by Rick Goeld
Five minutes later, having stowed the luggage in the spare bedroom, and Eddie having duly noted and admired the remarkable view overlooking the East River and the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, the brothers were back on the sidewalk, heading in the direction of Ming’s, a good Chinese restaurant that Mark knew. It was near freezing, and a salty grit crunched under their shoes as they walked. Eddie remembered the smell, the unique smell of commercial Manhattan: a mixture of diesel exhaust and spilled garbage and cheap food and who-knew-what-else.
In short order they were in the restaurant, sitting at a booth by the window, drinking beer, and waiting for the food to arrive. It seemed to be a decent place, Eddie thought, as he scanned the crowd. He spotted a few Asian families, and considered that a good sign.
Neither brother had yet broached a serious subject. Mark, whose philosophy was that the best defense is a good offense, made the first probe, the tentative jab of a boxer trying to get the feel of his opponent.
“So, Eddie, what’s going on with you and Alison?”
Right to the point. At least he remembered her name. “Well, Mark, it’s been coming for quite a while now. I just think we need some time apart.” As he said the words “time apart,” Eddie thought he detected a flash of concern on his brother’s face. Careful, he thought, I don’t want to scare him before I even unpack.
“What do you mean, it’s been coming for quite a while now?”
“Well, you know,” Eddie replied, “we both have our own interests, and, you know, we’re both pursuing our careers, so . . .”
His brother continued to probe: “So?”
He fumbled for the right words, “So, it’s just gotten pretty tense in the last few months.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Mark said, leaning back in his seat.
“Yeah.” Eddie sighed, took a deep breath, and plunged on. “But, you know, deep down, we love each other, and, well, I think … I hope we’ll be together again, soon.”
“What’s Alison doing now?” Mark asked. “Still at the ad agency?”
“Yeah, she’s still there, five years now.”
“Five years. She must be running the place.”
“No,” he parried as he finished his beer and signaled to the waiter for two more. “No, not quite yet. She’s a junior account executive.” Emphasis on the junior.
The food arrived, and the waitress arranged the platters and bowls in the center of the table. The sizzling black pepper shrimp was still sizzling, but the egg foo yung just sat there like malignant pancakes coated with congealed maple syrup. Eddie dug into the shrimp, while Mark grabbed a couple of barbequed ribs.
“Mmm,” Eddie said, chewing on a shrimp, “that is so good.”
“Chinese food,” Mark smiled, “medicine for the blues.”
Eddie popped another shrimp into his mouth. “Mark, do you mind if I ask you kind of a personal question?”
His brother sampled the egg foo yung, made a face, and dropped it back onto his plate. “Go ahead.”
“How can you afford that apartment?”
“It’s a condo. I know the owner from work. He’s been in London for a year, opening a new office. I’m doing him a favor by looking after it.”
“Some favor. What’s it cost you, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“I pay him two thousand a month, and I’m responsible for the utilities.” Mark smiled. “Shit, I couldn’t afford to own a place like that.”
Eddie whistled softly. “When does the owner come back?”
“In a couple of years.”
“Nice.” Eddie helped himself to a spare rib, and more shrimp. “So, Mark, what else is going on with you?”
“What else?” Mark pondered the question. “Well, things are going well at work.”
“What are you doing these days?” Eddie knew very well what his brother did for a living. His mother reminded him every chance she got.
“I’m still in investment banking,” Mark replied, as if that answer was sufficient for someone like Eddie, who didn’t understand the world of finance and big business.
“I still don’t understand what it is you do there,” Eddie continued, perhaps subconsciously playing for time.
“I analyze deals.”
“What kind of deals?”
“All kinds. You know, real estate, mergers and acquisitions, stuff like that.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“I’m just doing analysis, verifying facts, running the numbers, doing on-site evaluations; that kind of thing. It gets really interesting when you get into the negotiations.”
“On-site? Does that mean you travel?”
“Some … once or twice a month.”
Eddie decided to change directions. “So, how’s your love life?”
Mark put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth.
“Pretty good, I guess. Slow at times.”
“You dating anyone in particular?”
“No. Not really.” Mark attempted to reclaim the initiative. “So, Eddie, where are you working now?”
I should have seen that one coming. “Uh,” he hesitated, “after this thing happened with Alison, I had to quit my job.” No way I’d commute from Manhattan to Somerset every day! “I’m just going to find something around here. You know, something temporary.”
“Do you need some help?” Mark asked, reflexively leaning forward and extending his hand toward his back pocket as if reaching for his wallet. “You know, just to tide you over?”
“Thanks, Mark, but I’m okay.”
The conversation drifted into less troubled waters. When the check came, Eddie grabbed it, as he had promised he would.
