!Click Song

by John A. Williams

  “Looking for something?” he said. He had crossed one leg over the other. I could tell he was cold. His face looked strained.

  I sat down beside him. “Yeah, my son.”

  “Hmmmm,” he said. “Little kid?”

  “No. He’s eighteen.”

  “He run away or something?”

  “I don’t know. One moment he was there and the next he was gone.”

  “You spanked him probably.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did, in a way. But maybe he had it coming.”

  “Well, you know kids; they never feel that way. But, you must be pretty bad, mister, jumpin’ on an eighteen-year-old.”

  “He wasn’t just any kid and I suppose that’s why I lost my head.”

  “Blew your cool.”

  “Blew my cool, yes.”

  I followed his eyes to a spot above the Guggenheim and wondered what he was seeing. I said, “Parents always worry about the bad company their kids may keep—drugs, muggings and shit like that. They worry about influences and what they can do to some silly shit like the values the parents hold jointly with their kids. These days, junk and rip-offs are about the least worries.”

  He looked at me and just for a second I thought I saw a glistening in his eyes. I went on talking. “Just last week—I didn’t get a chance to talk to my kid about this—just last week a young black girl, a sophomore at one of those exclusive places like Radcliffe or Vassar or Sarah Lawrence, killed herself. Seems as though the other black kids on the campus, all as militant as hell, had put it to her: whether she was black enough to kill her mother, who was white. Really put it to her. Militant fuckin’ kids who don’t know the front end of a gun from the asshole of an eel. And wouldn’t want to for fear the shit’d really be gettin’ heavy then—”

  I stopped because my voice was rising and I didn’t want him to hang his head the way he was starting to. “Don’t,” I said, “run us through that mill, Glenn. It’s not that choices will have to be made if you do; there aren’t any choices to make. We have a relationship whether you like it or not, you and I, Allis and I, all of us. I wouldn’t like it if you walked out on it, and I don’t think you would; I mean, I’d be unhappy because, well, you know, shit …” The top of the Guggenheim gleamed brightly for a second, as if being viewed through water.

  “I don’t know why colleges are so bad for kids today. You were never so antagonistic toward us before you went away. That’s what it was, right?”

  He said in a small, quiet voice, “Yeah.”

  “There are a lot of assholes out there that I wouldn’t think twice about when it comes to blowing away time. But Allis isn’t one of them and you fuckin’ well know it. If you want to talk about it, let’s talk—the way they do in college? But not that little kid shit with the hair and the shoes …”

  A squad car, looking bigger and meaner than usual because it was creeping up the sidewalk instead of the road, eased toward us. The cops looked us over. They seemed to be very young. They kept on going, gained the road and crept away, blue exhaust fumes licking lazily from the rear of the car.

  I waited for him to say something. He did not, just kept looking up, then looking down.

  “Glenn, there’s a lot of that now,” I said. “Antagonism. So much of it’s directed along the easier channels. You know, toward people who aren’t going to do anything about it for one reason or another. Not fair. No good. Chickenshit. Antagonize the cops. Bomb a precinct house. Kick Lindsay’s ass. Shoot up the Congress. Not your family. Not your friends.”

  Glenn studied my face, said nothing.

  I said, “But you don’t want to die. Nobody does, yet everyone will.”

  “How close were you to being killed during the war?”

  “Why?”

  “What does it feel like?” He had read the look on my face. “Well, you were the one who brought it up,” he said.

  “Do you want to know the truth?”

  “Yeah, sure. That’s why I—”

  “That squad car that just went by. I knew I was scared because of the way I felt when it didn’t stop, when I knew it was going to keep on going. How did you feel? The same way? Yeah, no?”

  “The same way.”

  “You know why, don’t you?”

  “Close?”

  “Yeah.” My bitterness rang like brass in my own ears. “If they had decided that we were fugitive Black Panthers that would have been it. If they had decided that they’d had a dull day and needed some excitement, like shooting some niggers, that would have been it. To answer your question, champ, I feel very close to being killed whenever I’m within shooting range of a cop.”

