The hand came out of the pocket holding a long brown-handled knife, with no blade showing. There was a short silver metal cross at the end facing Max. The teenager angled his body so that the handle was hidden from the passing traffic. There was a sliding noise and a blade appeared, flashing into view. “Give me your fucking money or I’ll cut you bad,” he talked fast and flicked the blade at Max’s stomach, only a foot away. “Hurry up, man. I don’t want to fuck around. Just give me the fucking money.”
Max had left the apartment without his wallet or change. To call home he had had to use his phone credit card number. He wasn’t going to plead that, however. “Go ahead. Cut me. I don’t have any money to give you.”
“Come on,” the kid stepped closer and flicked the blade at Max. “Don’t fuck around.”
It was hopeless. The world was a hopeless and stupid place. Max felt the heat of its selfishness and looked away toward the Hudson. He would die in sight of it. That at least had dignity.
Max shook his head no at the mugger, his mouth in a regretful pout.
The teenager lunged at Max’s chest with the blade. Instinctively, Max moved one step to his right. He didn’t shift far enough. The knife sank into him. Max lowered his head and watched as the metal disappeared into his arm and chest. He felt nothing. With the blade all the way in, the teenager’s face was only inches from Max’s; he stared at the point of entry, stunned, his mouth sagging open. The mugger’s eyes were small and frightened. Max didn’t like him. He put his hand on the kid’s chest and pushed him away. He didn’t want to die looking into scared eyes.
The mugger stumbled back, tripped over his feet and fell on his ass. Max felt the point of the blade in his armpit. He realized he wasn’t cut. The stupid kid had stuck the knife in the space below Max’s armpit, the gap between his arm and chest. He had torn Max’s polo shirt, but missed everything else. For a moment the knife hung there, caught by the fabric. Max raised his arm and the switchblade fell to the ground.
The teenager jumped to his feet and ran away, heading uptown. Bewildered, Max peered into the jagged hole in his shirt. No cut, no scrape, no wound of any kind.
“They can’t kill me,” he said aloud, the traffic drowning his mild tone. “They want to kill me,” he admitted and he smiled affectionately at the West Side skyline, at the architecture of the city of his birth, “but they can’t.”
14
Max walked the fifty blocks to his office. The city was exposed to a bright sun, heating up the closely packed corridors between the tall buildings. New Yorkers walking in the oven were smoked by fumes of car exhaust and street cooking. Max watched their faces, fascinated. The midtown blocks were jammed with people of color and clothing of color and there were lots of glistening skin and bold hairdos. Max enjoyed their company, striding hard through the unbreathable air. He couldn’t hear their conversation. It was too hot to hear: the city’s noise was dampened into a continuous background roar. The only sound Max could distinguish was his own panting. He arrived soaked through from perspiration. His hair was dripping wet, his polo shirt stuck to his body. At the chilling touch of the office’s air-conditioning his skin crawled. He walked in pulling at his shirt.
They surrounded him in seconds: Gladys the bookkeeper, Scott and Warren, the two draftsmen, and Betty the secretary. Their eyes all looked puffy; Max was pleased they had cried for Jeff; pleased and a little amused. Betty was prepared to hug him but she held back at his obvious discomfort. Gladys, however, was too upset or didn’t care. She rushed into Max’s arms. Max didn’t feel her plump squat elderly body; he got the clammy embrace of his own clothing.
“My God, Max,” Gladys said. “What a nightmare.”
“Yes,” Max said and moved her away. He picked at his polo shirt, peeling it off him. The shirt reclaimed him as soon as he let go. He decided decorum was preposterous. Bending over, Max pulled at what felt like his own skin. He shed it.
“Max,” Warren said with a hint of surprise at the nudity. The office wasn’t formal, but it wasn’t a dormitory either. In fact, Max usually wore a dress shirt, if not a jacket.
Gladys picked up the shirt and commented, “It’s torn,” in a wondering singsong, studying the hole.
