Perry Angelos was up front in his usual spot with Helen and their two little girls. Behind them sat Mr. and Mrs. Nicodemus, Mrs. Nicodemus dressed entirely in black, six years after Billy’s death. Next to the Nicodemuses sat Nick Kendros, who had owned and operated the Woodward Grill, near the D.C. stock exchange, where men had stood on platforms writing the latest figures on a board. Karras knew Kendros’s daughter, a girl named Ruby, and he thought that she was pretty nice. When Karras and his friends had gone into the grill as children, Kendros, a short, stocky man with a rug of black hair and huge, gentle eyes, had always greeted them the same way, in his rich, enunciated, theatrical voice: “Welcome to the Wall Street of Washington, boys!” The place was New York modern, and air-conditioned like many of the movie houses around town. Nick Kendros had often treated Karras and his friends to lunch; it was not unusual for Kendros to bring a man on his uppers in off the street and serve him a cup of coffee or a hot bowl of soup.
And it wasn’t just Perry and the Nicodemuses and Nick Kendros whom Karras knew. Karras scanned the pews, realized that he knew the names or recognized nearly everyone in the church, knew them from his own days in Sunday school or from the public schools he had attended or from visiting their businesses, food service establishments mostly, scattered throughout D.C.
There were other times he’d see them all together like this, too. There was the annual picnic at Marshall Hall, which he had attended last summer. He had caught the SS Wilson at the 7th Street wharves with his family, and they had taken the boat down the Potomac and gotten off on the Maryland side of the river across from Mount Vernon. On the boat, the Greeks had carried their food in baskets, roasting pans filled with lambs and flat trays of pastitso and bowls of salata choriatiki. Once the boat docked, the Greeks would rush off to get the choicest picnic tables, and there would be potato-sack races, and rides on the roller coaster, and dancing to music performed by a band of musicians playing bouzoukias and cymbaloms and clarinets. The older men would sit at the tables and get served by their wives while they drank a little ouzo or mastica and played cards, while the younger men, those that had been Americanized, stayed with their women and children. Karras’s father had been alive for that last picnic at Marshall Hall. He had been one of the card players, and Karras had sat there with him at the table, ignoring Eleni and his son.
Karras looked down the pew at Dimitri, whose hand was locked in Eleni’s.
His eye wandered to the lovely young woman in front of him in the next pew. He bent forward slightly to see if he could catch her smell. There was a raised mole on the bridge of her exposed shoulder; Karras imagined his tongue on the mole, and how it would taste. He glanced over her shoulder to her long, thin hands folded in her lap, and he imagined the way those hands would feel, caressing him, stroking his cock. As the woman turned her head to the side, Karras studied the curl of her lips and her slightly open mouth. He imagined her lipstick smeared from his kiss, and wondered how her mouth would look, if it would be open slightly as it was now, as her breath became short and she began to come.
Watching this woman, and the two or three others he had singled out since the service began, Karras suddenly remembered the one thing he had liked about sitting in church. And he wondered if the other men around him looked at the women in the church and shared similar black thoughts.
Who were these men? He thought of these Greek-Americans, who came to church each Sunday with their families, who worked hard as their fathers had, who knew what it was to make the full commitment that it took to be a man, who understood how difficult it was to stay on the path, and how easy it could be to stumble, yet in the end kept right to it. And Karras wondered, where did I begin to stumble? Why didn’t I stay right like them? How did I become this?
“Goddamn you, Pop,” he muttered under his breath. Then he crossed himself and shut his eyes tightly, realizing that he had just cursed his dead father in the house of God.
* * *
After the service the congregation gathered out on the stone steps in front of the church, visiting, greeting one another and exchanging pleasantries, but not for long, as the day was clear but biting cold. Eleni and Dimitri and Georgia Karras stood on the corner where 8th crossed L, Dimitri circling the lamppost there, his fingers tracing its iron ridges. They were waiting for Peter Karras, who had been stopped by Perry and Helen Leonides at the top of the steps.
Perry and Karras shook hands.
“Your family looks great, Perry,” said Karras.
“Yours too,” said Perry.
Karras smiled at Helen, who held their toddler Diana, little Evthokia standing at her side. Helen, shapely as ever but with a pleasing touch of age in her face, a fan-shaped spray of lines coming off her eyes. Helen smiled back, a drop of pity now in the look she gave to Karras as she scanned his gray hair and the cocked posture he had learned to adopt when shifting his weight off the bad knee.
“Perry,” said Helen. “It’s cold for the pethia.”
“Take them to the car, sweetheart, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Helen leaned forward, kissed Karras on the cheek. “Adio, Pete.”
“Take care of yourself, Helen.”
Perry and Karras watched Helen and the children cross the street, head for a ‘48 Packard Super 8 sedan parked along the curb.
“Nice car.”
Perry blushed. “Lotta chrome, Pete. You think it’s too much?”
“Don’t be bashful, chum. You work hard, you deserve to give yourself and your family nice things. You get that second store opened yet?”