  He bounced his heel on the walk a few times. I looked at him and laughed. “During the war it’s better because the other guy knows you got your shit, too. And you do.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you have the gun now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what were you afraid of?”

  “I was afraid for you. The mouth is not faster than a bullet, and I know you’re not ready to die. Let’s go home.”

  We started walking. He said, “Are you?”

  I thought about that one. I said, “No, but I think I’m readier than you.”

  Allis looked anxiously from his face to mine. “Want some coffee? Must be cold out there.”

  She poured it while we took off our coats. Glenn was pulling back his chair at the table then stopped.

  “Listen,” he said to Allis. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do those things or behave the way I have.” He sat down. “I feel under some compulsion to hurt. Dad’s right. If I hurt you, you won’t hurt back.” He picked up his coffee and set it back down; his hands were trembling and he couldn’t hold the cup. Allis started to move toward him, her arms upraised to place them on his shoulders. I scowled at her. She stopped and waited.

  “It’s a tough time to grow up in,” she said, finally. She set the creamer softly beside his cup.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You won’t have to baby-sit tonight, Glenn. I’ve got a sitter.”

  For a moment he looked frightened, abandoned. “No, I’ll sit, Allis, really.”

  “We just thought you might not want to be bothered tonight.”

  “No, no. I’ll do it, okay?”

  We looked at each other.

  “Besides, I have a date coming.”

  “Ah,” Allis said.

  “Oh,” I said, starting to feel that I had my son back again. “I guess in that case—”

  Paul’s party was actually a book party and was a surprise. We were, as we entered his apartment, feeling much better about Glenn. But we were still shaken; our innocence had been splintered; we had discovered that we were vulnerable.

  We noted quickly the other guests. I took Allis’ arm and steered her toward the sound of clinking glasses, the slick rasp of ice cubes. Had Maxine told me she would be there? No matter; she was. And why hadn’t Paul mentioned that his party was really a Book Hustle, complete with caterers and photographers who crept about to snap the right people together? We had got halfway to the sounds of glass and ice and pouring, and I was thinking that Paul was now drinking with another crowd, when he spotted us.

  “Hey, Cate, over here. Here, Allis.” He waved to us out of a clutter of book people. Betsy started toward us at the same moment that Jeremy Poode stopped us, Selena Merritt in tow. We shook, embraced appropriately, chatted, as I kept edging Allis toward the bar. Betsy intercepted us. Roye Yearing called out, “Heard from the Bread Loaf crowd?”

  “No. You?”

  “No. Talk to you in a while.”

  With Betsy, then, who I felt had rushed to us to help absorb the impact of the unconscious imperial command from Paul: Hey, Cate, over here.

  We got our drinks and Betsy guided us toward Paul. We tried to exchange news, gossip, talk of the baby. We were unable to. Paul’s eyes kept darting to this reviewer or that, to one established writer o
r another, while at the same time holding whispered conversations with Alex Samuels.

  “Big party,” I said to Betsy.

  “God, I didn’t know it was going to turn into this,” she said. “His publisher wanted to do it.”

  “Betsy,” Allis said. “We want to congratulate you on the wedding, your marriage—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Betsy said. “We got married. We hope it’ll work.”

  “What an attitude,” Allis said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  I left them and went back to the bar. Elliot Huysmans and John Green-leaf Whittington were there.

  “Hello, Douglass,” Huysmans said briskly, studying me, moving slightly in one direction and then another, as a boxer might move, feinting, looking for an opening. He kept squaring his shoulders the way Jimmy Cagney did in his early films. We had never met before. We shook hands. I turned to Whittington, whom I was also meeting for the first time. “Hello, Cato Douglass. I’m glad to meet you at last. Do you know—” He gestured toward the people near them.

  I nodded, said, “Yeah, sure [shake], sure, how’s things? [Shake] What’s new? [Shake] Sure.” And then we stood looking at each other, looking into our glasses, which we all had just filled and could not readily fill again. Like waiters, we looked each other directly in the eye, yet did not see. Where was Allis? Come, love, rescue me, us. Her back was turned and people were crouched over, looking at something in her hand. A photo of Mack.