“Could you get me a towel?” he asked Betty. Betty was a pretty woman in her twenties. She stared at Max’s bare chest. Her look wasn’t lustful. She seemed curious about her boss’s chest, though. What was she thinking—Gee, his chest hairs aren’t gray? Max wished she wanted him, but he was too old, and probably too something else, even if he were young. Betty was a cheerful person: she went to concerts, she danced, she laughed a lot, she cared about her long nails and her thick auburn hair, she enjoyed shopping. She was happy, that’s the name for it, Max decided. I’m not. Even if I were young she’d think I was old.
Meanwhile she brought him a towel from the bathroom.
“Come into my office,” Max said. His employees followed him into his and Jeff’s room. The offices were the front half of a loft, rented from a comic book distributer who used the windowless back half for storage. The draftsmen had space with a window on an alley; Gladys and Betty were opposite with a view of a parking lot. The partners had the large front room to themselves, their desks side by side, facing two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Seventh Avenue and the concrete bunkers of the Fashion Institute of Technology, an ugly view that Max liked to believe was an encouragement. No design of his, no matter how practical or commercial, was as defeated as what he looked at.
Max was unmoved by the sight of Jeff’s desk. The empty chair and spread of unfinished designs weren’t poignant or even unusual. It was normal for Jeff to be away, busy with lots of errands and family emergencies and long lunches and of course his daily hour in the gym from eleven to twelve. The deserted workstation, ready for his return, was more embittering than heart-tugging.
“Everyone’s called,” Gladys said.
“Yeah, practically every client,” Scott said and sighed, as if he were exhausted by all the conversations.
“We’re so proud of what you did,” Betty said. She flashed an embarrassed smile, a girlish smile.
“What I did?” Max looked at his cleared desk, at the row of perfectly sharpened pencils that he always made sure to leave ready to greet him the next morning, tips clean and sleek, ready to be his dutiful tools. He turned away from them.
“The children,” Gladys said. Scott and Warren nodded respectfully.
“You were so brave,” Betty said. Max understood why Betty was peering at his bare chest: she was looking for signs of the crash.
“Thank you. I know this is as much a shock to you as it is to me or Jeff’s family. He spent as much time here—” Max stopped, thinking, No, he didn’t. “Anyway, I know you’re all feeling upset but I want to give you as much notice as possible. We have—what do you think, Warren?—about three months’ work?”
“I guess,” Warren said reluctantly.
“I don’t want to keep the firm going after that. Even if we complete the work sooner than three months—in fact, I’d like us to get it done as fast as possible—but even if we finish it this week, you’ll all be on salary through October. You can start looking for jobs right away and I’ll help out, think up people to call, give recommendations—”
“Max,” Gladys lowered her usually high pitch, as if the deeper sound couldn’t be heard by the others. “Not now. Don’t make decisions right now.”
“I know what you’re thinking. And it makes sense. But it isn’t like that. I intend to go on working. But I drew these houses,” he gestured at the Zuckerman Long Island drawings, “and Nutty Nick stores for money. I liked doing it, partly because I liked supporting my family and being part of the world. Who was I to think I could do better than anyone else? I eat at McDonald’s. I even kind of look forward to their french fries. So why should I disdain their architecture? I’ve never met a king, how can I expect to build cathedrals? I don’t even know the CEO of a corporation, so who am I to thi
nk I should be designing Citicorp?”
The four people he employed looked back at him with the attentive and uncomprehending stares of kindergartners politely waiting for snack time.
“Don’t you see the mistake I made? It has nothing to do with whether I’m good enough to design what I want to design. I don’t have to be entitled to it. I don’t have to have talent. I don’t need permission. All I need is my own desire. If that’s strong enough then I’m strong enough.”
“Money,” Scott objected. He was always the practical one, suggesting that elements of the sketches handed to him couldn’t be engineered easily or cheaply. He was usually correct. “You need money.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Max said. “If I want to see my drawings built I need money. If I want to eat I need money. That’s true. But Jeff has given me that.” Max gestured at the vacant swivel chair, its owner not exercising or fighting with his wife or schmoozing with clients. Its owner was beheaded in a body bag. “He’s given me the one thing he couldn’t give me while alive. He’s set me free.”