“Last month. I’m puttin’ in some hours now. Between that and the house we just put a contract on—”
“You bought a house?”
“Yeah, a little bungalow out in Silver Spring. If everything goes through all right, we’re moving in a couple of weeks.”
“Leavin’ the city, huh?”
“For the kids. Everything’s for the kids now, right?”
Karras looked at Perry: soft around the middle, no hair left on top, a pair of heavy, black-framed glasses resting on his thick nose. Not even thirty years old, but already looking like his dad. Well, Perry had always looked like a middle-aged man, even as a kid. It suited him, somehow.
“Ella, Pete!” yelled Eleni from the corner.
“You start walkin’,” yelled Karras, “I’ll catch up to you!” He turned back to Perry. “So, you got a new car, a successful business, a new house, a beautiful wife and a couple of beautiful kids. No wonder you look so unhappy.”
Perry laughed. “Aw, come on, Pete, stop ribbin’ me. You know I couldn’t be happier.”
“I know it, chum. I’m happy for you, too.”
Perry shuffled his feet. “Only, I wish life wasn’t moving so damn fast, Pete. I mean, I never even see you anymore.”
“Yeah, it’s been too long.”
“Maybe you and me could hook up together one night. Go see the fights down at U-Line or something.”
Helen honked the horn of the Packard. From the steps they could see her in the front seat, waving Perry forward.
“You better get going,” said Karras.
Perry put a hand on Karras’s arm. “I’m serious, Pete. I haven’t sat down and talked with you since your father’s funeral.”
Karras looked around at the other men and women on the steps, lowered his voice. “You don’t need to be hangin’ around with me. Perry. You’re doing fine without me, understand? You don’t want to be gumming things up for yourself at this stage in the game.”
“Aw, knock it off, Pete. Quit kiddin’ me.”
“I’m tellin’ it to you straight.”
Perry removed his glasses, folded them, slipped them in the side pocket of his topcoat. “It’s funny, Pete, the way you look at yourself. That’s one thing. And then the other thing is, the way people look at you.”
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“You think I’m some kind of altar boy, always doing the right thing, getti
ng the right things back in return. Well, I have been pretty lucky, I guess. And that’s the way that you see me. But the truth is, growing up, you were the guy I wanted to be. I wanted to get my pants dirty once in a while, just like you. I never could play stickball like you, make small talk like you, make time with the girls like you. Even during the war, I had desk duty, and you were over there doing your part, putting your life on the line like a man ought to do. As far back as when we were kids, I’d see you and your father walking down the street, and I’d think, those are a couple of real tough characters. I knew…I’m telling you, I knew, even then, that I’d never be that kind of man.”
“My father,” said Karras. “Yeah, I’m just like my father, all right. I drink too much, and I got no ambition, and I treat my wife like some kind of maid, like she’s some kind of hired help. Most nights, I can’t seem to make it home for dinner—”
“Pete—”
“—and I don’t even know how to love my own son.” Karras’s voice broke. “Just like my father. Perry. Yeah, I’m some kind of man, all right. I’m so much of a man that one woman’s not enough for me. I even got a woman on the side—”
“Goddamnit, Pete,” said Perry, avoiding Karras’s eyes. “I don’t want to know.”
Karras got close to Perry’s face. “And you always wanted to be the kind of man I am. Why, that’s good for about a million laughs, Perry. The truth of it is, you’re more of a man than I’ll ever be. You always have been. Don’t you get it?”
Helen honked the horn once again. Perry looked at the car, waved his hand. When he turned back, Karras could see a redness in Perry’s eyes.
“I better take off. I haven’t even read the Sunday paper yet. Gotta get to those funny pages. Skeezix is out at the family farm with Nina and Chipper right now. Chipper thinks you can make milk by mixing bran and water, see—”
“Save it. Perry. I haven’t read ‘Gasoline Alley’ in over ten years.”
“I still keep up with it, I guess.”
Karras smiled. “Go on. Go on and get up with your family.”
“Adio, Pete.”
“Yasou, Perry.”
Perry Angelos took the steps down to the sidewalk, crossed the street. When he reached the car, he stopped, put his hand to the handle, looked back. Eleni, Dimitri, and Georgia Karras were walking slowly northwest, in the direction of their apartment. Peter Karras was limping down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, heading south. Perry got into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition, and pulled away from the curb. He gave the Packard gas, headed uptown.
“What’s wrong?” said Helen.
“Nothing,” said Perry. “The wind must have got to my eyes.”
“You better put on your glasses, honey.”
“All right.”
Perry got the glasses from his pocket, slipped them on his face. Helen scooted over on the seat, leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Pete didn’t look so good, did he?”
He looked like it’s all closing in on him. Like he’s walked into an alley that’s all bricked up.
Perry said, “He looked all right.”
Helen kissed Perry softly behind the ear. He smiled.
“What’d you do that for?”
“I’m happy, that’s all.”
Perry said, “I’m happy, too.”
Evthokia slapped Diana on the arm in the backseat. There was an argument, and Diana began to cry.
“All right, you two,” said Helen. “Cut it out!”
