The Friend
He sees his mother’s best friend from the block and yells out, “Margaret, Margaret!” and says to his mother, “Mom, there’s Margaret,” and Margaret stops, looks around, catches him waving at her from about forty feet away; What do you know, what a nice surprise, her look seems to say, and she starts over to them while he wheels his mother to her. They’re on Columbus Avenue, around three in the afternoon on a normal weekday, but the sidewalks and restaurant patios are all crowded, sky’s darkening and wind picks up a bit, and it looks and feels like rain though no one seems to be hurrying to avoid it. “Listen, maybe I shouldn’t have stopped her, because we haven’t got too long to talk,” he tells his mother, leaning over her wheelchair. “I don’t want us to get caught in the downpour,” and she says, “Why would we?” and he doesn’t know if she means get caught in the downpour or talk too long, when Margaret reaches them. “Beatrice, Gould, how are you?” she says, bending down to take his mother’s hand while she kisses her cheek. He kisses Margaret and says, “And how are you doing? It’s been awhile,” and his mother looks up at her, doesn’t seem to recognize her—maybe she’s tired; this is around the time she takes a nap, and she had a good-sized drink at lunch just now—and then says, “Oh, my dear, it’s a treat to see you,” and he’s still not sure she recognizes her. “Did my son tell you we’d be here?” and he says, “No, Mom, we just happened to bump into her.” “I’ve lost so much weight lately and also with this ugly scarf covering my head, I’m surprised you noticed me from that far away,” and his mother says, “But now I can see you and recall all the kind things you’ve done for us, but I’ve always had a problem with names.” “It’s Margaret, Mom. From the street. How are you feeling, though?” he says to Margaret, and she says, “I’ve been terrible, to tell the truth. I hate to complain, so don’t let me start in about it and bore you, but I’ve had big troubles, I’m afraid; a fluke to end all flukes.” “Do you think it’s going to rain?” his mother asks him, and he says, “Why, you want to get back? You tired, cold? Because I don’t think the sky looks too threatening,” and she says, “It wouldn’t bother me, a little rain. I’d even like it—the drops on me; something different for a change. But I didn’t think you’d want to get soaked.” “Why don’t we all walk together then, if you’re heading home,” to Margaret, and she says, “I was actually on my way to Pioneer for a few things.” “So, how are you, dear?” his mother says. “You’re looking fine,” and she says, “I was just telling Gould that I haven’t been that well lately. I’ve had big troubles, something entirely unforeseen, Beatrice,” and his mother says, “At our age it’s always one setback after the next. Either we lose somebody or we lose some part of our body. I’m sick of doctors. It never lets up and they’re all no good.” “Mom, excuse me, but let her finish,” and Margaret says, “But if she’s tired or cold?” and he says, “You’re okay, aren’t you, Mom?” and she says, “If you say so—only kidding. I’m not quite up to par today, but I’ll survive, why?” and Margaret says to him, “If there’s a cloudburst?” and he says, “Believe me, we both would rather know how you are, and we’ll just duck in someplace if it rains and then get a cab somehow,” and Margaret says, “Well, it’s a ridiculous thing; and talk about the unexpected, this one takes the cake. I had a mole I didn’t know about on my scalp,” and he slaps his hand to his mouth and looks at his mother, and she’s staring up at her placidly. “Or maybe this mole all of a sudden grew there, but at the beauty parlor six months ago the girl cutting my hair nicked it with her scissors. Really, the first time I was ever nicked with scissors or hurt in a beauty parlor in any way, not even my nails, and I’ve been going to one every two months for more than fifty years and it has to be this one tiny mole on my head. And something went wrong with it—you both know how that can happen with moles—and it quickly spread and now I’m getting radiation for it every other day and they think they might get it under control.” “No! Oh, my goodness,” he says, and his mother looks alarmed at him and says, “What is it? Is it your wife? One of your children? He has two young girls”—to Margaret—and he says, “No, they’re okay,” and, to Margaret, “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” and she says, “That’s why I’m wearing this kerchief. From where they cut, and also some hair falling out. But I’m hoping for the best; what else can I do for now? Just, I’ve been feeling sick so much of the time because of the treatments. The stuff I’m going to Pioneer for is really for my stomach, to settle it, since I hardly eat anymore, even if they say I’m supposed to. But how can I eat when everything I put down wants to come up?” and he says, “I can’t believe it. God, what happens in life!” and she says, “Isn’t it amazing? But if I don’t get cured I at least know I had three wonderful sons and lived my normal life span and maybe a decade beyond,” and he says, “Don’t talk like that. You’ll get better,” and she says, “I pray so. Now you get your mother home. I also didn’t go out with an umbrella—this weather wasn’t expected. The radio said it’d be mild and sunny all day, and for some reason rain’s not supposed to be good for me, not just sun,” and he says, “Because of the radiation?” and she says, “Maybe I have it wrong. It could be the sun that’s the one bad egg, which is another reason I wore the kerchief. Goodbye, Beatrice,” and his mother says, “Are you going so soon? Don’t be such a stranger, dear; come and see me,” and she says, “I’ve been meaning to but things have sort of slowed me down lately. But I’ll try; I love our talks,” and they kiss and he kisses her and wheels his mother toward home. “Tell me, was that Margaret from our block I just spoke to?” and he says, “Yes, your old drinking buddy,” and she laughs and says, “When was that? But she’s not been well, has she? I could tell by her voice. So weak. And something about her expression.” “She’s sick, all right,” and she says, “What of?” and he tells her about the accident and now the radiation, and she says, “Age is an awful thing. People today live too long, I honestly believe that,” and