At the desk in the lobby of the Y were two phone messages for her. Both from Steven Larrabee. He’d call again later. Steven Larrabee—so that was his name. In the elevator she tried it on: Mrs. Steven Larrabee. Larrabee-McAllister nuptials announced. Janice Larrabee of the PTA, wife of a—whatever did he do for a living? She had forgotten.
She inserted the key into the lock and experienced a sudden shudder because the door was unlocked. She nudged it with her foot, as they did in all those movies, and the door fanned open, all the way, in a practiced arc, even creaking just to sweeten the drama. She waited, just a beat, making certain that no one was standing there; then she peeked in. A light was on, dimly. And there, standing before the crucifix that hung on the far wall, facing her with his hands clasped over his belly like a saintly harbinger of peace—yes—Luther. Luther, Luther, Luther. The Ghost of Christmas Present.
Tiger was five steps beyond anger and five others short of comprehension. She solidified where she stood. Abject shock was her bag. A pious Luther was standing before her, like a priest calling at the home of an unfortunate parishioner. His collar was turned around, and he was a curly-topped Pat O’Brien about to talk the men out of a prison riot. What a soul-searing sight. Luther before the cross, God’s emissary. “Hi,” he said. “Pax vobiscum and all that shit.” The anger and power of J. Christ were certainly being put to the test.
“Oh, Luther,” she said softly, with somebody else’s voice, probably that of a grade school teacher. “How did you get in here?”
“I told them I was God. They had to let me in because God is so well thought of around here.”
She closed the door and stepped into the room. “Luther, I don’t believe you—the things you do. You could be arrested.”
“Not if I’m God.” He genuflected like a spastic atheist.
She studied him and damned if he didn’t look like a holy man. And all she could say were her usual famous words: “Oh, Luther.”
He picked up the little ballet dancer doll. “I believe, as a parent, I have certain visiting privileges.”
She was pleased that he wasn’t ranting as he had been doing that afternoon. “Well…you can’t keep following me around. You have to stop someday.”
“Why?” He set the doll down and smiled at her, most benign.
Tiger took her time, gathering her thoughts and constructing her prose so that, perhaps, tonight, it could all be ended, amicably and forever. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. It was very funny what you did in the office, very funny. And I laughed a lot about it, I really did, but I just don’t think life can be laughed at all the time. People…have to be able to accept responsibilities.” She had to laugh at her pedagogy. “Oh, listen to her.”
He seemed to understand her point, but still spoke calmly in his own behalf. “I collected a lot of money in your office. I could work that whole building and become very prosperous and responsible in a week.”
“Luther”—it was becoming increasingly more difficult for her because, as was always the case, he had fixed on a stand and was proving to be immovable—“I think that when I left you, I figured I’d end up going back to you. I did. Really. And that thought…sustained me. It sustained me because, well, because working my way back into the Establishment hasn’t exactly been a whole barrel of monkeys. But it doesn’t make much sense now. Going back, I mean. You know?”
“Why?”
“Well—what would I be going back to? All you offer me is…limbo.”
“It’s a very nice place, limbo.”
“Oh, sure. A lot of old movie houses. And all we do is go from one to another until all the film runs out. And then what?”
“I don’t know. What’s playing next week?”
She attacked head on, but with a tender maturity she was pleased to discover in herself. “You know I can’t live with you anymore, don’t you? You know it as well as I do?”
“All the lights are out in my apartment.”
“You didn’t pay the electric bill.” She was swiftly growing years and years older. He was moving in the opposite direction. “Luther, it was right on the table.”
“Everything in the refrigerator died. The Jello died. Three apples died. Four pieces of salami are dying.”
Her ship was nosing down in a sea of desperation. Already one man was overboard. “Luther, bills have to be paid. They don’t go away. They’re part of reality, and reality has to be faced. Well, doesn’t it? Don’t we have to face reality?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to do. I mean”—her arm shot out like a tour guide’s—“look at this room. The height of Presbyterianism, no?”
“Yes. Stay here and you’ll always vote Republican. How can you do that when there are still some Kennedys left?”
“But, Luther, this is me. This room, it’s what I am. It’s what I come from and—” She smiled at the hurt little boy. “I don’t believe I can go on playing Florence Nightingale to your King Kong.”
He smiled. “I know.”
“Do you? Do you, really?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you come here?”
“I picked up your scent. This building is upwind of my pad.”
“No. You came here to talk me into coming back to you.”
“No.”
“Yes. I know you Luther.”
“No, you don’t.” And maybe she didn’t. He was so passive, so quietly convinced of what he was saying. “I came here to tell you good-bye. We never said it. It got lost in the shuffle.”
She felt her equilibrium failing. If he was plotting something, she didn’t want to fall into the pit of it. “Luther, we’re playing word games. I can’t do that anymore. I can’t. And I’m not going to let you trap me. I’m not going to say ‘I love you’ because it implies commitment, and I can’t commit to you, because you can’t commit to anything.”
“I know.”