7
Thursday, March 2, 2000
Eddie woke, sat up in bed, and looked around the spare bedroom. It was small but well organized, with desk, dresser, leather chair, and bed fitting snugly around the room’s perimeter. The desk and dresser had a deep mahogany finish, and the leather chair, piled high with pillows and bed spread, was a rich shade of tan. Eddie’s suitcase and duffle bag sat in the middle of the room, right where he’d dropped them last night. He got out of bed and walked to the window, which faced south. The view was completely blocked by an office building. Can’t have everything. He put on a flannel shirt and corduroy pants—the same clothes he wore yesterday—straightened the sheet and blankets, and strolled into the kitchen.
Eddie didn’t know what to expect, but the smell of bacon and coffee put a smile on his face. He found Mark humming something from West Side Story as he scrambled eggs in a porcelain bowl. Over breakfast, the brothers talked, not jabbing away at each other as they had done the night before, but instead talking about the ongoing battles between Mayor Guiliani and Hillary Clinton, the local sports teams, and, of course, their parents. After breakfast, they moved into the living room and quickly scanned through the Times as clouds rolled across windows overlooking the East River. Minutes later, the sky cleared, and the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens spread out before them, backlit by the morning sun.
Mark asked Eddie if he wanted to join him at his fitness club, which was a few blocks away. After they worked out, he would take a cab to work and Eddie could come back to the apartment. But Eddie declined, explaining that he needed to get out and start looking for a job and a place to stay, a good cover story for hitting a few music stores. He appreciated his brother’s hospitality, but didn’t want to get quite that comfortable in Mark’s world.
After showering and dressing, Eddie locked the apartment and took the elevator down to street level. No guard on duty, he noted, and the lobby was still freezing. He hopped on a northbound bus, and by early afternoon had purchased a copy of Two Against Nature at a Tower Records store in Midtown. Back out on the sidewalk, he loaded the CD into his Walkman, adjusted the earphones, and began listening as he walked south. It was bright and sunny, but the wind had picked up, and he was blasted with dust and dirt at every intersection. The streets were jammed with shoppers, hawkers, and drift
ers, more than he expected on a Thursday afternoon, and there were times he had to weave through the crowds.
By the fourth track, “Janie Runaway,” he was frowning. The CD was, he thought, a bit of a disappointment. Yeah, sure, it was Steely Dan, but it was somehow different. Some of the old riffs were there. Some of the music was vaguely familiar, reminiscent of the great old stuff, but it was mostly too new, too “jazzy,” and, even, in a strange way, alien. By the time he reached 40th Street he was shivering, and he flagged down a taxi. No point freezing to death.
Minutes later he was back in the apartment. He decided to give the CD another shot. After all, it was The Dan, and sometimes you had to listen to music a few times to get the feel of it. So he stretched out on the bed, turned on the Walkman, plugged the earphones into his ears, and began listening. The music was a little more familiar, sure, but still, well, strange. Yet another reason to track down Fagen and Becker. By the end of the third track, he was asleep.
*****
Mark banged the door open and flipped on the overhead light, waking Eddie from a sound sleep.
“Hey . . .” Eddie said, momentarily disoriented. He squinted up at Mark, who was a blurry silhouette in front of the window. “Hey, Mark. What time is it?”
“It’s almost seven, Eddie. I thought you might want to get up.” Mark was wearing a maroon turtleneck under a charcoal-grey suit that looked like money, Eddie thought, and he had a black overcoat folded over one arm.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “thanks. Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a date.”
“Oh … good. With who?”
“One of the girls at the office.”
“Oh. Where are you going?”
“Just dinner. Look, I’ve got to run. You’ve got the whole place to yourself tonight.”
“Okay … good.”
“I’ll see you later. Don’t wait up, I might be late,” Mark said, going out the door.
“Okay, Mark. Have a good time.”
A few seconds later, he heard the apartment door close. He rolled out of bed and stretched, and then went into the bathroom to take a leak and splash cold water on his face.
He was starving, and there was nothing interesting in the refrigerator. Scrounging around in the kitchen cabinets, he found a pile of take-out menus, including one from Ming’s. He grabbed the phone, dialed the number, and was soon ordering the sizzling black pepper shrimp and vegetable fried rice. An hour later, he was eating while listening to the CD again, this time on the Bose stereo system in the living room. Still strange, he thought, as he finished off the shrimp.
He spent the next hour planning what he needed to accomplish in the next few days. Find a job and an apartment; those had to be items one and two on his “things to do” list. What else? Track down Fagen’s address, that was item three. He could do some more web searching and try to narrow it down to at least a neighborhood. And call Alison. Try to re-establish communication. Or maybe an email would be better. Or maybe he should just wait. He’d have to think about that for a while. He spent the rest of the evening reading Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool. Russo was special, he thought, an author who told great stories using beautiful prose. Finishing the book, he speculated on where his brother might be. Probably out painting the town. Eddie went to bed at the stroke of midnight.