he says, “It has nothing to do with age. You know her; she was strong as an ox. Lifting heavy garbage cans, shoveling snow and washing her windows outside and in. It was that fluke accident, as she said,” and she says, “How?” and he says, “I told you,” and she says, “Tell me again. With all this street noise and because you’re speaking behind me, it’s sometimes difficult to hear.” About a month later, when he calls his mother, the woman taking care of her and who answered the phone says, “You remember Margaret, your mother’s good friend, the one who used to come by here every week or two and they’d talk and have drinks and cheese?” and he says, “She died, didn’t she,” and she says, “You knew? It only happened a few days ago. The mailman, Frank, told me,” and he says, “No, but I saw her when I took Beatrice out last time I was there, and she said what was wrong with her and it really seemed bad,” and the woman says, “They were a real pair. Talked and laughed; I never knew what it was over, but she was the only one your mother did that with and it could go on for hours. She’s going to be real sorry when she hears about it,” and he says, “Maybe it’s best we don’t tell her,” and she says, “What about when she asks me to phone Margaret to come by and for me to make sure there’s enough Jack Daniels left for them, which she used to do regularly?” and he says, “Has she done it recently?” and she says, “No, but she’s going to, I feel it, and I don’t know how I’ll be able to lie to her with a straight face,” and he says, “I think she’s already sensed something was wrong—the way Margaret looked last time and her not seeing or hearing from her for so long—and, I don’t know, has put it out of her mind because it’s too sad to think about. It’s a real loss, besides that she was such a nice person. Is my mother able to come to the phone?” and she shouts out, “Mrs. B, your son’s on the phone, pick up,” and his mother picks up the phone in her room, and he says, “How you feeling, Mom?” and she says, “Could be better, I guess. Do you remember my dear friend Margaret?” and he says, “Yes, sure, down the block, brownstone next to the big apartment building,” and she says, “
She owns it, you know. She used to work for this elderly couple—years ago—she and her husband, though she did most of it, laundry, cooking, small repairs, and all the custodial work, when first one and then the other of this couple quickly died and they left only Margaret the building. Her husband was no good. A charmer, from Portugal, and a ladies’ man they said—she told me everything—so he used to disappear for months on end. I haven’t seen her for a long time. I don’t think it’s a mystery either but that it’s because she died. No one phoned me, not that I could have gone to the funeral. I don’t have the heart or energy for those things anymore. Do you know anything about it?” and he says, “Unfortunately, you’re right. I just found out myself. And if her sons didn’t tell you, I’m sure it’s because they thought you had problems enough. What a wonderful person, though, huh? and what a friend to you,” and she says, “It’s such a pity. All the old-timers from the block are either gone or they’ve moved away and you never hear from them again, and I don’t even think I have any sisters or my brother left. But how’s your wife? The kids? All my little darlings. Everyone’s okay?”
The Shame
He’s trying to get in touch with an old friend about something; calls the number he has in his address book, it’s no longer a working number; calls Manhattan Information, and there’s no number for him or any number for anyone in the entire city for him or just with his last name and the first initial H; calls Harold’s ex-wife, which is the same number Harold used to have when he was still married to her, and that number now belongs to someone who says he got it from the phone company two years ago; doesn’t know how to reach Harold, and then remembers a mutual friend from college and about ten years after who became Harold’s best friend and whom he last bumped into about four or five years ago—at the time this guy said he was living on West 89th Street near the park—and gets his number from Information and dials; and a woman’s recorded voice says Amber and Emmiline aren’t in, please leave a message, and he says who it is and that she might even remember him—“I’m an old friend of Andrew’s from way way back”—and could one of them have Andrew call him, and gives his phone number. He assumes they got divorced and Amber kept the apartment and their daughter lives with her, but then why would she still list Andrew’s name in the phone directory, unless they’re only separated? Maybe, if they are divorced, to ward off creepy men from calling her because there’s only a woman’s name listed or just an initial for a first name. Anyway, two days later Andrew calls and says, “I got your message. What’s up, how’s it going?” and he says, “Fine. I’m just trying to reach Harold. Neither he nor Lynn are listed in the phone book in New York, she hasn’t kept their old phone number, and I didn’t know who else to go to. And excuse me if you think this is being nosy, but I assume, because your wife only mentioned her and your daughter’s names on the answering machine recording—” and Andrew says, “We split up more than four years ago, soon after I last saw you, I think,” and he says, “Sorry to hear that,” and Andrew says, “No reason to be. It was a lousy marriage for years. The worst part, as I’m sure it’d be for you too, is the daily deprivation of seeing my daughter. She didn’t want to move to San Diego, and you can’t blame her—friends, school, her mother—and it was too good a job for me to turn down and stay in New York just to be near her. But I’ve started socializing again, so I’m not as lonely as when I first got here, and I get to see Emma about six times a year and for a month this summer, which helps out. I’m even getting to like this city. Weather’s ideal, if you’ve had your fill of icy rain and snow and extreme cold, and there are plenty of good bookstores and places to eat, and people here are a lot more civil to you than they are in New York. But what about Harold?” and he tells him his mother died a month ago and he thought Harold would be able to advise him on what to do with her