Ryan, a heavy drinker, in a long time) he’s dead. Once your liver goes, you go. But Corky doesn’t dare bring the subject up to Thalia, the slightest hint he’d like her to see a doctor and she’ll get hysterical. Too many doctors and “therapists” fucking up her head worse than it was, as Corky himself agreed.
That’d be like poking a wildcat with a stick. Jesus, no.
Opening instead the refrigerator door, casually takes out a bottle of pineapple juice, pours juice into two glasses not saying a word just pushing one slightly in Thalia’s direction on the counter and taking up the other himself and drinking and the damned stuff is good though Corky’s strangely without appetite.
C’mon, kid, drink with me. Loosen up.
A quick memory of Corky and his stepdaughter, by that time a delicate-boned adolescent girl with lovely eyes, a furtive manner, a row of glittering-silver braces over her front teeth, standing in just this kitchen in just this way sipping fruit juice and talking about—what? Much of it was Thalia in league against Charlotte, tearful about Charlotte with whom she didn’t get along, to put it mildly, and seeking an ally in Corky, and Corky tried to play it both ways, he’s a guy who plays it both ways as long as he can. Corky wishes he could come up with some good memory of those years but the weird thing that’s been running through his mind is Glow little glow-worm glimmer! glimmer!
What I Lived For Page 34