  Into the poisonous silence, walking prettily, came Sandra Queensbury, and greetings exploded about her like wet cherry bombs and they all moved away. “My God,” she said, “the whole of Dickie’s List plus the retainers. How are you, Cato?”

  Now she looked like the commencement of a legend; age was rapidly overtaking her. “I’m okay, Sandra. You?”

  “You can see that, dear. Lovely, your wife.”

  “Yeah, and I like her a lot.”

  “That’s important. How’s your work?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “When are you going to join us and leave the rabble?”

  “I’m all right for now.”

  “So I hear. Maxine got a good deal for you. Are you sleeping with her?”

  “No.”

  “That’s just what she said.”

  She fixed herself a drink, casually surveying everyone. And then said, “Do you recall that story of Paul’s that you published in our anthology?” She smiled coyly—no, seductively—and at once I guessed that she was still “dowsing” first novelists from Wyoming or Arkansas.

  “Yes, I remember it. Why?”

  “Really, Cato, it wasn’t much of a story, and you knew it.” Mark Medowitz had just come in, and Shelly Popper, who reviewed for the Voice.

  “Then why didn’t you throw it out? You threw out others.”

  “Because, baby, I knew that you and Paul were old college chums, and in this business we have to help friends out, right? But tonight the fix is on. I like going to Fixings. Your Paul is in.” She chucked me in the ribs with her elbow as she moved away. “You look good. Do call me sometime.”

  “Yes, I will.” I started toward Allis. Maxine stopped me. “Allis looks marvelous, Cato.”

  “Yeah. I hear you discussed some sleeping arrangements with Sandra Queensbury.”

  “Isn’t she just about the nosiest old bitch you ever saw?” Maxine was looking at me with a new slant of her eyes. She started to giggle. “Oh, Gawd!” she said. “When she asked I never thought that—”

  She turned to have another look at Sandra.

  “That was a very long time ago,” I said.

  “Really? I hear she’s still quite active. Bravo for her.”

  “Hey, I gotta get to Allis. I’ll see you.”

  I was almost to her. A woman blocked my path. “Mr. Douglass,” she said firmly. She was one of the most unattractive women I’d met in some time. “I’m Maude Tozer with Passages—”

  “Ah, yes. Books editor.”

  “You know. Good. I want very much to do an interview with you. May I call you?”

  “Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “It’ll be this week.”

  “Okay, I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  Maude Tozer had very bad breath. She was dressed from head to foot in swirls of taupe-colored garments out of which stuck her thick legs and large bosom.

  “Who is that?” Allis whispered when I reached her. I told her.

  We moved around the edges as the decibel level increased along with the drinking. “Did you ever sleep with her?” Allis asked, nodding toward Maxine.

  “No. You’ve never asked me that before—why now?”

  “Because close to you she moves the way women do when they know you very well.”

  “She doesn’t know me that well.”

  “I meant before we were married, did you sleep with her?”

  “Again—no. Aw, shit, let’s go home.”

  “Because I asked that?”

  “No. Because you know I hate rituals.”

  “Paul’s marriage?”

  “No. Paul’s—success.”

  “Ah, so that’s what the celebration’s all about. Not the marriage. I got that feeling from Betsy, too. Yes, of course. And there is something different about him already—”

  “What?”

  “A certain ease, a lessening of tension; he always seemed tense and depressed to me, but now he’s like someone who’s landed safely after a very long trip.”

  “The trip,” I snapped, “was short.”

  “Hey, we’re on the same team, remember?”

  We started toward the door, but Roye Yearing was veering down on us. “Fuckin’ great party,” he said. “But what’s goin’ on? Why are all these literary assholes here? How come you’re here, Cate? Hello, Allis, how’s things?”

  “What’re you doin’ here? I didn’t know you knew Paul.”