jewelry and antiques and some of her furniture. “He’s the right guy for that, and you’d be dealing with someone you can trust, for a lot of these estate and appraisal people can be jackals of the worst order. But he’s not in the antiques business anymore, though he could still give you good advice. And I’m sorry to hear about your mom. I don’t remember her that well—we’re talking of more than thirty years ago when I last saw her—but I know how it feels, when my own dear mother died twenty-two years ago. I still think of her almost every day, and now more than the last few years, maybe because of my divorce and my daughter. You have a pen?” and he gives Harold’s phone numbers off the top of his head, his apartment and studio and also his office. “Who knows why he’s unlisted. Debts, I doubt. As for Lynn, she goes by her maiden name now, Katz. Since they parted ways, I haven’t seen her, though her last address is Three-ten West Nineteenth Street, one zero zero eleven for the ZIP. I only know it because she once asked me to send her one of our products. So listen, this has been nice, and if you ever get out to San Diego—” and he says, “I was there three years ago for something and don’t see any chance of a repeat visit soon,” and Andrew says, “Too bad I wasn’t here then. I mean, I’m glad I wasn’t; I was still in New York and seeing my daughter almost every day. But if I had been here and knew from Harold or someone you were coming. Next time, perhaps. Or in New York, if you get there and our stays overlap. No, then I reserve all my free time for Emma. But it’s not often I run into old friends out here, and I miss it and that New York openness and humor. Do you run into anyone from college or after whom we both knew?” and he says, “Hardly ever. You might’ve been the last, several years ago, coming out of a subway station I was walking past, or the other way around, or it could have been one of us going in it and the other coming out, I forget,” and Andrew says, “I remember that, Broadway and Seventy-second. I was heading to Fairway from my office downtown for some deli and Eli’s bread and you were cutting across the island the station’s on to buy Mahler’s Tenth—the Rattle version, I think you said—at that big record store on the corner, the one I like to call MSG. Matter of fact, our conversation that time was mainly about music. You’d recently had a letter in the Times magazine section where you criticized an article they’d run on Vladimir Horowitz. ‘Petty-minded and abjectly cheeky and pejorative’ were some of the things you said in it, and I remember asking you how come you’d got so worked up about the subject,” and he says, “Well, if I recall, I thought Horowitz was entitled to his so-called eccentricities, if that’s what it took for him to—” and Andrew says, “I know; you told me in front of the subway station. I disagreed, didn’t think the writer of the article had been as unsympathetic and sarcastic as you’d said in the letter, though you might have been right; and now Horowitz is dead. Anyway, about San Diego, take my number, just in case you’re ever out here or somewhere close—L.A., even, since I get up there once a month,” and gives it, and he writes it down though doesn’t think he’ll transfer it to his address book. He’s not going to San Diego, and even if he did he wouldn’t try to see him and he doesn’t know what he’d want to speak to him on the phone again for. What he wants now is to get off, but Andrew’s talking about the White House—how’d they get into that?—“Because what do you make of it? I think the scandals and skulduggery will ultimately crush him, and to our great misfortune too. Because liberal as he isn’t, he’s still two times five more so than any Repub who’ll succeed him if the shit sticks, and then say hasta luego to abortion rights, gun control, military spending restraint, health, welfare, and education support, besides aid to the arts of any sort and free condoms, and then crime on the street will next be on your doorstep and then in your hair. In other words, poverty and lousy housing and too many unguided defiant children—” and he says, “That could be, though if the guy and his cronies did wrong, they should own up to it and pay the consequences, even if in the long run we’ll all suffer,” and thinks why, of all things, did he say that? and then a movie Andrew saw last month that he thinks the most literary and intellectual film since early to middle Bergman. “I mention him also because I remember you once said he should get, almost before anyone�
�and I’m dipping back here around twenty years—the Nobel for literature,” and he says, “I did? It’s a blank to me, and now I think all those prizes are ruinous and ridiculous,” and Andrew says, “Come on, you wouldn’t turn down something good like that if it was offered,” and he says, “I don’t know; maybe only not to embarrass the giver. But what’s the title?” and writes it down, and then a novel Andrew read in three sittings last week—“long as we’re talking about literature”—that he thinks Gould would like, and gives the title and author, and he says, “Never heard of it or her,” and Andrew says, “Gallop, don’t shlep, to your bookstore for it. If you were here I’d immediately loan it to you. She’s doing things with language and story and structure that practically no one but some of the Latin Americans are doing, or used to, but for their culture, and she’s maybe just hit thirty. It’s worth every dollar of the hardcover price and it’s a big book too but reads as if it’s one third the size—that quick, despite its density and intricateness,” and he says, “I’ll certainly take a look at it; thanks for the tip,” but doesn’t write the title or author’s name down. If it’s that good, someone else will tell him about it or he’ll see it advertised or prominently displayed in the bookstores, though he still won’t skim through more than a dozen pages of it. Writers have to be—if it’s novels, not stories—dead or at least a few years older than he for him to like, he’s not sure why. Not envy, he doesn’t think, or for the last ten years; the young ones don’t have much to say or very interesting ways to say it, and American Americans less than most of them, but he doesn’t want to say that now and get into a whole other discussion and probably be ridden