“Well … I was thinking about buying it.”
“It’s not for sale.”
“I don’t blame ya, car that runs that good? Hey, how ’bout those Cubbies.”
“What about ’em?”
Cubs were baseball and it was the middle of winter, it was snowing out. “Never mind,” I told him.
He finished up. And when he swung the chair around to face the big mirror, holding the little mirror behind my head, I said what I always said to him: “Fine, Fred. Thanks.”
He removed the sheet. I got down, gave him his money, grabbed my coat off the wall and was walking towards the door. But then I stopped and turned around. “By the way, I won’t be back,” I told him.
He nodded, putting the money in the register.
I stood there. My heart was pounding. “But I would like to know just one little thing, Fred.”
“Oh?”
“What exactly is your problem?”
He looked at me.
“Will you tell me please?” I said. “What have you got against me?”
He shut the register drawer. “You want to know?”
I nodded. “I want to know.”
He stepped over to the chair, sat in it, folded his hands in his lap and looked at me. “First time you ever came in here. Do you remember?”
I tried to think. “Not really. Remember what.”
He looked at me a long moment. Then he said, “You told me, ‘Shhh.’”
I stood there. “I told you … to be quiet?”
“‘Shhh.’ That’s what you said to me.”
“I don’t understand. Why would I want you to be quiet?”
He nodded towards the little TV. “You were watching a movie.”
“Ah.”
“You were in the chair. I was telling you a joke. Got about halfway through. You put up your finger. ‘Shhh,’ you said.”
I remembered now. “It was High Noon,” I said, “right?”
“I don’t know what time it was, that’s not the point.”
“No, I mean the movie, that was the movie, High Noon.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. This isn’t a movie theater, it’s a barber shop. A friendly barber shop. Like the old-time barber shops. Where you’d visit with people. Swap jokes, tell stories, give your opinion. One guy says this, other one says that, but nobody—understand?—nobody says to anybody, ‘Shhh.’”
I stepped closer. I said to him, “Fred? I do understand. And I want to apologize. I want to say right here, right now, I am very, very sorry.”
“Fine,” he said, nodding. “Okay, then. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“You had every reason to be angry.”
“That’s all right.”
“No, Fred, it’s not. It’s really not. I mean, let’s face it,” I said, pointing towards the television, “when we start choosing make-believe life over—”
The little bells on a strap above the door sounded, as someone walked in.
“There he is,” Fred said to him, hopping out of the chair.
“Hey, Fred. How you been?” said the guy, hanging up his coat.
“Oh, can’t complain,” Fred admitted. “Hey listen, tell me something.”
“What’s that,” said the guy, heading to the chair.
“You the son of a bitch ordered all this snow?”
The guy gave a laugh and said, “Not me, old buddy,” settling into the chair like into a warm bath.
Cheryl couldn’t get over it: “That … is so …”
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
“All this time …”
“He was hurt. I hurt the guy.”
“You didn’t mean to.”
“But still. ‘Shhh.’ Y’know? So insulting.”
“You probably weren’t even aware.”
“Probably not. Watching a movie—a movie, Cheryl. I mean, let’s face it, when we start choosing make-believe life over—”
“What was it, by the way.”
“The movie?”
“Do you remember?”
“High Noon. Ever see it?”
“Is that Gregory Peck?”
“Gary Cooper.”
“He’s a sheriff?”
“Marshall. You’ve seen it, I’m sure.”
“I don’t think so. Just clips.”
“The great cowboy movie of all time. The lone hero, standing tall, doing what he’s gotta do.”
“Is there a big showdown scene?”
“Out on the empty street, sun beating down.”
“High noon.”
“Truth time, Cheryl. Little bit like today, you know? In a way? Sort of?”
“Well, I’m glad you finally confronted him.”
“I was heading out the door. Running away, right? There’s a scene early on, where he’s racing out of town in a wagon with his bride, just married …”
“Maureen O’Hara?”
“Grace Kelly. So he gets out of town, but then all of a sudden he pulls up the horses, whoa, and says something like, ‘They’re makin’ me run away. I’ve never run away from anybody.’ And so, of course …”
“He heads back.”
“I was at the door, Cheryl. I was leaving. For good. Putting my hand on the knob. But then I stopped, turned around …”
“And faced him.”
“Yep.”
We were quiet for a moment.
“Will you go back, you think? Next haircut?”
“I don’t know. Might be kind of awkward.”
She agreed.
GONE WITH THE WIND
My mother claims to have been the very first person in line at its very first showing in Chicago, at the Chicago Theater, nine o’clock on a spring morning, her best friend, Eleanor, second in line.
Mildred and Eleanor, 1939.
They were telephone operators, working the night shift at Bell on Washington Boulevard, and that morning, instead of going home, decided to go see Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the Old South.
They had to wait an hour for the ticket booth to open, but it was a fine spring morning—I picture laundered-looking sunlight on the tall buildings—and they chatted and shared an egg salad sandwich.
My mother doesn’t remember where they got the sandwich, but she said it was delicious, eating it outside like that, right on the street.