8
Friday, March 3, 2000
Eddie smiled as he arranged placemats, dishes, silverware and napkins on the kitchen counter. He was making progress, at least on some fronts. This morning he had started looking for work, and had lucked into a pretty good job at the brand new Borders on Second Avenue, just a long city block from his brother’s apartment. The manager, a “take charge” guy who reminded Eddie of his mother, had asked him to browse around the store while he checked out Eddie’s references. Twenty minutes later, after verifying his credit history and phoning Mark and Jerry, the manager had hired him on the spot, guaranteeing twenty-five hours a week, with more possible if he was willing to work. He had worked four hours this afternoon, quickly learning the ropes, and would work a ten-to-six shift tomorrow.
He’d also spent some time surfing the web, researching Fagen’s address. There were plenty of places to look: an official Steely Dan website, purportedly run in cooperation with Fagen and Becker—no way of telling how true that was—and literally dozens of sites run by fans that contained guest books, obscure lyrics, and just about any kind of trivia one could imagine. But there were damned few clues about Fagen’s address. There were the names of a number of New York based recording studios that The Dan had used, and he looked up those addresses in the telephone directory, or on-line. He did find a few candid photos: one of Fagen on the sidewalk somewhere in Greenwich Village, another of Fagen coming out of Iridium, a jazz club on the Upper West Side, and a third of Fagen walking near the Guggenheim Museum. Eddie knew that musicians like Fagen had money, and lived in upscale neighborhoods. Perhaps near the Guggenheim.
Thinking about nice neighborhoods, and not-so-nice neighborhoods, Eddie remembered his father’s comments earlier in the week about the cost of living in Manhattan. He had looked at one tiny studio apartment in SoHo, which was barely within his ability to pay, even for a few weeks. A sublease anywhere in Manhattan would pretty much eat up his take-home pay, and he still felt obligated to help Alison pay the rent on their apartment, not that he’d spoken to her about that or anything else. And then there was the cost of the subway, and bus fares, and other details, like eating every day. He looked out the window and wondered what it would cost to live across the river.
A minute later, his brother unlocked the front door and walked into the kitchen, a brown paper bag hanging from each hand. “Hey,” Mark said, placing the bags carefully on the counter.
“Hey. How was work?” Eddie asked.
“Good. I got a lot of things done. It was pretty quiet today.”
Eddie picked up the aroma of garlic and oregano. “Italian food?” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“Yeah, from La Pizzaria, across the street. We’re Zittner’s, remember? We eat Italian at least once a week.” Mark’s voice boomed as if he were about to break into operatic song; then he started to unload plastic containers. “Let’s see, two giant servings of lasagna in this one, and garlic bread in this one.” He loaded the lasagna into the microwave and started the warming cycle. “Eddie, can you get the salad? It’s in the other bag. And grab a bottle of red wine?”
“Will do,” Eddie replied, unloading a container filled with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, sliced onions, and peppers. Minutes later, the brothers were sitting side-by-side at the kitchen counter, savoring beefy lasagna covered with a rich tomato sauce.
Mark was in a good mood, Eddie thought, the happiest he’d seen him since, well, yesterday, over breakfast. But, having spent the last few years separated by more than just the Hudson River, his brother was a bit of a mystery to him. In high school, Mark had been a serious student, and hadn’t dated much. Then he’d attended Northwestern University in Chicago; not that far from New Jersey, but far enough to create more distance between them. Now, his brother seemed to be a workaholic, focusing on his job, but, surprisingly, he’d gone out last night, a week-night, coming home well after Eddie had gone to bed. Mark hadn’t said anything about who he was dating, other than identifying her as a girl from work, perhaps implying that more than one was in-play. Eddie realized that, other than that first dinner, and yesterday morning, they’d hardly seen each other. At least they were getting along, if not completely comfortable around each other.
“So,” Mark asked, “did you get that job at Borders?”
Eddie remembered that the store manager had called Mark. “Yeah. I even worked four hours this afternoon. I guess I have a special talent for working in bookstores.”
“Well, great,” his brother replied, biting into a piece of garlic bread, “at least you found something. Did you look at that sublet you saw in the paper?”
“Yeah, I took a look at it.”
“And?”
“Well, it was small, a studio, you know, but it was nice enough. Expensive, though.” He picked at the lasagna with his fork. “With my finances being what they are, it’ll have to be a place like that, or some flea-bag hotel, I guess.”
Mark put down the garlic bread and took a sip of wine, then swiveled to face his brother. “Eddie, look, I’ve been thinking, why don’t you just stay in the spare bedroom?”
“Mark, I couldn’t put you out like that.”
“It wouldn’t be putting me out. Not really. Hell, we hardly see each other.”
Eddie, embarrassed, dropped his eyes and took a large gulp of wine. Yeah, he thought, we’re like two ships passing in the night. Then he thought Mark might be talking about more than just the last couple of days.
His brother continued, “I mean, look at my schedule, and yours, now that you’ll be working. We’ll probably cross paths what, once or twice a day, tops? And I’ll be traveling some of the time.”
“Mark, I really don’t want to impose. That wasn’t my intention.”
“You wouldn’t be imposing. Brothers, remember?” Now Mark looked away, perhaps worried that he was getting too close. But then he turned back toward Eddie with a grin, “Anyway, we’re talking about a few weeks, right?”