by Tom Molloy
“More people oughta talk, ya know? I mean what the hell, words don’t cost nothin.”
Sitting on her couch she lightly touched the corners of her mouth. “Ain’t there nobody ya want to call? I mean it is Christmas.”
“No. Nobody at all, not today anyway.”
She shrugged. “I’m getting’ together with some pals down at Mac’s Pub. It ain’t open today, but I know the owner. Ya know, have a little Christmas cheer, wanna come?”
“Thanks anyway, but I’ll stay here.”
“OK suit yourself.”
She showered and changed her clothes, asking several times if her hair looked all right and if she was getting fat. When she was satisfied she looked all right she left.
In the empty rooms I read a book about astronomy, and later studied a book of Latin grammar. The afternoon came and went quickly. As the sun grew fainter, I listened to the Christmas music on several different radio stations.
The music went on for long periods as though someone had left a tape on and gone home for the day. When the fullness of night came down I walked among the tall buildings and the lights of red and blue.
On one corner a man who had been selling Christmas trees stood with his hands in his pockets looking up the street whistling happily. I moved on to a street that looked over the river and took out an instrument. High above, a silent jet traced a pale contrail above thin clouds and below a quarter moon. The words on the wall were very small.
ONE AND ONE IS ONE
13
Edging the truck onto the moody asphalt of a school yard, I drove slowly over the grounds, aware of the rows of faces turning to gape in the windows above.
I had a number of parcels to deliver here, some large, some small, all smothered beneath layers of thick, brown wrapping tape, all bearing the name of the school principal.
Admitted to the building I took in its chaotic ambience, girls striding like whores on the prowl, boys overwhelmed and vulnerable to the marauding females. The air was stagnant with interwoven layers of five & dime perfume, waves of aftershave, and the kind of permeating, sticky-sweet stink that only silent panic produces.
I was at the end of the corridor near the principal’s office when he popped out of the door and came striding toward me. Short, chubby, cherubic, he wore a neatly tailored gray wool suit, with a vest and a thick gold watch chain tucked into one pocket. As he walked toward me he looked back over one shoulder, then the other.
Reaching my side he pulled out the gold watch saying, “That was quick. How’s the traffic, how’s tricks?”
I handed him a jumble of small packages, explaining that there were lots more back in the truck. But he didn’t go back to the office; instead he tagged behind as I returned to the truck. When I jumped up into the back, he pressed close, leaning on the vehicle’s metal platform, the little packages still in his arms.
“Lovely, lovely, nice interior. Once I pitied the manual laborer, now I envy him. Give me the tangible results, yessiree Bob. The immediate results please. Call me Pavlovian, call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, but don’t call me late for dinner.”
The bundles I was stacking weighed over 50 pounds each, but I found myself holding one of them and staring at him.
He spoke. “Crazy? Me? Oh not at all. But please do hurry. The little motherfuckers will be changing classes soon.”
I lowered a dolly to him and he stood it up on the asphalt. Hopping down, I placed the bundles on the dolly. He led the way, holding the school doors open with an elegant bow. His voice came above the squeaking of the cart as we walked.
“Goodness, a few years ago I wouldn’t say hell or damn, now it’s motherfucker this, motherfucker that. A black word originally you know. They’re quite adroit with language in their own way. But sincerely, I can’t see it taught. Black English that is, I just can’t see it taught as a separate language. Some people want to do that you know, some linguists and some educators.”
We reached his office. He went in first, I followed with the dolly and he continued to speak.
“I mean sincerely and truly I just can’t see some Ph.D. teaching a bunch of graduate students; you know with her hair in a bun and granny glasses on saying, “All right, class, our lesson for today is ‘Hey bro, what the fuck happenin’?’I mean I just can’t see it, can you?”
I said I could not.
He pulled out a blue velvet hanky, dabbing quickly at his brow.
“We’ll never integrate, you know. It’s a joke. I mean integration. It’s really lost its hard-on. Oh God, there I go again. Why do I use such language? Well, if the shoe fits, wear it. I wasn’t always like this, you know. At one time I ran a school.”
I told him there were three more boxes. He pulled out the watch.
“Gee, that’s swell,” was what he said.
When I’d brought out the last of the boxes I jumped down pulling the rear door shut. As we walked he spoke.
“Know what the boys call the girls?”
“What?”
“Beasties.”
“Really?”
“Yes indeed. So much for the women’s movement. The horny little cocksuckers.” He tapped the side of his head.
“What’s happened to me? I mean really, what’s happened to that old gang of mine?”
We stacked the boxes with the others. He signed the receipt, then gestured for me to join him in the hallway. Above the entrance to the office was an oil portrait of Horace Mann. The principal stared at it as he pulled out his watch, then snapped the device shut and put it back into his pocket. He spoke to the portrait.
“Ah, if you knew what the gnu knew.”
The bell shattered the emptiness of the corridor and for several seconds drowned out the noise of the teenagers who poured from every classroom. When the metal stopped banging against itself, the rush of the students was nearly overwhelming. Brown, white, black, they streamed past, till the principal, like a skilled fisherman, cast out with his short arm and collared a boy in jeans and black leather.