a little for it. “So, it’s been nice talking to you,” and Andrew says, “Same here, and don’t forget what I suggested to you,” and he says, “You mean if I’m out there? I have your number,” and Andrew says “That too, but I was referring to Tiffany Hissler’s novel. It’d be major at any age; the girl’s a wonder,” and he says, “I won’t, I got it: Time Off,” and Andrew says, “Time In,” and he says, “Anyway, Time, so I’ll find her alphabetically either way,” and they say goodbye and hang up, and he thinks, I should have added “by name and title.” The guy will think I’m a jerk. Right after, his wife says, “Who was that?” and he tells her and why Andrew called back, “but I feel so lousy about him, because of his first wife,” and she says, “They obviously broke up and divorced. Or something terrible happened to her?” and he says, “I did something I’m so ashamed of,” and tells her, and she says, “Well, when you get older this is what you learn, or ought to, and better now than never,” and he says, “Oh, I’ve known it for a long time, right from the beginning, not that it stopped me from doing it again and again, with her and others. I just didn’t think it’d come back to me like this after thirty years. I almost wanted to bring the matter up on the phone, get it out finally,” and she says, “Bad idea. If he doesn’t know, why hurt him now just so you can unburden yourself? And if he knows—” and he says, “He has to. He was always smart and sharp, read a lot, picked up things quick, was a great quipster, would have me in stitches, and I could tell by our conversation before that he doesn’t miss a trick or forget a thing. And they must have talked about it at least once during the breakup. She screwed around with a few other guys during the marriage, and I remember Harold once saying that was one of the reasons Andrew agreed to the divorce: he couldn’t trust her. I’m sure Harold didn’t know about me; if he did he would have pilloried me for it: ‘Andrew was our friend,’ and so on. Of course, as a couple—well, not of course; but Andrew and Clo didn’t seem that compatible. He was precise and buttoned up; she was kind of sloppy and hang-loose and said whatever crossed her mind no matter how insulting or vulgar, another reason he must have known: her big mouth. But both were sensitive to little things; seashells, I remember; usually pink and translucent and kept in tiny plastic boxes. Miniature watch faces without bands; they’d started a collection together. And children. Meaning, they seemed relaxed and affectionate with them, playing on the floor and that sort of thing. She wanted one desperately then, he didn’t at all, but when she was married she told me she only wanted one with him. I’m sure, if she had asked—and who knows if I didn’t even suggest this—I would have gladly supplied the seed and not thought of the consequences. That’s the way I was then—I mean, I wouldn’t have gone around bragging I had a child, but kind of stupid and irresponsible. He eventually had a daughter with Amber, his second wife; Clo had about three kids with her second husband. I bumped into her about ten years ago on the subway; maybe I told you this,” and she says no. “She’d gotten a little dumpy, had always been prone to it, being short and squat and big-boned and a voracious eater, all of which was a turn-on to me when she was much younger. She was so strong, physically. I helped them move a couch once, and she was easily my match on her end of it. Lifted it without struggling. Andrew, who’s at least six feet but quite gangly, stood on the side, saying it only takes two to lift it, three would unbalance it for the one who had to take an end by himself, so let Clo do it instead of him, since she’s a lot stronger. Maybe she was also more sexual than he, but that’s their story, nothing I want to know about. She did allude to it but I forget what it was, something about her sexual appetite, I think, which, if you were only doing it sporadically with her—this is what I think now, not what she said—was probably easy enough to satisfy. And it could be—this is legitimate—her physical strength had the opposite effect on him than it did on me, and that his second wife’s leanness, almost emaciation—I saw her once—was a turn-on to him, sending him into sensual frenzies. I’ve always preferred, but haven’t always ended up with, women who can take a lot of banging around in bed, with strong thighs, a decent-sized rear and spread, plenty of energy, no wilting delicateness or fake excuses.” “Was there any spark there when you saw her on the subway?” and he says, “There was never much spark between us. It was physical, though we had laughs too, and she was bright and also well-read, so occasional good conversations. But mostly food, wine, sex. I knocked on their door once—we lived in the same building. I was on the ground floor and they were on the third. I in fact got that apartment through him. They gave a party, I attended, liked the neighborhood, and told him I had to get out of my sublet across town, and he said there’s a small studio apartment in their building, fairly cheap because it’s sort of an illegal residence, carved out of another apartment and maybe not even reported to the city’s Rent Commission. So one day—he was away on business for the week, I didn’t know that, though,” and she says, “Of course you didn’t,” and he says, “I’m telling you; I didn’t see them much. Once every two to three weeks and if not for dinner, which was maybe once every three months, then usually just a quick chat by our mailboxes or in the supermarket or on the street,” and she says, “So that’s when one of them told you and you used that information to make your move,” and he says, “But I’m almost sure they didn’t. That’d change the whole story, make me into an even worse creep than I thought I was. Because the way I remember it is I went to their apartment to speak to Andrew. I wanted to borrow something—his car, I believe, to drive my folks someplace,” and she says, “Was it evening?” and he says, “Afternoon, I think,” and she says, “So why would you think Andrew would be there, unless he worked nights?” and he says, “Then I don’t know what time of the day it was: evening, afternoon—or the weekend; you forgot that. To be honest, somehow I see daylight in the picture, and open windows, so summer or early fall or late spring; I even think there was a breeze. They had a big two-bedroom apartment with a terrace and several exposures. Really quite grand and nicely furnished, floors finished, everything done in good taste. But anyway, I knocked on their door—or maybe I did know he was gone and I was going to the market and wanted to know if she needed anything. I thought it was about the car, but now the going-to-the-store-for-her seems right, and I think because she was sick,” and she says, “You could have called for that,” and he says, “How do y
