Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

  —I’ll be right back.

  I heard him trounce down the stairs. The door to the street slammed shut.

  With the blanket still on my shoulders, I stamped my feet and wandered in a circle. Hank’s painting of the protest on the pier was lying on the center of the gray mattress, suggesting that Tinker had been sleeping on the floor. I stopped in front of Tinker’s suitcase. The inside of the lid was lined with blue silk pockets sized for different items—a hairbrush, a shaving brush, a comb—all of which presumably had borne Tinker’s initials and all of which were gone.

  I knelt to look at the stack of books. They were the reference books from the study at the Beresford and the book of Washingtonia that had been given to him by his mother. But there was also the edition of Walden that I’d seen in the Adirondacks. It was a little more scuffed around the edges now, as if it had been carried in a back pocket—up and down the trail to Pinyon Peak, up and down Tenth Avenue, up and down this narrow flophouse stair.

  Tinker’s footsteps sounded on the landing. I sat on his crate.

  He came through the door with two pounds of coal wrapped in newspaper. He got down on his knees in front of the stove and set about lighting the fire, blowing on the flames like a scout.

  He always looked his best, I thought to myself, when circumstances called for him to be a boy and a man at the same time.

  That night, Tinker borrowed a blanket from a neighbor and laid out two beds on the floor a few feet apart—maintaining the same respectful distance that he had established on the roof when I’d first arrived. I rose early enough so I could get home and shower before work. When I got back in the evening, he leapt up from the HALLELUJAH ONIONS as if he’d been waiting there all day. Then we went across Tenth Avenue to the little diner on the piers with the blue neon sign that read OPEN ALL NIGHT.

  It’s a funny thing about that meal. All these years later, I remember the oysters I ate at the 21 Club. I remember the black bean soup with sherry at the Beresford when Eve and Tinker had returned from Palm Beach. I remember the salad I had with Wallace at the Park with blue cheese and bacon. And, all too well, I remember the truffle-stuffed chicken at La Belle Époque. But I don’t remember what we ate that night at Hank’s diner.

  What I remember is that we had a lot of laughs.

  Then at some point, for some stupid reason, I asked him what he was going to do. And he grew serious.

  —Mostly, he said, I’ve been thinking about what I’m not going to do. When I think of the last few years, I’ve been hounded by regrets for what’s already happened and fears for what might. By nostalgia for what I’ve lost and desire for what I don’t have. All this wanting and not wanting. It’s worn me out. For once, I’m going to try the present on for size.

  —You’re going to let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand?

  —That’s it, he said. Any interest?

  —What’ll it cost me?

  —According to Thoreau, nearly everything.

  —It’d be nice to have everything at least once before giving it up.

  He smiled.

  —I’ll give you a call when you’ve got it.

  When we got back to Hank’s apartment, Tinker lit a fire and we swapped stories into the night—the details of one circumstance triggering the memory of another and then another in effortless succession. Like two teenagers who’ve struck up a friendship on a cross-Atlantic steamer, we raced to trade reminiscences and insights and dreams before reaching port.

  And when he laid out our bedrolls at the same respectful distance, this time I pushed mine over until there wasn’t a breath of space between us.

  The next evening, when I returned to Gansevoort Street, he was already gone.

  He hadn’t taken the fine leather case. It was sitting there empty beside the stack of books, its lid leaning against the wall. In the end, he had stuffed his clothes into his brother’s gunnysack. I was surprised at first that he’d left the books behind; but on closer inspection, I saw that he’d taken the little, worn edition of Walden.

  The stove was cold. On top of it there was a note in Tinker’s hand, written on a torn endpaper.

  Dearest Kate,

  You have no idea what it has meant to me to see you these last two nights.

  To have left without speaking, without telling you the truth, would have been the only regret I carried away.

  I’m so glad that your life is going well. Having made a hash of mine, I know what a fine thing it is to have found your spot.

  It was a rotten year of my own making. But even at its worst, you always gave me a glimpse of what might otherwise be.

  I’m not sure where I’m going, he concluded. But wherever I end up, I’ll start every day by saying your name. As if by doing so, he might remain more true to himself.

  Then he signed it: Tinker Grey 1910 – ?

  I didn’t linger. I went down the stairs and into the street. I got as far as Eighth Avenue before turning back. I trudged all the way across Gansevoort, back over the cobblestones, up the narrow stair. And when I got into the room, I grabbed the painting of the dockworkers along with the volume of Washingtonia. One day he would regret having left them behind. I looked forward to being in a position to return them.

  Some of you will think this a romantic thing to have done. But at another level, the reason I went back for Tinker’s things was to assuage a sense of guilt. For when I had walked in the room and found it empty, even as I was fending off a sense of loss, a slender, vigorous part of myself was feeling a sense of relief.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A Ghost of Christmas Past

  On Friday, the 23rd of December, I was sitting at my kitchen table cutting slices from a ten-pound ham and drinking bourbon from a bottle. Beside my plate was a proof of the premier issue of Gotham. Mason had spent a lot of time thinking about the cover. He wanted it to be Eye-Catching, Beautiful, Witty, Scandalous, and above all else, a Surprise. So only three copies of the mock-up existed: Mason’s, the art director’s, and mine.