Meanwhile the line behind them kept growing, until it went all the way down the block and around the corner. Then finally a girl appeared in the ticket booth—looking bored, chewing a wad of gum—and my mother stepped up, money in hand: “One, please.”
Holding her ticket, she waited for Eleanor.
Then Mildred and Eleanor walked together through the immaculate, red-carpeted lobby without stopping for popcorn. An usher wearing white gloves was opening a pair of large doors—just for them, it seemed.
They entered the dim theater and headed bouncily down the tilted aisle, all the way down, and sat themselves in the middle of the very first row, shiny black purses in their laps, heads back, waiting for the curtain to open:
There was a curtain.
And when, at last, it began to slide open I picture my mother clutching Eleanor’s arm.
Thirty-five years later on a rainy Sunday afternoon I saw it at a little theater off Clark Street, with a bad hangover and nothing better to do. Sitting in the very last row, feet up, I counted eighteen other people scattered around, like at a porn flick.
There wasn’t a curtain.
I fell asleep during a gala affair at Scarlett’s cousin’s house. Two and a half hours later an usher shook me by the arm, telling me the movie was over, telling me I had to leave.
Out on the sidewalk the rain had stopped and the sun was shining horribly bright.
TAXI DRIVER
I was back living in the old neighborhood, Riverdale, drinking a lot, most evenings in a loud little bar called Nick’s. Sometimes, when I got drunk, I loved everyone and would even put my arm around a guy’s shoulder and tell
him what a terrific fellow he was. Other nights, I would start looking for a fight, or at least a good loud argument. It could be over anything, Cubs versus Sox, the Virgin Birth, where to find really good pizza. One night I got into it with this big round shaggy guy, Donny Malloy, over who was the better actor, Pacino or DeNiro.
I’d seen Taxi Driver three times and told Donny to please try and be serious, Pacino wasn’t even in the same fucking league as DeNiro, didn’t he know that?
Donny shook his head in amazement, telling me I was so full of shit he didn’t know where to begin, maybe with Dog Day Afternoon.
We went back and forth like that for a while, Siskel and Ebert, and then he said he had to go take a leak. I told him go ahead, take your leak.
By that time, we’d had a couple shots with our beers and I was never very good at that, so, while Donny was in the john, I went out by the parking lot and threw up in a bush and felt better. Then I found my car and sat on the hood and lit a cigarette. It was a nice night, quite a lot of stars up there. I smoked and thought about the universe, how big it was, how small we were, just a speck. I whispered something from Taxi Driver: “‘I’m God’s lonely man.’”
I decided to call it a night.
A couple days later I ran into Donny again, at Nick’s. He was sitting at a stool with this lanky guy called Birdman, watching the Cubs game. I came over, wanting to explain about taking off the other night in the middle of our discussion. I put my hands on their backs and said, “Gentlemen.”
They turned and looked at me. Birdman gave me a little nod and turned back to the game. Donny didn’t even give me that. I figured he was mad about the other night—he was very temperamental that way—but when I asked if they were ready for another beer he said, “I don’t drink with thiefs.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him. “What did you say?”
He said it again, “I don’t drink with thiefs.”
I turned to Birdman. “What’s he talking about?”
He shrugged, eyes on the Cub game.
I grabbed Donny’s arm. “What’re you talking about?”
He turned to me. “I’ll tell you what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the other night.”
“What about it.”
“I went to the john?”
“Yeah?”
“I come back?”
“Yeah?”
“The twenty I left under my glass?”
“What about it.”
“It’s gone. And so are you.”
It took me a moment to say anything. “And you think … I took it?”
He shook his big round head: “I don’t think you took it, I know you did.”
I looked at Birdman. He was still watching the Cub game, or pretending to. I looked back at Donny. “Are you calling me a thief?”
He pointed at me. “You catch on fast.” He turned back to the game.
Standing there, trying not to sink under this, I put out this laugh, this very lame laugh, and gave Birdman a backhanded whack on the arm. “You believe this fuckin’ guy?”
I didn’t mean it as an actual question but he answered it. “Yeah,” he said, eyes on the game, “I think I do.”
Probably because of the clammy way I was acting, like a thief who’s been caught.
Meanwhile, the other guys in the bar all heard this, heard Donny calling me a thief to my face, so now they were waiting to see what I was going to do about it. I had to do something, otherwise it would look like I agreed, like I was a thief. But all I did was keep standing there, like a thief who’s been caught. And the more I knew I looked like one, the more I really felt like one, and the harder it was to do anything but stand there.
I finally just turned around and walked out.
When I got to my apartment, I sat on the edge of the couch. I didn’t even take my jacket off, I just sat there: a thief. That’s what Donny declared I was, and now after walking out like I did, that’s what they all believed, and would tell anyone who missed it:
Hey, you know Manderino?
What about him?
Guy’s a fucking thief.
Nawww. Really?
He ripped off Donny Malloy, right here in the bar.
You’re shittin’ me.
I ain’t shittin’ ya.
