Boulevard

by Jim Grimsley

  Back in the room, when he opened one of the garbage bags and put the empty soup cans in it, a cockroach crawled out of one of the cans and across the back of his hand. He flung the thing off him and the can into the bag and smashed the cockroach with his foot. He washed his hand with a lot of lather and hot water.

  He counted his money. Fifty dollars and some change.

  An edge of summer heat touched the city that night, a feeling that the air remained too warm for comfort late into the night, not hot but not comfortable, and he found himself too warm under the blanket and too cool without it. Late, he drifted to sleep, woke, and drifted again, a rocking motion in and out of sleep, dreamless as far as he could remember, except for a moment when he was sure he was standing at his door to this apartment, afraid to walk to the courtyard because Shaquita Jarman, someone he had been afraid of in high school, was waiting down there to call him a cracker-head chicken-leg no-ass motherfucker again. He woke up for good near dawn, sighed, and got out of bed. The sky flushed pink, the buildings drew on colors slowly, he stood on the balcony, wondering what to do, maybe buy another paper and read the ads again.

  He found some quarters on his desk, pulled on clothes in a rush, and went down the stairs and through the long, dark passageway to the street. He walked to the Verti Mart because he had seen papers on sale there, and sure enough it was open, and he bought a paper from another nice cashier. The same green newsprint as before. He must have looked at it funny, because the cashier looked at it too, and shrugged. “Newspaper been green for a while, honey. Lord knows.”

  “It must be recycled or something.”

  “Get out. Aren’t you the cleverest thing?”

  He took the paper to Jackson Square and read it with the pigeons rushing from side to side in scurrying clusters, fighting for a few crumbs. There were a few new ads for manager jobs and administrative assistant jobs, medical technologists and radiation therapists, positions to which he could hardly aspire. Some of the hotels listed here were the places that had already turned Newell down, or more or less turned him down in that polite but indefinite way, we really don’t know what we can do for you right now.

  So he read the paper itself, and he found himself surprised to learn that it was Wednesday; he had lost his sense of where he was in the week. The local news made no sense, about places like Plaquemines Parish, Shreveport, names completely unfamiliar to him, and even the national news, the latest about Jimmy Carter, for instance, or where Betty Ford was speaking this week, came to him as though diluted; perhaps because the paper was green, nothing he read in it seemed quite real.

  He spent the day aimlessly, wandering along Canal Street, going into shops, wishing he had money to buy all sorts of things that he saw. Wandering down Ramparts, along Esplanade beyond the French Quarter, down Frenchmen into the Fauborg, noting everywhere the same kinds of curious houses built right up to the line of the street, or with fences along the street, and balconies and galleries, wooden curlicues, people sitting on steps, propping one leg, talking, chewing on the end of a match or puffing a cigarette. He took note of everything, all the while keeping his eye on the names of streets to make sure he knew how to find his way back to Barracks.

  The next day he walked to the Circle K as soon as it opened, only to learn it was the manager’s day off, and he would have to wait. He headed to the White Biscuit but lost his nerve at the point of going inside, heading home for a can of soup to ease his empty stomach, to count his money again.

  Closing the shutters to darken the room, he lay on the bed in the dusky light and let the fan stir air across him. He tried to think of nothing at all. He could read the paper again, he could look again. He could look for jobs farther away. It was not time to panic yet, he still had some soup left, he had some money left, it would last for a few more days. He arrived at this point in his thinking only to find the fear returning, the knot in his stomach that told him he was failing, he would have to go home to Alabama, he would never make it here with so little money, he had miscalculated and would have to try again.

  I still have the money for a ticket home, he thought, I can leave tomorrow if I want to; and once he thought this, he realized he would be all right, he could stay for a couple more days, at least, he could ask his landlady to give him part of his rent back if he left in a week, maybe. He already knew how much the bus ticket home would cost, about twenty-eight dollars, same as the price for the one-way ticket he had bought to come here.