ou know I had a phone? I probably didn’t, as I avoided them for years in my apartments. It saved money; I didn’t have a lot. I even had the phone turned off in the previous place I sublet. And if I did have one it would be more like me to think it was profligate to call from two floors below rather than walk upstairs. I was a bit of a cheapskate then too, but it’s something I’d still probably do. Anyway, I rang their bell, didn’t knock—you ring bells for apartments unless the bell’s broken, and this was a good building, well taken care of—and either asked through the door for Andrew or if she needed anything at the market, or if they needed anything at the market, because I might have thought they were both in, when she answered it. Though first the peephole opened, probably to make sure no one was with me. She must have stretched on her toes to reach her eye to it, since she was at the most five-one, and then she said, ‘Hold it,’ and the door opened and she was nude except for her panties. Jesus! I thought, What the hell’s she doing?” and she says, “She wanted you in there, what else? Or she was so laid back that a peek at her bosom didn’t mean anything to her. But judging from what this is leading up to, I doubt it. But was she like that, sort of a nudist?” and he says, “I don’t know. I mean, she was European, or of descent, from Czechoslovakia, came here when she was five. But she certainly at the moment was nonplussed that I saw her. But there she was, her enormous breasts, which don’t mean anything to you but were very exciting to me, and slim panties, more like a bikini. I could see her pubic hair through them and sticking out around them, and of course after I said ‘Excuse me’ or something, I wanted to jump her. That’s how I was then. That’s why I’m so ashamed, or there’s a better word for it, but of what I did and continued to do a few times and I could have stopped it right there,” and she says, “But if that was her purpose and you just quickly picked up on it—and that was the climate at the time, if I’ve got my decades straight—then you’re not that much to blame,” and he says, “But he was my friend; I knew him long before I met her,” and she says, “I forgot; that’s what you were saying; so I suppose you should have turned around and left, saying you’ll come back at a more convenient time, giving her the benefit of the doubt,” and he says, “And that might have been what I would have done too, even though I know I was immediately worked up, but she said, ‘Hi, Andrew’s not home, he’s out of town for the week’—something like that. And ‘Listen, I can’t keep the door open, one of our neighbors might walk by, so if you want to come inside, do.’ And I went in—I didn’t have to; she gave me that out—and knew we were going to have sex, although at the same time, as you said, I could have thought her nudity meant nothing to her and certainly not among friends. For all I know, if I hadn’t quickly moved in on her—I mean, I must have had my arms around her and was pressing my erection into her in the little alcove there—she might have gone and got a bathrobe for herself, invited me to have coffee, just to chat. And she might have been sick—as I said, that’s also what I remember from that first time—and so had just hopped out of her sick bed to answer the door and didn’t attach any importance to her exposed breasts but had put her panties on along the way, or else already had them on in bed. And friends, up till then, was all we’d been. I liked her. I told you. She was bright, lively, good sense of humor, and was generous, just like him. They’d had me up for dinner a couple of times, had also invited me to parties with them. They must have thought, or one of them did, that I should meet someone, was by myself too much, and so on. I didn’t know any women to go out with, then, or anyone who gave parties but them, which is where you do meet women. Though of course if I was that alone, maybe that was my main impetus to have sex with her, and also she could have known or sensed that too—that I had to be horny, or am I pushing the motivations there? But we’d never kissed, hugged, touched: none of that before. Just friends, and not real close ones. When the three of us were together, or when I did bump into her on the street or at a market, we talked a great deal, Clo and I, and I think laughed and joked around a lot too. Our attitudes were somewhat alike; Andrew was a bit more serious. We found it absurd the way people overbought, overdressed, went into debt, put on airs, wanted to impress, were desperate for high-powered jobs and plenty of money and attention and success and those sorts of things, while also not doing much deep thinking or reading. Well, Andrew thought much like that too, though I was far crankier and more judgmental. He was a good guy. I’m telling you, I liked and admired him. I sound phony now, don’t I, but believe me, I’m not. I remember they also invited me to a few movies with them. I’d see them on the street or somewhere; they’d say, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ I’d say, ‘Nothing,’ because I was usually doing nothing, meaning nothing with people, and they’d say they’re going to a movie and to come with them. They sat in the theater, she usually between us—I mean, it only happened two or three times—held hands, ate from the same box of popcorn, passed the box to me, though I couldn’t stand the smell, sound, or feel of the thing. All of this I swear I remember. Did I ever before that first time think of her in a sexual way? I don’t think so. Or, if so, fleetingly: the breasts and strong shape, and I have an imagination and could see what she was built like through her clothes, but with no