by Craig Nova
The most prominent thing was the slow movement of the ball: It rose, a little rusty, too, defining the shape of its path, marking an arc against the sky. Everyone had plenty of time to watch, to wait, to think of the hours on that indoor track, or the afternoons when, in the dead light of fall, the brick of the gym added something final to the approach of winter. The place oozed a kind of gloom. So we stood and watched as the ball swung up. It stopped. All of us waited, as though we were momentarily suspended, too. Or maybe it was just our concentration that made it seem as though we had been somehow separated, if only for an instant, from the facts of our ordinary life. The ball started again. Although it still seemed slow, it had about it a sense of inertia, like a blade to flesh, which was made all the more obvious when it hit the brick wall of the building. A puff of mortar, a sense of disorder. The building imploded and stumbled backward like a drunk. An old woman in a print dress and a cardigan sweater buttoned the wrong way, that is, a button in the wrong hole, waved her hands and cheered. “Bam!” she said.
The ball swung, accelerated, and a puff of smoke rose again just before that grinding of bricks and the tearing of the metal supports inside the building. More dust. The ball jerked a little on its chain as it swung back.
I tried to concentrate on the path of the ball, the dust trailing away from it, the movement showing as a practical matter how hard it is to stop something once it starts. And worse, the movement, the ugly explosion, the sound, all suggested something else, the essence of what, I supposed, had really gone on. The ball hit the building. As the wall opened the ball disappeared, for an instant, into the darkness inside.
The wrecking ball rocked back and forth as it swung away from the building. The wrecking ball had a kind of shudder, but when it started moving again, the shudder disappeared. I kept my eyes on it but I was trying to understand what was really being said here, and I supposed it was this.
I was a slow learner after all, but some items require not theory but a collision with facts. One of them, for sure, was that time, while often grinding hope and possibility into regret and bitterness, can do other things, too, quite wonderful ones at that, and it can enhance and intensify as often as it destroys and makes use of the malignant. Sara and I, after years of longing, now spent hours together, lost in that scent, in the golden sparkle that ran through us (like the tail of some object from the Hubble) to the point where we seemed to disappear altogether aside from that soft, slippery, golden sensation, but just as time had enhanced that aspect of us, it had amplified all the other problems, too, which were waiting to do their worst. We hadn’t grown up, in some ways, but apart.
Sara and I had had a chance a long time ago and let it slip through our fingers.
The crane went about its work, the ball swinging back and forth, the debris scattering there against the sky, the building slowly disappearing, slapped down, bit by bit. The other machines started. They plunged into what was left, lifted the shattered bricks and beams, loaded it into trucks and carted it off to be buried outside of town in what used to be a cornfield. When I came out of my office, just at dark, nothing was left but a cement-colored hole in the ground. Plastic netting, as a kind of cheap fence, hung from iron posts driven into the grass around that black opening.
My house was empty, and I stood at the kitchen sink to have a drink of water. Sara came in with that air of having sold a couple of cars, not excited exactly, but sort of exhausted, as though it had taken something out of her.
She said, “The best thing would be for MD and Scott to take the deal I offered them. The dealership is not going to take any commission. They could go to Arizona or Utah or someplace and start over.”
“We’ll pay for the car out of what my father left me,” I said.
“Why won’t they take it?” she said.
“They’re confused,” I said.
“What are they confused about?” she said.
“Well, I think they have confused stupidity and trust. Now they have to trust you, or me, to say nothing. Before, they had done a lot of stupid things and gotten into trouble, like giving Bo the keys, and they thought this was trust when they were just being stupid.”
“Don’t they see I want the cars to Mexico, the kidney, what happened up there at Furnace Creek to disappear, too?” she said.
“That’s where they have to trust. It makes them uneasy, since when they have done this in the past, they were just being stupid. Like giving the keys to the wrong guy.”
Directory assistance, with its automated voice, gave me the number. And when a woman answered, I asked to speak to Judah, and after I assured her I wasn’t from the liquor distributor, or a tax collector, or some other person he didn’t want to talk to, he took the call.
“So, Jake,” he said. “You’re the one who came to my mother’s funeral. I remember. What can I do for you?”
IT WAS LATE afternoon and the parking lot was half filled with the cars of men who got off work at four or so in the afternoon. The parking lot was a big one, the lines on it fading, no longer white really so much as a dead-fish gray, and here and there grass pushed out of the blacktop. The cracks where the grass grew had the pattern of rivers. I have been learning the names of them in Russia and Afghanistan, the valleys where those black jets will fly in earnest. The Volkhov, Vashka, Neretva, and Vrbas.
The first door was like the aluminum and glass ones you see in any modern post office, and the inner ones were glass and aluminum, too, but they had a shade pulled down over them so you couldn’t see in.
The man who stood at the podium where he collected a cover fee looked Sara over in her soccer mom outfit and probably thought about amateur night, but when he glanced over his shoulder and Judah beckoned, the man didn’t say a word. He didn’t even ask for money. He waved us in. Judah sat in his booth, not far from where a woman with no clothes on danced to old rock and roll. She had a couple of moles on her back. Sara looked at her once.