  So he could safely spend twenty or so dollars before he had to go home, and he could draw that out for a few days, at least. He could spare a few quarters to do a load of laundry at the corner.

  After a while the ache in his stomach eased away, and he slept through the afternoon in the dim light. When he woke he felt calmer and figured he had panicked, but that maybe nothing was wrong, maybe he should simply get up from the bed and go out again, visit all those restaurants and hotels and offices again, pester them till someone gave him what he needed. Surely he would be able to do that? But his confidence faltered after he was awake for a while, when he thought of his little fold of money, when he thought of eating another can of soup for supper, and nothing the rest of the night but water.

  The next day, even though he was supposed to go to the Circle K again, he was afraid to get up; he stayed in bed till afternoon, then dressed and walked as far as the Verti Mart to buy laundry detergent, soup, toothpaste, hurrying home again, with rain beginning to pelt the streets. He stayed in bed the rest of the day, read more of the science fiction novel, and dozed. Listless, hardly able to contemplate anything.

  In the morning he made himself bathe and dress, down to forty-two dollars and forty cents. He walked to the restaurant, his stomach in knots. It was Saturday, and the manager, Curtis, was in the middle of a rush, so that he could pause to talk to Newell only for a moment. Newell figured that meant bad news, and Curtis kept dashing around from table to table anyway, so that Newell had to stand and wait. Curtis rushed by with a tray full of plates and glasses and said, “The dishwasher didn’t quit, but wait a minute,” he turned the corner. Newell’s heart was sinking, there was no job, and here was suddenly Curtis again in his face. “But the bus boy left. Do you want to be a bus boy?”

  He could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Sure.”

  “Well, I can’t stop to talk to you right now. Come back this afternoon about three o’clock. Can you start Tuesday?”

  “Sure. That’s fine.”

  “Good. Come back and talk to me this afternoon.”

  Curtis rushed away, and Newell went on standing there, dumbfounded. After a while he realized he ought to leave, so he drifted to the door, walked outside, realized he could relax now, the anxious feeling could dissolve. He would come back this afternoon, he would talk to Curtis, he would go to work as a bus boy. He figured that was the job Curtis had been doing while he was talking to Newell, clearing the tables and carrying the dishes to the dishwasher and setting the tables again. For doing this he would earn money, and it was only the third of June—he had plenty of time to make the rent. He felt himself relaxing. He could stay.

  When he returned at three o’clock, the tables were mostly empty, a few pairs of men or women sipping coffee. Curtis was sitting at a desk crammed against the corner near a blocked door. He had Newell sit down and fill out some papers and explained the tax forms. He told Newell the job paid four dollars fifty cents an hour plus tips. The waiters he worked with would each tip him at the end of their shifts. How much would depend on how busy the restaurant was, but if Newell felt like he was being cheated, he could say so. Had he ever worked in a restaurant before? Well, that didn’t matter. What mattered in the Circle K was that Newell had to keep the tables clean, keep the water glasses filled, and look cute while he was doing it, so people would keep coming back to the restaurant to see him. Curtis said that with a perfectly straight face, and when Newell giggled, Curtis merely smiled, though in a rather tired way. “You don’t think I’
m kidding, do you? I wouldn’t hire you if you weren’t cute, sweetheart. Not to work out front.”

  He would work breakfast and lunch shifts Tuesday through Sunday, with Monday off. He was due at work by 6:30 A.M. every day except Sunday, when the restaurant opened later, and he would get off work by two in the afternoon every day. Absorbing every detail as if his life depended on it, Newell studied the rooms, the neatly placed wooden tables, the framed prints on the wall, drawings of men with no shirts and tight pants, big crotches, big eyes with long lashes, in pairs or groups, eyeing one another greedily.

  “When is payday?” Newell asked.

  “End of shift on Tuesday. For the week before. But you’ll get your tips every day.”