designs on her, none whatsoever, my personal designs, I’m saying. Why? She was his wife, and maybe up till the moment she opened the door I was never attracted to her,” and she says, “So what it took was for her to take her clothes off; you never once mentioned her face,” and he says, “She had a pleasant one; smiled a lot, but authentically. And I suppose so, regarding the no clothes. And it also might have been the most optimum time, too: he being away, she saying so immediately, maybe something about the light and temperature if not balminess of the day, and my being just before I rang her bell overwhelmingly priapic, though nothing concerning her, and she being the same from the woman’s side, which I’m just guessing now, since I don’t remember that at all. As for those movies, they went a lot, so it wasn’t so unusual for me to go with them a few times, because he was thinking of leaving his job in advertising to try his hand at becoming an independent moviemaker. I think that’s why he didn’t want any children then.” “And her job?” and he says, “Fabrics designer. I think she quit when she started having kids, or continued it at home was what she said when I met her on the subway. I was a substitute teacher at the time. So I had to have had a phone then; no other way I’d get work. And it must have been on a weekend when I went to their apartment, since I subbed almost every schoolday there was, the per-diem pay was so low, and she went to her own work downtown, unless she was sick and had taken the day off and that was the one day in the month I wasn’t able to get a sub job. So now I forget why I went to their apartment, though I’m still almost sure it was during the day and the weather was warm.” “To have sex, why are you denying it? If she hadn’t come to the door half nude—that was an act of fortuity for you—you would have been the one to devise an excuse to get inside. I’d even bet you called first to say you’d like to borrow something—coffee, toothpaste—and she quickly prepared that impromptu surprise for you, knew why you were really coming up but wanted to speed things along a little,” and he says, “Wrong, believe me, that’s not how it was. And now, I don’t know where it came from—probably from just talking about it—but I think I know why I went upstairs. I wanted to know if they’d be interested in two tickets I had for a recital that night. Myra Hess, at Carnegie Hall or City Center, but I think the Hall; I’d bought them for some woman and me. So I apparently was seeing a woman then or was starting to date one, or that was to be our first date. But she called to say she was sick—that’s probably where the sick business comes in, though Clo could have been sick too; an Asian flu could have been floating around—and had to cancel and I didn’t want to go alone and try hawking the extra ticket in the lobby, and the truth is I didn’t want to go at all. Like the popcorn, there are some things I haven’t liked for forty years—ask the kids about me and popcorn in movie theaters today. And though I love
classical music and the piano especially and particularly the way Hess played on LPs—I had a few; we still have them though don’t use them much and I don’t know if any have been transferred to CD—I don’t like concerts or recitals of any sort; larger the hall, less I like them. No doubt I only bought the tickets to make an impression on this woman. All right, I was trying to impress her: Dame Myra Hess, if she was a Dame by then; Carnegie Hall; probably Beethoven, Scarlatti. Or maybe she only said she was sick because she disliked concerts and recitals as much as I. That would have been a laugh, if she had told me later, but I don’t think I ever saw her after that. By calling in sick she might have been saying it had been a mistake to make the date, if that was to be the first one, and she didn’t want to go out with me, period. Anyhow—” and she says, “No, this is what I think happened, if this new version of yours is true. You were already sleeping with this woman you were dating—you don’t remember half the women you slept with and almost none of their names. Or you had gone out with her long enough to feel that after the recital would be the first time you slept with her. But when she canceled you knew there’d be no sex that weekend—I’m assuming it was a weekend, a big date and an important recital like that—and you also knew that this Clo … Wait. How come you didn’t invite her to the recital, once the other one bowed out, if you knew she was going to be alone? Because you didn’t want to bother with any preliminaries like that?” and he says, “Because when I went upstairs to their apartment I didn’t think she’d be alone. I thought Andrew would be there, or there that night in time for the recital. Now why didn’t I invite her when she opened the door and said Andrew was out of town for however long it was? Maybe I did, or was about to or was thinking if I should, but because she was half nude she quickly whisked me inside—the neighbors, remember? But my intention when I rang their bell was that after all the meals they’d had me up for and parties they’d taken me to and so forth, this would be a nice payback to them, two tickets to a great pianist’s recital, even if the seats were way up and maybe the second cheapest. Hess was past seventy then, I think, and very fragile—I know she looked much older than she was, you remember the record jacket photographs: bony and gaunt. And this recital was billed as being part of her last American tour and perhaps even her last performance in America ever,” and she says, “So, did you end up taking her to it?” and he says, “No, but I did go myself—I remember sitting in the third or fourth row from the top of the balcony. I don’t think I tried to sell the extra ticket in the lobby or out front—no guts to—so just gave it away. That part of it’s vague, but what isn’t is my feeling so far away from the stage while the music, because it was piped up to us, seemed close. Also, I think Clo was too sick to go and would have construed it as a date or something, once we had made love, since I’m almost positive we did it in the afternoon before the recital. No, I’m sure of it. All she wanted, it seemed, was sex in bed and then for me to disappear. I mean, once I got into the apartment