She was Japan fighting China. She had superior arms, but how could she win when all he did was drop back and encircle? She would have to make one strong offensive thrust at the heart of things, so she stuck her hand out toward him. “Luther, good-bye and—well, good-bye.”
He stood his ground, just smiling and nodding his head in agreement. If she wasn’t careful, he’d agree her to death.
“Luther, I’ll…see you around.” Her hand was still stuck out in the air, stiff, certain, unwavering.
He didn’t take it. He just kept smiling and nodding, as if knowing that once he clasped that hand, it would be the end of it, so long and farewell.
“Maybe Disneyland.” She smiled. “I’ll see you in Disneyland, okay?”
“It’s a big place.”
“I’ll find you.”
“Well, I’ll be the third ride from the left as you come in.”
“Okay.”
“If you can’t find me, ask a guide.”
“All right.”
“They’re very good. They have to deal with a lot of lost kids.”
“I know.” She looked at her hand, that dumb appendage, still sticking in the air. It was like a gun pointed at his heart. And it had a hair trigger, so look out.
“Well…”
“Good-bye, Luther.”
“Right.” He reached out and took her hand and pumped it as though he had just met up with an old football buddy. “Right.”
“Right.” And she prepared to remove her hand from his, convinced that when she tried to pull it free, it would stay glued there, forever, which, Lord knows, if she had the bad judgment to follow her idiot heart, was what she wanted. But the hand came easily free, and she was naked and friendless, and would surely die if he didn’t grab her, and wrap her up, and take her home, and figure out a way to pay for her later.
But all he did was nod and walk slowly to the door. And if it took him much longer to get there—Go, Luther, go. Stay. Go. Die. Shit.
His hand was already on the doorknob when he turned and came quickly bac
k to her, to hug her, she hoped, and tell her she was nuts and that it was not over because it could never be over. Instead, he thrust something into her hand and started out again, saying as he was leaving. “You’re the only person in the world I’d ever give that to. It’s worth fifty dollars.”
She looked at the little pink card in her hand, a Monopoly card. A Take-a-Chance card. “Get out of Jail Free.” She looked up, about to laugh, and he was already gone. The door was still closing. The door closed. It set in cement and grew covered with dust and mold. And grass sprung up around it. And Ivy impeded its ever being found again. And already the mourners were gathering, and all of them were her. Farewell, Luther. Godspeed. Send me Christmas cards. And if you ever find your way, won’t that be somethin’ grand?
22
The next day in the office Tiger knew that she had turned a big corner. Whatever she was to be, all of it lay ahead. Much of it would be trial and error, some of it pithy and dull, lots of it annoying and painful, but bits of it—small tinies of it—would be fruitful and worthwhile. It would be like panning for gold. It would take time and torture. There’d be false hopes and terrible disappointments. But one day she’d come upon it, and it would be the biggest thing since the Comstock Lode.
She typed away at Walter Miller’s reports, working loosely and well. No mistakes, no deliberative pauses. Just on and on, Tessie the Typist, a working girl out of Dreiser. Who will buy my violets? And who will be my love?
The door to her small private office opened, and Martha shone in. “Hey? Where’s your boss?”
Tiger looked up from Wagner v. North Dakota. “He went down to the drugstore for a Bromo or something. Why? What’s up?”
Martha was not concerned. “Oh, we have to evacuate the building.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Another of those crazy bomb scares.”
“No kidding? Okay.” She got up.
“A phone call to our switchboard. Called himself the Mad Bomber of London. Awful lot of lunatics running around this city. Anyway, shake it up. I’ll meet you downstairs. We’ll have lunch.” Martha disappeared.
Tiger stood there and sighed and smiled. And she thought, Oh, Luther. And she looked down at her desk so piled with work, so much to do. And even as she heard the people scuffling through the halls, she figured she’d better sit down and attend to the typing.
Outside, the building was emptying, the revolving door scooping up people as they came out of the elevators, then paddling them out into the street. To most of the evacuees it came as a welcome respite from the day’s drudgery.
On the ninth floor Tiger went clackety-clack and the words danced off the ribbon and onto the paper. Clackety-clack, party of the first part, plaintiff against the state, whereas and heretofore, and in lieu of and notwithstanding. Then she stopped. Abruptly. Her fingers froze on the air. And the horror of it spun ten times around in her brain and then came screaming through her eyes. For it had all taken frightening shape…And she knew. Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy…
It was a loud noise, enormous and ricocheting. A flash of shock white. Then a roar. Then a crumbling of superstructure and an agonizing twisting of girders, and a cloud of collapsing plaster giving birth to flying photographs and ripped swatches of wall. Carpet curled and tiles popped up from lavatory floors. And glass continued to shatter long after…tinkling bells, sleighs going o’er the fields to Grandma’s. And somewhere within the monstrousness of it all, a young girl, who had just been passing through this world, saw her skirt come flying above her head and then saw nothing more.