  It was a photograph of a naked woman standing behind a five-foot-high model of the San Remo apartment building. Through the windows you could see her skin, but curtains had been drawn selectively to obscure your view of her finer parts.

  I had been given one of the mock-ups because the image had been my idea.

  Well, sort of.

  It was actually a variation on a painting by René Magritte that I had seen at the Modern. Mason had loved the idea and bet me my career that I couldn’t find a woman to pose for it. The photograph was framed so that you couldn’t see the woman’s face, but if the curtains on the fifteenth floor had been open, you would have seen a pair of eggplant-colored silver-dollar aureoles.

  That afternoon Mason had called me into his office and asked me to sit—something he hadn’t done more than twice since the day he’d hired me. As it turned out, Alley had been on the money with her plan—both of us were going to be held on for another year.

  When I stood to go, Mason gave me his congratulations, the proof with the mock-up and, as a bonus, he threw in the honey-baked ham that the mayor had sent him. I knew it came from the mayor because His Honor’s warm wishes were written on a golden card in the shape of a star. Lugging the ham under my arm, at the door I turned back to thank Mr. Tate.

  —No thanks are necessary, he replied without looking up from his work. You’ve earned it.

  —Then thank you for giving me the opportunity in the first place.

  —You should thank your sponsor for that.

  —I’ll give Mr. Parish a call.

  Mason looked up from his desk and eyed me with curiosity.

  —You’d better keep a closer eye on who your friends are, Kontent. It wasn’t Parish who recommended you. It was Anne Grandyn. She’s the one who twisted my arm.

  I took another slug of bourbon.

  I wasn’t much of a bourbon drinker, but I had bought the bottle on the way home thinking it would go well wit
h the ham. And it did. I had bought a little Christmas tree too and set it up by the window. Without decorations it looked a little forlorn, so I pulled the mayor’s golden star off the ham and propped it on the highest branch. Then I got myself comfortable and opened Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Mrs. Christie’s latest. I had bought it back in November and had been saving it for tonight. But before I could get started, there was a knock at the door.

  I suppose it’s an immutable law of human nature that we sum up the events of the year as we approach its end. Among other things, 1938 had been a year of knockings at my door. There was the Western Union boy who brought Eve’s birthday wishes all the way from London; and Wallace with a bottle of wine and the rules of honeymoon bridge. Then Detective Tilson; then Bryce; then Anne.

  In the moment, only some of those intrusions seemed welcome; but I guess I should have treasured them all. Because in a few years’ time, I’d be living in a doorman building myself—and once you’re in a doorman building, no one comes knocking ever again.

  Tonight, the knocker at my door was a heavyset young man dressed in a Herbert Hoover suit. The walk up the stairs had winded him and his brow looked waxy with perspiration.

  —Miss Kontent?

  —Yes.

  —Miss Katherine Kontent?

  —That’s right.

  He was greatly relieved.

  —My name is Niles Copperthwaite. I am an attorney with Heavely & Hound.

  —You’re kidding, I said with a laugh.

  He looked taken aback.

  —Hardly, Miss Kontent.

  —I see. Well. An attorney making house calls on the Friday before Christmas. I hope I’m not in some sort of trouble.

  —No, Miss Kontent! You are not in any trouble.

  He said this with all the confidence of youth, but a moment later he added:

  —At least no trouble of which Heavely & Hound is aware.

  —A well-considered qualification, Mr. Copperthwaite. I shall bear it in mind. How can I help you?

  —You have helped me already by being home at your previously listed address. I come at the behest of a client.

  He reached behind the doorjamb and produced a long object wrapped in heavy white paper. It was tied with a polka-dot ribbon and had a tag that read DON’T OPEN TIL XMAS.

  —This is being delivered, he said, as per the instruction of—

  —One Wallace Wolcott.

  —That’s right.

  He hesitated.

  —It’s a little out of the ordinary, as . . .

  —As Mr. Wolcott is no longer with us.

  We were both silent.

  —If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Kontent, I can see that you are surprised. I hope the surprise is not an unpleasant one.

  —Mr. Copperthwaite, if there were mistletoe over my door, I would kiss you.

  —Well, yes. I mean . . . no.

  He stole a glance at the top of the door frame, then straightened his posture and said more formally:

  —A Merry Christmas to you, Miss Kontent.

  —And a Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Copperthwaite.

  I was never the type to wait until Christmas morning to open gifts. If I’ve got a Christmas present in my grips on the Fourth of July, I’ll open it by the light of the fireworks. So I sat down in my easy chair and opened this package that had been waiting so patiently to come knocking at my door.

  It was a rifle. I didn’t know it then, but it was a Winchester 1894 from a small run overseen by John Moses Browning himself. It had a walnut stock, an ivory sight, and elaborate, floral scrolling on the polished-brass frame. It was a rifle you could have worn to your wedding.