and put my arms around her and started things going with my lips and hands. We also did it another day or night before Andrew came home, and then a couple of other times over the next six months or so when he was away. I forget what led up to them, but that’s usually the case and you only remember the first. Though once, when she was sick again and he was away or at work in the city that day and I couldn’t get a sub job, or something like that—maybe I didn’t even try that day, and not because I knew this would happen—she rang my bell and asked if I had aspirins, she’d run out. This time she definitely had a bad flu, had to stay home from work, I think she said. I said I did—the aspirins—and she came in and was in a bathrobe and I might have seen something through it—a leg, a breast—not that by this time in our little sex affair I needed that to get me going, though it couldn’t hurt, and we started kissing, bad flu and all, and she took the aspirins … I’m making the last part up. I know I had aspirins to give her—I don’t think I’ve run out of them in forty years—and I believe that was my last time with her, so the only time in my apartment. I went away for a month that summer—August, an artist colony, always August, my summer vacation retreat those days—and they’d separated by the time I got back and she’d moved out and he kept the apartment, which was originally his, and she quickly got herself a steady boyfriend and married either him or the next one in a year,” and she says, “Did Andrew ever say anything to you about it—hint, at least, that he knew?” and he says, “Never, and it wasn’t that I couldn’t read the signs—I was fiercely if not even over-obviously on the alert for them—and I never brought it up, since I was already a little ashamed—that started at the artist colony—and after that the shame just grew. Andrew and Harold and his first wife and I did go to a couple of things together that fall after the separation—a movie, maybe, and I think once that Japanese-Californian health food restaurant that was on Columbus between Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth a short time and where you could bring your own sake and beer. I remember they’d even heat up the sake for you and put it in a pretty carafe. Andrew and I, in all the time I knew him, never socialized just the two of us. We weren’t that companionable, and I don’t think we even felt comfortable together without Clo or Harold there, though we did meet on the street or in the building’s vestibule a few times, as we had in the past, and chat briefly and amicably about nothing, really. After that, Harold sort of drifted away from me, which now makes me think he did get wind that I’d slept with Clo, which as I said would have been a definite no-no with him—I could sleep with whomever’s wife I wanted to so long as it wasn’t a mutual friend’s or his own—and also makes me think Andrew told him that that’s what he thought I’d done but to keep it a secret. Because he also never mentioned it to me, though he almost had to know, even without Andrew’s saying anything, since he knew what I was like then,” and she says, “And what was that?” and he says, “What do you think? That my prick came first, scruples second, when it came to women I was attracted to, though on most other counts I was a fairly to even an avidly scrupulous person. High minded, maybe a bit self-righteous, definitely socially conscious—is that how you say it?—running after robbers, stepping into arguments and trying to reconcile matters if I thought someone was going to get hurt … you know my stories. Helping blind and lame and elderly people cross the street, stopping traffic to do it if I had to. Worried about very young children when I see them alone outdoors, and so on, risking my life and getting a punch in the jaw sometimes too, but it was that or not being able to face myself, I thought. Even with your father, twenty years later, that time the Korean produce store was being robbed and we were all walking past together and saw it and I wanted to run in, and he grabbed my shoulders and said, ‘You have a family now’ … I had to be a little crazy, I know, and not just then. So what was I saying?” and she says, “That there was a decent side to you at the time too. But what happened with Andrew after that?” and he says, “He moved out that winter or so. He started making—well, he’d always done well, compared to me, since college—but now a lot of money, and he wanted a better apartment,” and she says, “And to perhaps be out of the house of bad memories and also the same building as you,” and he says, “I don’t think people take it that far in New York if they’re paying a fairly modest rent with no huge annual jack-ups for a nice large place. No, he wanted something with more light and a better view and a working fireplace and floors he could walk on barefoot without his feet continually getting splinters in them, I think I remember him saying. Their apartment was in back and faced a twenty-story residential hotel. Mine was on the street and got light most of the day but was much noisier and, in the summer, because of the car fumes and the garbage cans right outside, smellier. He got a floor-through in the Village with two fireplaces, a lovely brick townhouse on West Eleventh, I think, but I never saw it, just heard, since he didn’t invite me to it and by that time our only mutual friend, Harold, wasn’t, as I said, much of a friend to me anymore,” and she says, “Maybe, in addition to how he felt