Did I ever tell you about the time I walked backwards all the way to Newark? That was no mean trick. It took three months to accomplish, and the bore of it was that it received no acclaim. Shit, people go over falls in barrels and waltz through fire nude, stupid things—dumb—and they get public reverence. But walk backwards to Newark, through traffic and rain, and you might just as well have stayed in Passaic for all the recognition you gain. It was then I knew that whatever I was to make of my life, it would all be done without anyone caring. The first hint I ever had of the “alone road” I was to go had nothing to do with Newark. It had to do with that terrific nosebleed I had in the middle of the night when I set the alarm for 11:45 P.M. because it was New Year’s Eve and I wanted to get up and smack together two dishpans I had stuck under my bed for just that purpose. I smacked them together, all right, but I got my fucking nose caught between them and nobody heard my screams because they were all having such a good time with Guy Lombardo, bringing in 1947. So I bled like a stuck pig while the world cheered. It may interest you to know that I almost died.
On Madison Avenue there was chaos and disbelief. The large office building still stood, but up there, the whole ninth floor was sticking out like a xylophone of busted dinosaur ribs. Charred beams protruded, hanging over the street like tank barriers. And loose wires, exposed ganglia, fluttered and groped about in search of new veins to solder onto. Smoke and dust billowed out, and a light ash filtered down like a volcanic snow, ever so delicately, and ever so sad.
Snow is interesting because it never falls the same way twice. Nor does it make any noise. If snow could speak, I guess it would say “look out.” Snow, I had been told early on, was Angel Dandruff, a rather unpleasant thought if you think of all the nice people supposedly up there, floating around and singing religious ditties and fucking on the wing, and all of them with dandruff. Yacccch. If snow is Angel Dandruff, then does it not follow that rain is God’s sweat? And if you think about it, isn’t that right and proper? Because shouldn’t that cunning old son of a bitch do a little sweating over the miserable job he’s doing? And if you stay with that line of thinking, can’t you pretty much get a picture of what the old fraud is doing up there when we get floods and mud slides down here? Isn’t it all a part of the chronic dysentery that the ever-loving Lord has been contending with since He first gave earth life through his majestic seven-day defecation? The cure for all mankind, then, is huge doses of Ex-Lax, shot into the sky in place of rockets. And like that one particle of sperm that survives the acid of the vaginal tract, maybe one little chunk of Ex-Lax will find its way up the Almighty’s ass and then, maybe, we can get a little peace and quiet down here. Let us pray.
At street level the fire engines were at work, ladders groping skyward, snaky hoses dowsing everything within their reach. Emergency vehicles were on the scene, huffing and sighing. And firemen in helmets and slickers, looking like unsheathed penes, ran this way and that, shouting to one another like players in a losing game. The police were already fencing off the crowd, and the injured were at work probing dirty fingers through each other’s superficial wounds. Ambulances gathered in fitful bunches, and white-jacketed interns scattered out like escaping convicts. Debris littered the street, cars covered with chunks of cement and slivers of glass. Sirens wailed in the manner of keening widows, while underneath the street, subways continued to mole in oblivious patterns to Queens and Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Many of the building’s former occupants stood about counting noses. Martha was there, scanning the crowd, searching for Tiger, whom she had not seen come out of the building. Walter Miller, burping like a grease gun, came by, and Martha grabbed his arm and, disdainful of rank, asked him if he’d seen Janice McAllister anywhere. He hadn’t.
Some fifty yards away from the heart of the action and well beyond the police barricade, the tall young man stood, leaning dispassionately against a mailbox.
I don’t see her, do you? I don’t know what she was wearing. I guess it was something on the order of a pert blouse and a neat skirt. She’s about twenty years old with brown eyes and kind of dirty blond hair, natural, so it tends to be kind of tawny. She answers to the name Janice, but some of you may remember her by her heathen name, Tiger. If you see her, please report it to the lifeguards. She’s forever wandering off. Her parents are terribly worried, and I myself have come from a very busy day to look for her. Anyway, keep your eyes open, or you
’re liable to miss her. And nobody wants that.
Walter Miller and Martha Wesloski and some others were in their panic. They grabbed out at policemen in motion. They voiced their fearful suspicion to firemen. Perhaps Janice McAllister was still up there. If she was, she’d be dead, said the only fireman they could get a reaction from. But perhaps she’d gotten out. Officer? Officer!
Pretty day. And the ocean’s so calm you could stick a canoe on it. And I hate to bother you with my problem, but this girl, she wandered away from the umbrella at about, oh, I’d say two o’clock and—shit, oh dear—there she is. Thank God. Hey! Tiger? Yoo-hoo! Over here! Here I am! I’m waving, you dummy, can’t you see me? Right! Attagirl! Come on!…Well, that’s a goddamned relief. I was really worried. But, as you can see, she hasn’t a mark on her from that nasty wave that tumbled her over. I suppose I should act immediately angry and scold her. You’re supposed to do that when a kid walks away, you know. But if you don’t mind, I’ll dispense with that kind of horseshit. I am so damned relieved, I—Here, Tiger, Here, puss puss. Come on, baby…Hi.
A Glimpse of Tiger Page 17