And that would never change, no matter what I did. For instance I could save a fourteen year-old girl from a life of prostitution, like DeNiro did in Taxi Driver, get shot up for my trouble, it’s in all the papers, big hero. They’d say, Yeah, but you know? He’s still a fucking thief.
I got up from the couch. I went out to my car and drove back to Nick’s. On the way, I put together a little speech. I went over it a couple of times.
Donny was still there, watching the Cubs game along with everyone else. They all looked very settled in, like it was a fact, over and done with: Manderino’s a thief. And now, back to the Cubbies.
So my job was to unsettle them.
I walked straight up behind Donny and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned around, looking surprised to see me.
“Here,” I told him, holding up a twenty-dollar bill, and gave my little speech, loud for everyone to hear: “I never stole anything in my life, but if you think I took your twenty dollars here’s twenty dollars and if you ever call me a thief again I’ll kick your ass, understood?”
He gave this amused little grin. Then he took the bill and held it up to the light. “Yep,” he said, “this looks like the one,” and got a laugh from the audience.
“It’s not,” I assured him.
“Tell you what,” he said, and leaned forward, holding the bill in front of my face. “I’ll take this back on one condition: you admit you stole it. I’ll even buy you a beer with it, how’s that.”
I shook my head, no. “I didn’t take your fucking money, Malloy. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t me.”
He sat back, elbows on the bar, nodding, hamming it up. “I see. So now you’re blaming one of these guys, is that it?” Then he suddenly sat forward again. “Well, let me tell you something. These guys are my friends. You saying my friends are thiefs?”
That put me on the spot. So I said to him, “Look. First of all, the word is ‘thieves,’ okay? Not ‘thiefs.’”
“Well,” he said, crumbling the twenty into a ball, “you oughta know,” and tossed it off my forehead. “Now get outa here, ya fuckin’ thief.”
I’d already warned him if he ever called me a thief again I would kick his ass, so everyone was waiting.
First, though, I couldn’t help doing this little DeNiro thing. “You talkin’ to me?” I said, and looked over my shoulder like maybe he was talking to someone behind me, then looked at him again, tilting my head in a questioning way, pointing at myself: “You talkin’ to me?”
He held up his palms and lifted his shoulders—maybe that was something from Pacino—and said, “You’re the only thief in here.”
I folded my arms and looked off, nodding my head— more DeNiro—saying quietly, “Okay … okay …” Then I suddenly unfolded my arms, reared back and punched him in the jaw just as hard as I possibly could. He fell backwards, cracking his head against the bar, dropped to the floor and lay there on his side, eyes closed, not moving at all.
Everyone was quiet. The only sound was the Cubs announcer: “Having himself quite a night, with the bat and the glove …”
I stood there waiting for Donny to move, even just his hand, even just a finger.
“There’s a deep drive down the right field line, curving … curving …”
I got the hell out of there.
Driving home I didn’t think, just drove the car. I didn’t think until I was sitting once again on the edge of the couch, staring straight ahead, running the zipper of my jacket up and down, up and down: Oh God, oh fuck, oh Jesus, I killed him, I didn’t mean to, I was in a movie, I was acting in a movie, but it wasn’t a movie and now he’s dead, he’s actually dead, I killed him, I’m a murderer, I murdered Donny Mall
oy, took away his life, the whole rest of his life, stole it from him, I’m a murderer and a thief …
I wanted so bad for the credits to be rolling now, for this to be a stupid, overly dramatic movie. But it wasn’t. The cops would be here soon, real ones.
I quickly straightened up the apartment a little, then sat on the couch again, hands on my knees, and waited.
Ten minutes later, I heard footsteps coming up the long hallway.
I waited.
They kept coming, then stopped on the other side of the door. There was a knock, just one loud knock.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m here,” and got up, and walked over, and opened the door.
Donny punched me in the jaw.
I staggered back and he followed me in and punched me in the stomach, then punched me in the jaw again. I went down so he wouldn’t punch me anymore. He stood over me for a moment, catching his breath. Then he kicked me in the ribs—not very hard, more of a gesture—and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
I stayed there on the floor. There was blood in my mouth, warm and sweet. I felt so happy I wanted to weep. And in fact I did, laying my head in my arms, calling myself God’s lonely man.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
Molly was small and pretty and shy and I loved her name— it was on her Dairy Queen blouse. I stopped there every evening after work that summer, and if the other girl came to the window I told her, “That’s okay, I’ll wait for Molly.” And when she came she always said hi and smiled. I would order a vanilla cone, one scoop, and make small talk while she fixed it. I had secret plans for us. I had that song in my head all the time:
Just Molly and me
And baby makes three,
We’re happy in my blue heaven.
First, though, I had to ask her out. So I finally did, and she said, “Um … okay.”
She still lived with her parents. When I picked her up, I had to come in.
“This is my mom and this is my dad.”
They were on the couch, Barney Miller on.
“Hello,” I said to them, nodding, smiling.
“Nice to meet you,” the mother said.
“Going to a movie, huh?” the father said.
“Yes,” I said, “a movie, right.”
“Well, you have yourselves a nice time,” the mother said.
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