“Good morning, Mister Pappas, how are you today?”
“Huh?”
“Tell us, Mister Pappas, where is Europe anyway?”
The boy looked back and forth at the two of us as though the answer were darting between us.
“Europe?”
“The very same.”
“I dunno, out west, like in China someplace?”
“Thank you, Mister Pappas.”
Pleased he’d given a good answer, the youth smiled broadly and rejoined the flow of the corridor.
The little arm shot out again, snagging a black girl with a pink dress and wide gold looped earrings.
“Doris, tell me something.”
“Yeah?”
“Who won the Second World War?”
Her smile was warm and broad. “Hey Mister Harris, you know I don’t go for that history stuff.”
He rose to his toes.
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.”
“Huh?”
“Here’s another one, ready?”
She seemed delighted and said, “Shoot.”
“What’s five times five?”
She became even happier.
“Aw Mr. Harris, you know I don’t do that numbers shit!”
“But Doris, you want to be an astronaut.”
Her smile grew. “That’s a fact, Mr. Harris.”
He bent at the knees, strumming an imaginary ukulele and sang.
“Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky.”
She rapped him on the arm.
“You a funny old dude, Mister Harris, you one funny old dude!”
He bowed at the waist and said,
“The first pregnant black astronaut.”
“You got it Mister Harris!”
He stepped closer to her.
“Doris?”
“Yeah?”
“If you knew what the gnu knew.” She clasped her hands together.
“You the fun
niest old dude inna world Mister Harris!”
He waved good-bye, humming “Stardust.” She vanished and he said to himself, “The first pregnant black astronaut with a ninth grade education who don’t go for that numbers shit.”
The little man turned slowly on his heels, raising both his arms wide, catching with them a lumbering young man, well over six feet tall, with pale pockmarked skin, his hair cut short showing the pink scalp beneath.
“Arthur, old chap.”
“Yo.”
“Arthur, old friend, how long have you been with us?”
The pale blue eyes became unfocused, the long throat contracted and exhaled as though all moisture were being drained from it.
“Seven, no wait, eight years.”
Mister Harris hooked thumbs into vest pockets.
“Are we sure?”
“Eight?”
“Nine.”
The dim eyes widened showing a large pool of white.
“That a record?”
“And then some.”
“Wow.”
“You can say that again.”
“Wow.”
“Arthur?”
“Yo?”
The pudgy man almost whispered.
“Arthur?”
The giant youth’s voice fell too.
“Yeah, Mister Harris?”
“What have you learned here in nine years?”
The little man rose on his toes as the youth’s face became furrowed, sad, his eyes fell, then lifted and he and the little man looked at each other like strangers through smoked glass. Lost in his concentration and the passing seconds, the youth seemed to forget the question, something he confirmed by saying,
“Huh?”
“Arthur?”
“Yo?”
“Where are we going?”
Now the hall was emptying, quieting.
“Like you an’ me Mister Harris?”
“No Art, ol’ buddy, like our society. The U. S. of A. The Big P. X., Art, ol’ pal, like where’s the next station, and who’s at the throttle? Know what I mean jelly bean?”
“Huh?” said Arthur.
“Goals, lad, destinations, times of arrival, modes of transportation, fuel consumption, tire pressure, azimuth, coordinates, load limits, check lists, and flight plans, I mean is Triple-A going to map the route for us or what?”
Arthur lit up.
“Hey, they do that! My old man took a trip to Texas once an’ they gave ’em a map an’ drew a big green line like all the way to Eagle Pass. All he hadda do was follow the green line. They even had little clocks up on top so you know when to change all your clocks. Bad huh?”
“The baddest.”
Arthur became somewhat formal.
“Hey, nice chattin’ and’ I hope I helped ya out but I gotta get to class.”
Mister Harris took one thumb from his vest and began to sing.
“Oh, the yellow rose of Texas
Is shinin’ bright for me.”
Arthur took a quick step back.
“Well I’ll see ya on down the road.”
Both little arms shot out expansively as the principal shuffled left, then right.
“She sparkles like a diamond
For all the world to see.”
Arthur tripped over his own feet as he half turned, ready to flee.
“Take it easy, Mister Harris.”
The boy vanished down the hall pulling a green fire door shut behind him. The hall was nearly empty now except for a group of hispanic students hurrying toward their class, casting a wary glance at the little man in the expensive suit who serenaded them as they passed.
“Midnight, one more figure comes creepin’
Green door, what’s that secret you’re keepin’?
There’s an old piano and they play it hot
Behind the green door …”
The students went around a corner and up a flight of stairs, their footsteps like a many-hoofed animal in a stall.
In the new silence of the corridor I heard him sigh, and reminded him he had to sign the shipping papers that were back in his office.
We passed beneath the gaze of Horace Mann, and the principal waited until I entered the room before closing the door behind me. He picked up his phone and said, “Hold my calls.”
Then he opened a small door and gestured me into a low-ceilinged anteroom. As we sat on facing chairs, he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Irish Mist.
“A habit I’ve acquired rather late in life.”
He poured two glasses and as I sipped he swallowed his in a single gulp and said, “Ah if I knew what the gnu knew.”