  Walking home he could hardly believe it, that it was done, that he had a job, that he started in three days, that he would have to get up very early every morning, even earlier than for the IGA; he would have to buy a cheap alarm clock—he couldn’t rely on his watch. But he could buy an alarm clock out of the forty some dollars he had left, a sum that appeared more substantial now that it only had to last a few days. He could buy something to eat besides soup, and starting on Tuesday, he could eat two meals a day for free at the restaurant.

  He could buy the magazine if he wanted it, he realized, he could buy Brute Hombre with the picture of Rod Hardigan on the cover. Twelve dollars to own it, and he could afford it if he found an alarm clock that was cheap enough. So he went to his room right away and got his money, leaving twenty and taking the rest, heading to the junk store downstairs, figuring it was smart to check with Miss Kimbro first. She struck him as a woman who understood a bargain.

  The junk store had a lot of traffic, this being a Saturday afternoon, but he explored the store till he found a row of clocks, still in their store boxes, marked for two dollars apiece. The clocks had alarms and lighted dials, and he figured he could plug one in by the refrigerator and set it on top, and if the dial was really lighted he could read the time from across the room. Two dollars was in his price range.

  It was sitting on a book, an old one with a cloth cover, The Flavor of the French Quarter. The book was fifty cents. Inside were pictures of the buildings he was seeing every day. He picked up the book, too.

  Miss Kimbro was working by herself this afternoon. With her reading glasses low on her nose, she wrote in her ledger, “General Electric alarm clock in original box and old book.”

  “So, you’re doing all right up there?” she asked.

  “I sure am. I found a job today.”

  “You don’t say.” She was frowning, but he could tell she was pleased. “Well, then, I guess you’re all right now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes ma’am. I’m going to be a bus boy at a restaurant.”

  “We all have to start somewhere,” she said, though he was not quite sure what she meant. “You can bring that clock back if it doesn’t work, and try another one. Keep it in the box.”

  “When I get the money, can I get a phone up there?”

  “Of course you can. Now run along, I’m by myself today.”

  He took the clock and the book upstairs, set the book on his bed, plugged in the clock. The second hand swept round and the face lit a soft amber color. He set the alarm for the next hour and waited to see if it would work. At 3 p.m. the alarm sounded, a nice loud buzz, and he figured it would be enough to wake him.

  He looked at the book for a while. Read a page that defined what a “walled city” was, what an “abat vent” was, each with illustrations. The book was stuffed with pictures and facts. There might even be something in it about this very building he was standing in. Newell felt pleased that he could spare fifty cents on his education; it made him feel as if he might come to understand this place. But he was too restless, now, to read.

  Outside, low, the sound of a ship’s horn, the ship passing upriver, he guessed, toward the container docks. From other directions the sound of traffic, from across the wall a television in the neighbor’s apartment. The low hum of the ceiling fan, a sound he hardly heard anymore. A drip in the bathroom sink. Here he was, he could stay here now, he could earn a living and keep his room, he could stay.

  By the time he reached St. Ann, he was already picturing the rows of magazines, the glossy cover, the pimply blond at the cash register. He crossed the street, dodging one of the metal horse heads, opened the door and stepped inside. He walked down the long row of shelves past the cash register, and yes, this time it was the blond kid on the cash register. He looked about Newell’s age, and Newell wondered how someone so forlorn-looking had ever landed a swell job like this one. But by then he had found the copy of Brute Hombre, the hairy-chested man on the cover, the harsh block letters of the title slashing him through the forehead. Shoulders like a span of bridge. Newell gripped the magazine, wrapped in plastic and sealed with tape, as though it were some sacred object. On the back another picture of this man, Rod Hardigan, this time wearing only a pair of leather chaps and some kind of skimpy underwear, his thighs bulging, his body managing to look as if it were bursting out of itself, Newell found himself staring and wondered how long he had been standing there holding the magazine.