The scent in the air was of perfume and sweat. The walls were pink and cracked, and another dancer, who looked Estonian, was lying in the middle of the floor of the stage, her skin impossibly white. She probably never saw the sun.
Judah beckoned to us from his red leather booth and we had to go to the end of the stage where the dancers worked. The black light was on and here and there a napkin or a white shirt glowed. The men sat in groups of two and three, spread out around the stage, their eyes hidden in the depths of the shadow. One of the bouncers, Buster I guessed by the way his hands were broken, stood in the corner of the room, like a hunter in a blind. Knuckles the size of walnuts and scars in his eyebrows that were so white they showed in the black light.
“So,” said Judah. “They’ll be here in a minute. I sent a friend to make sure they’d be here. Sit down.”
The waitress put two cold glasses of vodka on the table, and they immediately began to sweat. Or first they frosted up and then they sweated. Judah wore a jacket with big white squares on it and a pair of beige pants that a Russian or Eastern European might wear when he was trying to look American. Instead it made him look sort of South American. Close, but no cigar. Judah had a drink of his water and went back to his slow, steady thinking.
After a while I realized he was looking at Sara.
“So,” he said. “About that screenplay.”
Sara took the vodka just the way they do in Russia. Bang.
“Yeah?” she said.
For a while they stared at one another. The dancers moved in a languid sort of way, as though the music was heavy.
“So, I went down there to get some representation,” he said.
“Did you take Buster?” said Sara.
“Yeah,” said Judah. “Yeah, I did.”
“Did he have to say anything?” said Sara.
“It’s not what he had to say,” said Judah. “He isn’t the talkative kind. No, it was more what he had to do. Why, you’d think we were lesser human beings or something.”
“I know what you mean,�
� said Sara.
“So, we come up to the door of that joint on 57th Street. Talent Universal Management,” said Judah.
“That’s the place,” said Sara.
“Yeah,” said Judah. “I looked them up. They represent all kinds of movie stars. Big-deal directors. Real names.” Judah took a sip of his water. “Hey, Buster,” said Judah.
Buster came out of the shadows. He wasn’t tall, but he moved as though he were as wide as a piece of four-by-eight plywood that was being carried into the wind, broadside. He leaned forward a little.
“So, we go into that place on 57th Street, and I start telling them about the idea, see, about the first woman pope. And this guy, just like the one you described, came over and said, ‘What is it with a woman becoming a pope?’”
“No kidding?” said Sara.
“Yeah,” said Judah. “I guess someone else must have tried to tell them about it.”
The waitress filled Sara’s glass and Sara took it like the first one. Bang. Judah watched her.
“Hey, Buster. Let them see your hands.”
Buster put his hand on the table, as though he were showing a pork chop that was for sale. All the joints were the size of walnuts, but they looked as though they had been broken, at one time, with a hammer.
Judah spent a moment looking at Sara.
“I thought you might want to see his hands,” said Judah.
“They’re pretty big,” said Sara.
“That’s right,” said Judah. “You’d think that guy at TUM, in the little uniform, would have enough sense to notice them, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” said Sara.
“So what did that guy on 57th Street say?” Judah said to Buster.
“Before or after he asked if you were some kind of dumb Serb?” said Buster.
“After,” said Judah.
Buster made the sound of a man who has had the wind knocked out of him: It was like a billows that wouldn’t work.
“It was a while before he could talk,” said Buster.
“He asked if we knew any red-headed women who had ideas about this screenplay,” said Judah
“Must have been a coincidence,” said Sara.
“That’s what I figured,” said Judah. “So then we go upstairs and I tell some guy with thick glasses about my idea and he says he will work on it. Nice as punch, wasn’t he Buster?”
“Yeah,” said Buster. “I guess. Sort of nervous.”
Judah went on staring at Sara.
“And when we get downstairs, that guy at the door . . . ,” said Judah.
“Still wasn’t breathing too good,” said Buster.
“Well, he kept on about some woman with red hair,” said Judah.
“Well,” said Sara. “Could have been anyone.”
Judah kept his eyes on Sara.
“Just thought you’d like to know how that all shook out,” said Judah.
The tablecloth was a white one, although it was stained here and there, the circles like primitive shapes carved into rocks. Circles, lines, jagged boundaries like coastlines. The kind of thing left behind by nervous people who spilled things. Or who anxiously moved a glass while waiting to hear some verdict, some final word.
“Thanks,” said Sara.
Judah sighed. Shrugged his shoulders and put a hand through his hair.
“What do you think of this one?” he said, his face turning quickly toward the dancer.
“All right,” I said.
“What about you?” he said to Sara.
“She’s pretty,” said Sara.
“Yeah,” said Judah. “My mother would have thought that.”
The kitchen door opened and a young man came out.
“You remember the TV?” said Judah.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Well, this is how I worked it out. Not bad, huh?”