  Wallace Wolcott sure had the gift of timing. You had to grant him that.

  I balanced the rifle in my palms the way that Wallace had taught me. It probably weighed no more than four pounds. I pulled back the action and looked inside the empty chamber. I closed it again and leveled the gun against my shoulder. Sighting down the barrel, I aimed at the top of my little Christmas tree and then I shot the mayor’s star right off the top.

  DECEMBER 30

  Twenty minutes before the whistle, the foreman circled by and told them to slow the fuck down.

  In a long chain, teams of two were relaying sacks of sugar from a Caribbean freighter to a warehouse on the Hell’s Kitchen wharf. He and the Negro they called King were at the front of the chain. So when the foreman gave the order, King reset the tempo: one-one-thousand hook, two-one-thousand heft, three-one-thousand turn, four-one-thousand toss.

  On the day after Christmas, the union of tugboat engineers had gone on strike without warning or the support of the longshoremen. At the edge of the Lower Bay, somewhere off Sandy Hook and Breezy Point, an armada of cargo ships were drifting, waiting to make landfall. So the word, up and down the line, was to ease it. God willing, the strike would be over before the ships in dock were empty, and they’d be able to keep the crews intact.

  As the new man, well he knew that if they began cutting, he’d be the first to go.

  But that was just as it should be.

  The pace that King had chosen was a good one. It let him feel the strength in his arms and his legs and his back. The strength was moving through him now with every swing of the hook like an electrical charge. It was a feeling that he had lived without for a long time. Like the feeling of hunger before supper, or exhaustion before sleep.

  Another good thing about the pace was that it allowed for a little more conversation :

  (One-one-thousand hook.)

  —So where are you from, King?

  —Harlem.

  (Two-one-thousand heft.)

  —How long have you lived there?

  —All my life.

  (Three-one-thousand turn.)

  —How long have you worked this wharf?

  —Even longer.

  (Four-one-thousand toss.)

  —What’s it like?

  —Just like heaven: full of fine folk who mind their own business.

  He smiled at King and hooked the next sack. Because he understood what King was driving at. It was the same in Fall River. Nobody liked the new guy to begin with. For every man the company hired, there were twenty brothers or uncles or childhood pals who’d been passed over. So the less trouble you made for yourself the better. And that meant carrying your weight and keeping your mouth shut.

  When the whistle sounded, King lingered as the other men headed for the Tenth Avenue bars.

  He lingered too. He offered King a cigarette and they smoked with their backs against a packing crate, watching the men retreat. They smoked idly without speaking. When they were done with their cigarettes, they tossed the butts off the pier and began walking toward the gates.

  Halfway between the freighter and the warehouse, there was a pile of sugar on the ground. One of the men must have torn the burlap of a sack with his hook. King paused over the sugar and shook his head. Then he knelt, took a fistful, and put it in his pocket.

  —Come on, he said. You might as well take some too. If you don’t, it’s just going to the rats.

  So he knelt down and took some too. It was amber and crystalline. He almost put it in his right pocket, but remembered in time that the right pocket was the one with the hole, so he put it in his left.

  When they got to the gate, he asked King if he wanted to walk a bit. King gestured with his head in the general direction of the elevated. He was headed home to a wife and kids. King had never said as much, but he didn’t need to. You could just tell.

  The day before, when work let out, he had walked south along the wharf. So today, he walked north.

  With nightfall, the air had grown bitter cold and he wished that he had worn his sweater under his coat.

  The piers above Fortieth Street reached into the deepest waters of the Hudson and were lined with the largest ships. Bound for Argentina, the one at Pier 75 looked like a fortress, impregnable and gray. He had heard that it was looking for seafaring men, and he
might have angled for the job if he had only saved enough money. He was hoping to wander a bit once he’d made port. But there would be other chances on other boats heading to other places.

  On Pier 77, there was a Cunard ocean liner stocked for a transatlantic crossing. On Boxing Day, it was blowing its horn and the confetti was falling from the upper decks to the docks—when word of the strike reached the helm. Cunard sent the passengers home, advising them to leave their trunks on board, as the strike was sure to be resolved within the day. Five days later, every stateroom had its share of cocktail dresses and evening gowns, of waistcoats and cummerbunds waiting in a ghostly silence—like the costumes in the attics of an opera house.

  On Pier 80, the longest pier on the Hudson, there were no ships in dock. It jutted out into the river like the first leg of a new highway. He walked all the way out to the end. He took another cigarette from the pack and lit it with his lighter. Snapping the lighter shut, he turned and leaned against a piling.

  From the end of the pier he could see the city’s skyline in its entirety—the whole staggered assembly of townhouses and warehouses and skyscrapers stretching from Washington Heights to the Battery. Nearly every light in every window in every building seemed to be shimmering and tenuous—as if powered by the animal spirits within—by the arguments and endeavors, the whims and elisions. But here and there, scattered across the mosaic, were also the isolated windows that seemed to burn a little brighter and more constant—the windows lit by those few who acted with poise and purpose.

  He scuffed out his cigarette and decided to dwell in the cold a little while longer.