about you sleeping with Andrew’s wife, he thought you’d go after his,” and he says, “I’m sure he never worried about it, since he knew that Gwen, his first wife, and I didn’t even like each other much, something he actually brought up a couple of times and I probably said, ‘Oh come on, why do you think that?’” and she says, “But sexually? She’s still attractive, or only time I saw her; must have been much better looking then and shapely rather than what’s getting to be a matronly figure. And did you have to like a woman to want to bed her? You yourself said—” and he says, “That’s true, to a degree, but what do you think I was then? besides your missing my point. With Clo there must have been some attraction I kept back because Andrew was my old college friend and had been so generous to me since I moved into the building and also because they lived upstairs and I didn’t think anything like that could possibly happen with her. And then it did happen because he was away for a while and I must have been all rutted when I rang her bell and maybe feeling sexually dispossessed and she made that first overpowering display, you could say—at least irresistible to me at the time. While now I think my libido, being somewhat lower or less urgent or demanding or whatever a libido becomes with age—” and she says, “You don’t have the sex drive you once did, you’re saying. But maybe you do, or it’s off by a small fraction since I’ve known you, but because we live together and if I’m not sick and you’re not being obnoxious I’m usually agreeable and even eager for it, you don’t have to go out of your way to get laid,” and he says, “That could be true too. But what I was going to say was that if I were in the same situation today, and even if it wasn’t true that you’re usually compliant and my sex drive isn’t as strong and I’m married with children so I’d have a lot more to lose by going along with it, I’m sure I’d be able to resist: the breasts at the door—and let’s say you and the kids were away for a week too—large beautifully shaped young breasts, I feel a little stupid saying, and skinny bikini panties, if that’s what they’re called, and quick invite to come inside. But with Gwen there was nothing for me to resist—no attraction, not that she wasn’t physically attractive then. And forget opportunity, because even if I had rung their bell one day to see Harold—just happened to stop by—and she opened the door completely nude and said he suddenly had to leave town for the year, or that they were getting a divorce and he was no longer living home and she’s been waiting for this chance with me for a long time, and grabbed my penis through the pants or did whatever with it that would normally make me excited, for you know that just about any handling by you or pressure on it, even a book, would do it—” and she says, “Oh, come on,” and he says, “‘Oh, come on’ nothing. Anyway, my point in all this, just so we don’t forget, is my shame, how every time I talk to Andrew—maybe once every five years, and that includes bumping into him on the street or seeing him with Harold … actually, at Harold’s second wedding a number of years ago. You saw him there too, the only time I think you met. He came alone; we in fact sat at his table. I mean it wasn’t organized like that; you sat where you wanted to sit and he was the only person I knew there other than Harold and I seemed to be the only one he knew. So it would have been insulting to him, I thought, not to sit there, and he seemed pleased that we sat next to him. And the three of us had a good conversation, intelligent and stimulating and long, do you remember? You had very nice things to say about him after, that he was a person of high quality and so on, and later we drove him home—it was on our way—and I don’t think Harold holds it against me anymore what I did with Clo. That’s what I get from his attitude toward me, few times we’ve seen each other the last ten years. Anyway, I always feel constrained with Andrew: small, humiliated somewhat, even base, other things. I really feel it can only end if I bring it up to him, what I think, my regrets and shame—I’d even say that to him: that this is why I’m bringing it up. And that I’m nothing like that now, haven’t been that way for twenty years and have no excuse for what I did then, and how sorry I am and that I only wish there was some way of making it up to him. Though when you think of it, he did remarry, no matter how that one turned out, and got a child out of it—in her teens now, college, whom he adores, by the way he talks of her. So if I and some other guys were partly the cause of his breakup with Clo, at least he can say … well, you know, and of course I’d never say any of this to him. I’m just sort of rationalizing, putting into his head what I’d think if I were in the same situation: I got a great kid the second time around and that was worth all the heartaches of the first marriage, and so not to hold a grudge against the guys who screwed my wife, though of course not to thank them either,” and she says, “That couldn’t have been it, you and these other men, even partly, or only a tiny part of partly. Those problems can be worked out and were only a symptom of what was wrong. There had to be basic incompatibilities between them of long standing, things they must have tried to fix. I think you once said he’d gone through a lot of therapy since college, so I have to assume she went through a little too, and then when their marriage was falling apart they went individually and together, and also marriage counseling. And she was young then, like you and Andrew, and that was a free-for-all time in America if there ever was one—we’re talking here of almost thirty years ago, I think you said,” and he says, “Maybe even more than thirty. Let me think when it was exactly,” and she says, “Doesn’t matter. But I don’t think you ever want to talk to him about anything related to it unless he brings it up first. It would only revive certain things for him he probably prefers to forget. And if it’s only to relieve your conscience, is it worth it when you consider the damage you might do him? This is the price you pay for your past promiscuity. It’d be different if he wanted to renew his friendship with you or wanted to get all these things out. Then, maybe, you could work out your differences, past associations, and all that, and it would also be easier for him and seem a lot more reasonable too, since he would have initiated it and would know what he’s getting into and if it got too messy for him he’d only have himself to blame,” and he says, “He did say that if I got to San Diego again I should look him up, and gave me his phone number,” and she says, “That’s not the same thing,” and he says, “I suppose not. No, of course, you’re right, so I’ll just have to live with it. It’s a shame,” and she says, “Why? Because you like him now, or as much as you did before, but can’t really be friendly with him because of what you did to him then?” and he says, “That too.”
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