Mike Brown was wearing a white T-shirt, an apron, and a pair of blue jeans. The muscles in his arm trembled as he carried a bucket full of water and soap and lugged it to the wall along the back of the room. He kept his head down. Rung out a rag. He scrubbed the woodwork, doing so with a cadence that was machine-like. Judah glanced at him and turned to me.
“He’s a good worker,” said Judah. “Puts his heart into it. Really wants to please.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Lots of things around here to do,” said Judah. “I can always think of something.”
Mike looked up at the dancer, who stood in that almost heavenly light, and turned back to cleaning. He moved along the woodwork, and one arm moved up and down like he was sawing a log in half. The woodwork looked very clean when he was done.
Sara played with her empty glass and then a waitress, without being told, brought her another. The door opened and MD and Scott walked in, MD in a black shirt that was supposed to show how tough he was but only revealed his paunch. Scott, with a two-day growth of beard and his hands shaking with a hangover, came up to the table and said, “Is it all right if we sit down?”
“Sure,” said Judah.
So Judah sat in the middle of the table. Sara and I sat on his right. Scott and MD sat on his left. The nude dancer worked right in front of us, although no one even glanced at her, aside from Scott, who looked once and then down at this shaking hands.
“Bring him a drink,” said Judah.
The waitress put a bottle of vodka on the table and two glasses. Scott poured one. Then MD.
The air had islands of smoke that swirled as the dancers moved.
Judah turned to MD.
“I hear someone offered you a deal on a car. A good deal. But you haven’t taken it,” said Judah.
“No,” said MD.
“You look scared to me,” said Judah to MD. “Sort of indecisive.”
“Look,” said Sara. “Everyone has a reason to . . . ”
Judah put up his hand.
“Let me do the talking. I don’t want to know about some things,” he said.
“I’m just trying to protect myself,” said MD.
“Me too,” said Scott.
His hands shook.
“So, here’s what you did,” said Judah. “You had a nice little deal going but you had to get ambitious, and so you start moving from the car deal, in Mexico, and you get into this medical stuff.”
“It’s the future. What with health care reform,” said Scott.
Judah looked at MD and then back at Scott.
“Is this your only friend?”
“I know other people,” said MD.
A man at the stage tried to touch a dancer and she said, “Judah! Judah!”
He raised one finger and the man who had reached out to touch the dancer sat back.
“You didn’t know when to leave well enough alone,” said Judah to MD. “You had to get fancy.”
MD and Scott were really sweating now. It was like ice on their foreheads, as though they had been out in a storm.
“Describe the car,” said Judah to Sara.
“Forester, all leather, warranty, good air, good rubber, CD player, auto lock. A child seat.”
“What do I need a child seat for?” said MD.
“Where are the papers?” said Judah.
Sara pushed them across.
“And the temporary license plate?” said Judah.
“It’s on the car,” said Sara.
“And where is the car?” said Judah.
“In the lot, outside,” said Sara.
“All right,” said Judah to Scott and MD. “You get in that car and you start driving. I don’t care where. Arizona. Utah. Idaho. I don’t care. That’s it.”
“What about my money?” said MD.
“You know what my advice is worth?” said Judah.
“I’m beginning to get an idea,” said MD.
“So, here’s a stake,” said Judah. “Ten thousand for you and ten for this jackass.”
He gestured to Scott. Then he pushed a manila envelope across that stained tab
lecloth.
“Now get the fuck out of here,” said Judah. “If I hear you come back, we’re going to have a disagreement. Have you got that?”
MD swallowed. The envelope was on the table in front of him.
“Hey, Buster,” said Judah. “Take a look at these guys. Will you remember them?”
“I never forget a face,” said Buster.
MD and Scott stood up in that island of smoke. Behind them the white legs of the dancer moved. Then they walked out of the place, through the music, as though it were rain, and went into the light. Scott had bleached his hair and his black roots didn’t show anymore.
I pushed a check across the table for twenty thousand dollars. Judah took it and waved it back and forth, as though he was waiting for the ink to dry. Then he ripped it in half and then again and put it in the ashtray on the table.
“Why would you help us?” said Sara.
Judah nodded at me. “Took me to my mother’s funeral when his father was dying. Didn’t say a word. Just did it. That means a lot in this fucked-up world.”
We sat there in the smoke.
YEARS BEFORE, MY mother told my father she had gone to a motel with a man and that she had liked it. In the weeks afterward, I knew that he was waiting for something, but I wasn’t sure what it had been. I often saw him in the kitchen when my mother was out. He read his papers from work, or The Wall Street Journal, turning the pages and looking at those announcements for stock offerings that, he said, made him feel a little richer just by being close to all that money. He looked up when my mother came in, the faint smell of liquor on her breath, her expression a mixture of fatigue and irritation. When we were on our way to Furnace Creek, with those useless Xeroxed studies behind him, he told me why he didn’t feel so bad that the studies weren’t going to help.