“Let ‘em play,” said Perry, listening to the emotion in his daughters’ voices, liking the sound. He put his arm around Helen. He pulled her close.
* * *
Vera Gardner opened the door. She stood in the frame in her half-slip and black brassiere. She held a tumbler full of scotch and ice in one hand. She put the tumbler to her mouth and drank.
“Little early for that, isn’t it?”
“I suppose. You want one?”
“More than one.”
Vera laughed, wiggled her foot: a calfskin, platform heel with a slave-bracelet strap. “You like?”
“Seymour Troy. I saw ‘em down at Hahn’s.”
“Twelve ninety-five. But I had to, Pete.”
“Let me in, baby, before you catch your death.”
“Don’t you like me like this?”
“I like you every which way,” said Karras. “I’ll like you even more when we get inside.”
He entered the room, kicked the door shut behind him. He threw his fedora on the bed. Beneath the bed, he could see the handles of Vera’s suitcases protruding from behind the sheets.
“Scotch all right?”
“Fine.”
She fixed him a drink from a tray she had set up, and carried it across the room. He took it, drank hungrily. Vera got close to him, took the tumbler from his hand, placed it on the dresser. Karras studied her jittery eyes; she was halfway lit, and there were dirt trails on her face.
“You been cryin’.”
“I guess.”
“About what?”
“Things.”
She crushed her mouth against his, kissed him desperately.
“Hold me, Pete.”
Karras said, “I will.”
* * *
Karras opened his eyes. He yawned, read the time off the rectangular face of his Hamilton: almost two o’clock. He got up on one elbow, rolled onto his side, leaned into Vera. His finger traced a circle around the cherry-red nipple of her right breast. God, she had those perfect tits—the most beautiful he’d ever touched.
Vera swiped dimly at a tickle on her nose. Karras watched her eyes jerking around behind closed lids. She moaned a little, moved her lips, tossed her head from side to side. A line of sweat had formed on her upper lip. The sheets beneath her were wet, and they were wet and slick from their lovemaking as well, just a half-hour before. Vera’s slightly rank perspiration and the tang of booze hung in the air.
Her head suddenly came up off the pillow. She looked at Karras with wide and questioning eyes, as if she were seeing him for the first time that day.
“Relax, sweetheart. It’s just you and me. You were dreaming, that’s all.”
Vera sighed, dropped her head down on the pillow. Karras draped his arm over her, fitted himself between her thighs. He listened to the tick of his Hamilton and felt the drum of Vera’s heart pulsing through his fingers. He went to sleep.
* * *
Karras woke alone on the bed. The light had changed in the room. He glanced at his wristwatch, saw that another half hour had passed.
He sat up and let his feet touch the floor. He scratched under his balls and brushed a dry patch of white from the inside of his thigh. Vera stood naked in front of the window frame with her back to him, staring at the gray window, completely steamed over from the cold outside and the bowl of water which Vera kept on the radiator below the sill. Vera smoked a cigarette with one hand and in the other held a tumbler of scotch over ice. An ashtray sat on the radiator next to the glass bowl. Vera tapped off a bit of ash which drifted down and missed the tray.
“Hey, kiddo,” said Karras, but she did not turn around.
Karras got up, went to his suit jacket laid neatly across the miniature chesterfield by the makeup stand. He drew an envelope and his deck of Luckies from the inside pocket. He lighted a cigarette and limped across the room. Karras put his hand on Vera’s shoulder.
“Been up long?”
“A little while, I guess.”
“Here ya go. Vera. Thought you might like these.”
He put the envelope in her hand. She studied the envelope and then its contents, smiled oddly, blinked her eyes.
“It’s Hamlet,” said Karras helpfully. “One of those Shakespeare plays.”
“Oh, really?” she said mockingly.
“Laurence Olivier’s in it.”
“But there’s blood on this envelope, Pete. There’s a little blood on these tickets, too.”
Karras ch
uckled unconvincingly. “I know. I was showin’ them off to Nick Stefanos at the grill. You know how he’s always cuttin’ his fingers, slicing up those tomatoes of his—”
“That’s nice. That was real nice of you, Pete. Were you thinking of coming along?” Her tone was queer.
“You know me and plays…I thought maybe you and your friends might use ‘em.”
“You’re right, my friends might like to go at that. But the truth is, I won’t be able to use them myself.” She dropped the tickets carelessly on the radiator. One of them slipped through a gap in the tubes and fell to the floor.
“Why, you got other plans?”
“Plans? Yes, I’ve got plans.”
Karras ran a hand along the curve of her hip. He put his cigarette to his mouth, dragged deeply. His exhale streamed toward the window, exploded as it hit the glass. He felt her tremble beneath his touch.
“What’s wrong with you, baby?”
Vera took a drink. Her teeth made a clicking sound against the tumbler. She set the glass down.
“1 was just thinking, Pete. You know how I do. About the bomb.”
“That again.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what about it?”
“They say the reds have it now. Do you think they do?”
“Hell, Vera, I don’t know.”
01 The Big Blowdown Page 26