I handed him the form to sign, and he passed the shot glass to me. When he returned the paper I took a sip of the liquid.
He shrugged saying, “So what’s new, anything good on TV tonight?”
“I gave it up for radio.”
He nodded in quick agreement. “A superior medium, engages the imagination.”
He raised his glass in a toast; I did the same.
“To superior media.” He emptied his glass and quickly refilled it.
“I must confess, though, those rock videos scare the hell out of me. Are they the new short story form? I mean, have we gone from O. Henry to that stuff in one fell swoop, and say, just what is a fell swoop anyway? Remind me to look that up; remind me to tell someone to send a memo somewhere.”
Drumming his fingers on the table he hummed a tune then looked closely at me.
“I wasn’t always like this; you mustn’t get that impression at all. Once I was wrapped tight and fully certified, not to mention accredited and affiliated. But now, well it’s these kids, I mean I’m having these out-of-body serious depression symptoms and asking questions like where am I, and who am I, and what’s going on. Am I making sense? I often wonder lately if I’m making sense. It comes from all those blank faces out there. I mean, I could be making perfect sense and those kids wouldn’t know it. I mean, those are the walking wounded in the war with reality, and frankly, I miss the war on poverty, how ’bout you?”
Finishing the drink, I told him I had to go and we walked together through the empty corridors and out to the truck. He hummed a Gershwin tune and shook my hand, saying softly “Ah, if you knew what the gnu knew.”
Near the school there was a one-storey brick building housing a pizza shop and a video store. I parked behind the structure and, using two instruments, left a message on the uneven bricks:
LISTEN
14
Morris occasionally tended bar in the tavern that David owned. Usually he worked the morning shift, when the door could be left open, when there were more delivery men to deal with than customers, when he could look through the window at the street.
In the wooden building behind the structure where the women loved and painted, David had an office with floor-to-ceiling sliding doors and pictures of himself, his father, and his father’s father.
The room was heated by a pair of white electric heaters, and it looked out over Chelsea Creek where the tugs elbowed tankers so large they seemed ready to crush the little local streets and all the people on them. Flung across the creek was a small drawbridge connecting Chelsea to East Boston, and each car crossing it emitted a brief angry buzz as though frightened by the sudden view of water below hollow metal.
The diamond in Morris’ ear reflected the glow of the flame of the brass oil lamp and a red bandanna held his shoulder-length hair in place. He rolled some marijuana and lightly touched the sides of the joint to his tongue, sealing the paper to the cannabis.
“Man, it wasn’t the same country when I got back from ’Nam, folks had got downright nasty. There was a maximum of yellin’ and a minimum of listnin’.”
He struck a match that flared rich and yellow in the dim room, drew on the drug, and passed it to me. I took some as a group of cars went over the bridge sounding like distant aircraft. David declined the cigarette, saying he didn’t like to mix his
potions.
“Myself, I’d had enough of nasty and I didn’t need any more,” Morris continued, “especially from a bunch of potbellied polyester suburbanite motherfuckers.” This time he held the joint as he spoke, the smoke coming up over his face, then spreading to fill the room.
“I bought a car for 150 bucks and went north. Stopped in New Hampshire, way up in the White Mountains, middle of nowhere, little town called Whitefield. Got a cabin on the side of a hill, just read, walked around, saw deer, even saw a bear once, big ol’ black bear.”
The joint failed as he passed it, and I relit it as he resumed speaking.
“Anyway after two months I’m beginning to feel better. I’m not scanning the tree line for snipers; I’m not lookin’ for trip wires as I walk up the library steps, et cetera, et cetera. Then I decide to hit the road, see the country I have been theoretically and empirically defending.”
I settled back in the chair as David took out an automatic bank card and began chopping at a little pile of cocaine.
“So me and my 150-buck car go off. I worked a month as a waiter in Atlanta, three months construction in Forth Worth, drove a truck in Kansas, hit Frisco and didn’t do nothin but drink and screw college girls, went to Seattle an’ drove a cab, then to Chicago to tend bar, then Detroit where I worked for General Motors for exactly two hours and twelve minutes. Man, did that ever suck. A year later I made it back to Massachusetts, stayed in the Berkshires doing carpentry and going to concerts all summer at Tanglewood. God, I love Tanglewood. I lived with a lady who was sixty. I really loved her; she helped me a lot, ya know we’d talk about death a lot. She was a widow an’ I lost a lot of buddies in ’Nam.”
David breathed deep as he passed a tightly rolled dollar along a thin line of cocaine, repeating the procedure over two more lines. He stood and lumbered to the sliding glass doors, opening them wide. A cold punch of air coming into the room flickered the flame and dissipated the smoke. He slammed the doors shut, both hands rubbing his upper arms.
“An entire year deep in Christian territory; it’s a wonder the bastards didn’t boil you in oil. Praise Jesus, you’re safely back in the land of the Jew slumlord and the Irish building inspector.”
Going to a small table where an ancient typewriter rested, David uncorked a bottle of Scotch whiskey. Pulling three shot glasses from a row of a dozen he nodded at the typewriter and spoke,