  At the moment only a couple of other people were shopping in the store. Newell took a deep breath and walked to the cash register where Louis—the name came to him now—Louis, with a spray of acne across his nose and cheeks, and long hair that could have used a washing, a hook nose, and nearly absent lips, where Louis took the magazine from him and stared at it as if trying to remember what he was supposed to do. Louis gave Newell a slack smile as the cash register shook and spit out a price, including sales tax. Newell accepted his change and the brown bag. Louis tried to count the money into Newell’s hand but kept getting lost, started over twice, finally shoved the money at Newell and said, “Here.”

  From the back of the store walked the old man, Mac, whose hair appeared darker today, and Newell guessed he had probably put a rinse in it, like Flora did to her hair. “Howdy,” Mac said, “pleasant day, ain’t it?”

  The job had left Newell feeling friendly and even a little confident, so he spoke up. “Yes sir. But it looks like rain tonight.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes sir. Later on.”

  “Well, then, you better run your little tail on home,” Mac said, pulling a pack of Camel cigarettes out of his pocket. “Before you get wet. What did you buy?”

  Newell handed him the magazine in the paper bag without thinking. Some quality of Mac disarmed him, caused him to believe the request was good-intentioned. Mac looked at the cover and rubbed his jaw, scratchy with beard-shadow. “You got good taste. That one is high quality.”

  “It sure cost enough.”

  “You’re buying quality, son. You pay the price for color printing and good paper stock.”

  Newell took the bag again. Mac turned to Louis, blew smoke in Louis’s face. “Hey, you pimple-face son of a bitch, did you bag up them new magazines yet?”

  “I ain’t had time.”

  “Well, you better get time. We’re going to have some customers in here after a while.”

  Newell dipped his head to say good-bye, and Mac did the same, and Newell carried the magazine out of the store with a better feeling about himself, a less furtive way of thinking about the fact that he had bought a book with pictures of naked men in it. Quality, it was. He hurried down St. Ann to Decatur Street and walked straight down to Barracks. For the first time since he had come here he hardly noticed the city at all. He had rolled up the magazine in its bag and carried it in his hand like a brown baton. Forward with a brisk stride he walked, and arrived at the door to the long, dark passageway, walked through it into the loggia and up the stairs to his room.

  He sat in the chair by the door to the gallery and held the bag in his lap. He slipped out the plastic bag, unfastened the tape, and pulled the slick magazine out of its wrapper.

  Finding himself watching the eyes of the man in the photograph, between brown and haz
el, with a translucence that created the illusion of depth, as if the man were actually seeing, as if someone were inside the photograph. The man with his heavy beard and shaggy chest, the tip of his tongue visible, touching the fullness of his lower lip, the slight look of pout, the languid slouch of the pelvis.

  Inside the cover, on the very first page, under a title that said, “Rod the Rock,” the same man stood facing the camera, naked this time, with his private parts showing, so that they could hardly be called private at all any more. Newell had seen only a few penises, mostly relatives and boys in gym, none as large as this, and he stared at it, arched forward from Rod the Rock’s thick thighs, Rod staring out at Newell as if inviting him to touch it, to find a way to reach into the paper and touch it.

  This was different from what Newell had done in Pastel, different from fumbling with his zipper in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet having some fantasy about Little Joe Cartwright from Bonanza, and hoping Flora stayed close enough to the TV that she couldn’t hear the racket he was making. Afterward, straightening the jeans on his narrow hips, he’d head off to supper where Flora waited at the table with her mild blue eyes, uncurious expression, and open can of Pabst.

  Here what excited him was a fixed object, a picture, floating in space. When he read the words again, “Rod the Rock,” when he looked at the shape of the man’s body, the mass of it, calling up some feeling, Newell felt himself as if he were dissolving into the picture, as if the world of that image were more vivid than the room on Barracks Street where the ceiling fan turned slowly. For a long time Newell hardly thought about where he was at all; he sat without stirring from the chair, only turning the pages, daring nothing more than to run his fingers over each page before he turned to the next, the gesture like a caress, as though he were actually laying his hands on this man’s skin.