Young Betty blinked and looked at her elders, as if suddenly Max had broken into a foreign language and they could translate. Scott smirked. Warren lowered his head. Gladys stared, mouth open, her hands going to her hips. “Max, have you lost your mind?” she demanded.
“I know I sound heartless. I’m not. It’s the truth. You have time and effort invested here and you deserve the truth. Gladys, you’ve worked here for ten years. I want you to know the truth. I hated working with Jeff. I loved it and I hated it. He was the weak part of me and it’s been killed and I won’t bring it back to life.”
“I can’t listen to this,” Gladys said. She turned to go, groaned, and looked back. Her cheeks wobbled; her eyes teared up. “You’re upset,” she told Max and left.
Betty followed Gladys out, although her eyes didn’t want to go; she turned her head to look back as she exited, squinting at her boss curiously.
Warren stepped back against the bulletin board. He was in his fifties and his talents and personality didn’t quite make up for his lack of skill. He cringed at the touch of the board’s thumbtacks, but they seemed to prod him into speech: “It’s a bad time to look—” he began and then thought better of it.
“Bad time for what?” Max asked.
“To look for work,” Scott explained. He had both talent and aggression, except for what he claimed was his true ambition, painting. “You know that. Real estate’s soft, there’s tons of commercial space. Architects aren’t hiring. They’re laying off.” Scott shrugged. He had long blond hair that he kept in a ponytail. He liked to stroke it thoughtfully and a predictable look of happy abstraction would come over him. He mumbled, “I don’t care. I can collect unemployment and do some real painting.”
“Max! Line one.” Gladys poked her head in the doorway. She sounded furious. “It’s your psychiatrist!” She disappeared.
Max laughed. So did Scott. He even let go of his ponytail. Warren straightened up and seemed alarmed.
“That’s funny,” Max called after her.
Warren pointed to Max’s phone. “She wasn’t kidding.”
A light was flashing. Max picked up warily.
“Hello, Max, how are you?” Dr. Mayer’s squeaky lisping voice came over the phone. Disembodied, it resembled a Mel Blanc voice—Daffy Doctor or Sammy Shrink. “Your wife phoned me. She’s very concerned about your state of mind. I wasn’t paying attention to the news broadcasts and I didn’t know you were in that plane. Otherwise I would have called on my own.”
This was one of the longest speeches Bill Mayer had ever made to Max. “Debby really called you?” Max said.
“Yes. She’s worried about you. But, as I say, that isn’t why I called. Would you like to come in? Anytime’s all right. I can move things around, if necessary.” “Necessary” was squeaked and lisped loudly, making it sound as if Dr. Mayer were using a walkie-talkie.
“Maybe later or tomorrow. There’s a lot I have to take care of.”
“I told you the flight would be safe,” Mayer said.
“Yes, you did.”
“I’m sorry. I understand that Jeff died in the crash?”
“Are we having a session?”
“I’m here for you to talk to, Max. That’s all. I don’t want you to feel emotionally isolated. I know that’s your pattern when something bad happens.”
“This wasn’t bad, Bill.”
“I know. It must have been horrifying.”
“Actually, it was kind of great.” Max rolled the row of pencils back and forth. He noticed Warren leave the room. Scott, however, stayed, stroking his ponytail. Max rolled the pencils faster. One of them spun away and landed on the floor.
“In what way was it great?”
“I’m not scared anymore. The worst has happened and I’m not scared anymore.” Max’s heart pounded. He rolled all the pencils off the table.
“Un huh.” This was one of the few things Bill Mayer could say without squeaking or lisping. It was also the doctor’s most frequently used sound. Max often wondered if that’s why Bill had become a psychiatrist.
Max’s heart thumped in his ears. His throat swelled. He was strangling in his own blood. “I’m going to be myself from now on, Doctor. No more hiding.” The pressure was gone. Max inhaled easily. His chest felt sore, but his heart was quiet.
“I’m glad you’ve found something good in it.”
“I got mugged this morning.”
“No shit,” Scott mumbled.
“Were you hurt?” Mayer asked.
“No. Nothing seems to hurt me these days.”