  “Shit, I don’t. Heard he was an old friend of yours, though. I just got this engraved fuckin’ note and I figured why not.” We watched Allis saunter toward the door.

  I was trying to swing around him. “Great party, anyway.” I thought Roye had dried out.

  “Heard anything about Ike?” Roye was moving with me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Aw, shit. He was such a nice guy. I heard all about that drug shit. Is it true?”

  “I’m really not sure, Roye.”

  We were at the door now. Roye lifted his glass. “May the demons go easy on ya, kid.” He bottomed his glass, clapped me on the shoulder, pecked at Allis’ cheek and started back to the booze.

  “Hey! Hey!” It was Paul. “You leaving? Christ, man, we didn’t get a chance to really talk. Sorry. Let’s just the four of us do it soon, okay?”

  He embraced Allis, then me. His release, sort of a gentle guiding, was like the practiced handshake of a politician who doesn’t grip too hard, and manages somehow to move you past him so he can take the next hand and the next and the next.

  7

  Glenn was leaving.

  We stood on the corner trying to hail a cab to La Guardia. His leather coattails flapped in the stiff December wind. Glenn seemed very tall and strong, standing there. And he was certainly far older in many ways than I had been at eighteen. For a moment I envied him that.

  “Standing here,” he said without preface, “just standing here, Dad, you know we might be just a couple of rocks at the bottom of an ocean in someone else’s universe.” He smiled.

  “What?”

  “Or we might be some cacti in a desert through which some guy’s walking right now, this second.”

  I studied him carefully. “Oh. Is that Planck with some stretching? Quantum theory, multiple worlds?”

  “Yeah. I read about it.” He took a deep breath. We were still looking up and down the street for a cab that was unoccupied. “I thought about us,” he said. “You and your world—”

  “Which includes you.”

  “—Allis’, the bab
y’s, mine, Mom’s—”

  I moved directly in front of him. “But according to Planck, isn’t it possible that each world has entirely different properties?”

  He said, “Exactly.”

  “Not exactly. We share the same properties—”

  “Say, what?”

  I laughed, remembering that when he was younger he’d mimicked Cosby. “We share the same properties, kiddo, what we have of the world, such as it is, mistakes, little angers. We’re in the same world, okay? You’re not abandoned. Okay?”

  The cab was shooting south on Central Park West, a yellow blur. The driver saw us, hit the brakes and banked into a U-turn. We ran across the street to the car. “I hear you,” Glenn said, getting in. “But Yellow Springs really is another world.”

  “If you say so. Take care.”

  “S’long,” he said.

  Other worlds, another world. The kid. How was she? He? Was Monica still out there? How many guys has she had in nine years? Say five a day for nine years: 14,600 guys. How’s she / he taking that? Is she still out there? Even if you’ve got your kid relatively close, look what happens. Crap. No, shit. What’s Barcelona like now? Franco’s middle class he’s building? That must be some world.

  (“Fine-looking boy you got there, Mr. Douglass.”)

  Forget it. Let him / her go. Tough, like Monica. Will survive. Another world. Another language. Another culture. What’s her / his name? God. Did he / she even live? Have I created a world which he / she in fact doesn’t inhabit, having been flushed down a toilet or buried under a rock in some park? No. Must be alive. Know there’s life a full nine years grown.

  Julio was holding open the elevator door. He regarded me with something like concern on his face.

  “Your floor, Mr. Douglass. I was sayin’, you’ve got a fine boy there. The big one.”

  “Uh, yeah.” I started to add “Thanks,” but Glenn and the way he was was mostly accident, perhaps even an illusion. Should I say thanks for something I didn’t do?

  I said “Thanks” as I got off.

  Two weeks later I was still thinking about other worlds from the fiftieth floor of the Passages building. It was after four in the afternoon and Manhattan was already dark and pitted with lights from office and apartment buildings. Behind each window, I romanticized, was a different world. I was standing in one of them, a floor occupied by three cozy little apartments. It was very convenient for the Passages people. I wondered how one got to reserve an apartment for a night or for a weekend, and from what rank they came.