“I’m surprised you’re at the office. I would have thought you’d want to stay home.”
“I was going to stay home. Anyway, I have to go.”
“I understand. Would you like to set up a time for an appointment?”
Max thought about what he had just claimed for himself, that he would not hide anymore. He smiled. “I don’t have to go, Bill. What I meant was, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. If I do, I’ll call.”
“Fine, Max. That’s fine,” Mayer lisped gently.
Max hung up and dried himself with paper towels. He spread his torn polo shirt on the air-conditioner vents. Then he picked up his scattered pencils. Gladys called in: “Your mother’s on the phone.”
“Can’t talk to her. Tell her I’ll call her back.”
This brought Gladys into his office, hands on hips, and scolding: “You tell her. She’s upset. She’s worried about you. She asked me how I thought you were and I don’t want to tell her I think you’re acting cuckoo.”
“Tell her I’m cuckoo. Tell her I’ll call her back. I don’t want to talk to her.”
His tone was commanding. Gladys blinked, surprised by it. “That’s really what you want me to say?”
“Yes.”
Scott hadn’t left the room. He was slumped against the wall, stroking his pony tail. His eyes were glazed.
“Get out of here, Scott. I want privacy and you should be stroking yourself in the bathroom.”
“What?” Scott asked, startled.
“Go. Out.”
“What did you say?” Scott moved back. He had let go of his tail. He bumped into the door frame. Young Betty appeared next to him.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said, her eyes lowered, her tone soft, head bowed fearfully. “Mr. Lobell called yesterday. He said he needed to talk to you as soon as possible.”
Mr. Lobell was the real-world incarnation of Nutty Nick, the man Jeff had literally died trying to impress. Jeff had met him once; Max had only spoken to him on the phone. “Okay,” Max said. “What’s his number?”
“I’ll get him for you,” Betty said, her head up, her tone bright. She left. Scott smirked at Max as if he’d caught him at something. From the hallway they both heard Warren ask Betty in an excited, hopeful whisper: “He’s calling him?”
“I’m leaving,” Scott said and did, with the smirk still in pl
ace.
Max put his damaged shirt back on. It made him shiver. His nipples hardened. He reflected that he had gotten laid twice in the past twenty-four hours. Not since he and Debby were creating Jonah had he enjoyed such frequency. Then it had been with the same woman, of course. He wasn’t a Catholic and yet the unprotected sex of deliberate procreation had felt more deep and intimate than when the act was only self-indulgent. He longed to repeat those weeks of determined love—to make a second child. They could leave Jonah with Debby’s parents for a week and fly to Europe (now that the air was terrorless) and he could witness the uncompromised architecture of the Old World (now that his artistic failure was painless) and they could fuck in hotel beds and on hotel rugs and in hotel baths…The daydream was interrupted by Max remembering that he had ended his marriage that morning. Well, so what? he thought and allowed the images to resume. Married or not, it was still a fantasy.
“It’s Mr. Lobell,” young Betty said in an intense low tone. She had entered all the way into Max’s office to deliver this news. “He’s on one.”
Max turned away from Jeff’s desk as he lifted the receiver, hiding his face from his dead partner’s post, so that Jeff wouldn’t see him turn down Nutty Nick. Max didn’t believe in ghosts, but why take a chance? “Mr. Lobell?”
“Just a moment,” a male voice said. Silence, then a booming voice: “Hello!”
“Mr. Lobell? This is Max Klein.”
“Hi. How are you? You look all right. I just saw you on CNN in front of your apartment building. With your son. Where’s he going on the bus? To camp? Isn’t it late for camp to be starting?”
“It’s a day camp.”
“Isn’t he old for day camp?”
“No one’s too old for day camp.”
Lobell’s big voice chuckled. “Hee—hee—hee,” he laughed in a deep tone, like a storybook giant. “Well, he has a very brave father. I’m glad you weren’t hurt. But I’m sorry, very sorry about Mr. Gordon. I liked him.”
“He was a good—” Max stopped himself. Lying was so easy; almost impossible to avoid. “He was a close friend,” he amended.
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