Leo sighed. “Ain’t nobody been in here. ’Sides, I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”
Jake looked up in surprise. “What you mean, you wouldn’t know him?”
“Well, I might,” Leo said, “if you was to tell me who the hell you’re talkin’ about.”
“Why, Brown. Who else?”
“Oh, shit,” Leo groaned. “Not him again. I don’t want to hear that damn name ever again. No, he ain’t been in here, an’ I can prove it, because the place is still standin’ an’ she”—he jerked his head toward Vanessa—“is still settin’.”
Jake peered through the gloom. “Who’s she? Say, ain’t that—”
“Sure is,” said Leo.
“But wasn’t she—”
“Sure was,” said Leo.
“An’ then he—”
“Sure did,” said Leo.
“An’ ’fore that wasn’t she—”
“Sure was,” said Leo.
“An’ now she’s—”
“All night,” said Leo.
“Damn,” said Jake. “An’ you let her stay?”
“Yeah,” Leo said tiredly. “She wasn’t botherin’ nobody. Says she ain’t trickin’ no more.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I hear Leroy pays her to stay outa circulation so folks won’t say he screws whores.”
Leo looked at him in amazement. “Goddamn, Jake, is there anything on this street you don’t know about?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I don’t know how come ma wine glass is always empty, an’ I don’t know why that Brown keeps walkin’ around like a—whad you say you called them things?”
“Zombies,” Leo supplied.
“Yeah.” Leo refilled the wine glass and removed a dime from the pile of change on the counter. “Leo,” Jake said in a philosophical tone of voice, “by the time a man gets to be my age he finds out it’s a good idea to keep his eyes open, ’specially if he don’t hear too good. Now in the case a Brown, it wasn’t ma eyes, it was ma legs.”
“Your legs,” Leo said.
“That’s right, ma legs. I was coppin’ a few Zs in that alley down the other side a the Delmonaco, an’ here comes that Brown fallin’ over me, wanderin’ around like one a them zomblies.”
“Zombies,” Leo corrected.
“Yeah.”
“Well, so long as he don’t come in here pickin’ fights, he can wander clear to Hell,” Leo said.
“You’d a thought you was in Hell if him an’ Leroy’d both come in while she was here.”
Leo shrugged. “An’ then there’s Rayburn.”
“His wife left him,” Jake said. “She’s shackin’ up with Leroy.”
“What? You kiddin’?”
“Nope,” Jake said. “I wish I was. It’s gonna ruin Rayburn.” He looked down the bar, then looked back at his wine.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky an’ it’ll ruin Leroy,” said Leo. “Rayburn used to be pretty good with that razor.”
“Humph,” Jake said. “Like the old man said to the hooker, I ain’t payin’ two bucks for what used to be. ’Sides, Rayburn’d have to carve away for half an hour on Leroy ’fore he got to anythin’ important. Leroy ain’t got no heart, an’ he ain’t got no guts; he’s just an’ oversize stomach an’ a king-size gall bladder, an’ the rest of him’s full a shit.”
Leo snorted and shook his head. “I wish I understood women.”
“Women is easy to understand,” Jake said. “They’re just like men, more or less, almost, an’ sometimes.”
“Well, I sure don’t understand that one. I never saw a man as crazy about a woman as Rayburn was ’bout that one. So now—”
“How ’bout a refill,” Jake said.
“Sure,” Leo said, pouring it. “Jake, how come—”
“How come all these questions,” Jake said. “Maybe you oughta ask your pet preacher.”
“My pet preacher! Who hauled him in here?”
“Who let him stay?”
“We’re all crazy,” Leo said.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Probly all end up like Brown, wanderin’ around like zomblies.”
“Zombies,” Leo said.
“I know how to say it,” Jake snapped.
Rayburn rose unsteadily and staggered toward the door. He stopped in front of Leo, focusing his eyes with difficulty. “Night, Leo,” he said with exaggerated dignity.
“You gonna be all right gettin’ home?” Leo said.
Rayburn thought about it. “Home?”
Leo looked at Jake. Jake eyed the rafters. “Home,” Leo told Rayburn, “is where you’re goin’, because it’s closin’ time. Now, can you make it that far?”
Rayburn thought about it a little too hard and nearly lost his balance. Jake reached out to steady him. Rayburn shrugged his hand away. “Certainly,” he said. “Certainly I can make it that far. How far is it?”
“How far—it’s seven blocks, Rayburn. Seven goddamn blocks.”
“Better tell him which direction, Leo,” Jake advised.
“Seven blocks,” said Rayburn. “That’s a long way.”
“You shoulda figured that out before,” Leo said. “Ain’t nobody here to hold your hand.”
“I ain’t astin’ nobody to hold ma hand,” Rayburn said. “I’m fine.” He turned on his heel and collided heavily with the wall.
Leo sighed. “Siddown, Rayburn. I’ll see you get home.”
“I can make it,” Rayburn said, pushing himself away from the wall. He rocked back and forth on his heels.
“Better point him towards the door, Leo, ’fore he hurts hisself,” Jake said.
Leo glared at him. “Just siddown, Rayburn.”
“I don’t need no help,” Rayburn said.
“Yeah, sure,” said Leo. “Now siddown right there.”
“I can make it,” Rayburn insisted. He sat down heavily.
Leo sighed. “Okay, everybody, closin’ time.”
“Thank God it’s Saturday,” Jake said. “I ain’t been feelin’ too good lately. I think sleepin’ in alleys upsets ma stomach.” He swallowed the rest of his wine and waited for a refill.
“Rotgut upsets your stomach,” Leo told him.
“Nah,” said Jake, “wine’s good for you. Ma old man useta tell me how wine helped him with his constipation, kept him healthy. Course he died when he wasn’t nothin’ but sixty-seven….”
“G’night, Leo,” said Big Betsy. She paused to look at Rayburn. He gazed at her glassily.
“Whad you tell him, Betsy?” asked Leo.
“Told him his wife was a low-down rotten cunt that didn’t know a man when she saw one.”
“Whad he say?”
“Same thing he’s sayin’ now.” Big Betsy turned away from Rayburn, snorting in disgust. “What the hell’s the matter with him, Leo? That girl’s been screwin’ around since the day he married her, an’ everybody on the damn street knows it but Rayburn. You know, the fool sat there cryin’ an’ sayin’ it was all his fault. Leo, I’m tellin’ you, the fool is a fool. Ain’t you, Rayburn?” Rayburn smiled glassily. Big Betsy punched him on the shoulder. Rayburn swayed gently. “Ain’t you a fool, Rayburn?” said Big Betsy. She punched him again. Rayburn swayed. Big Betsy hit him again. Her jowls jiggled. “Ain’t you, Rayburn?” Rayburn swayed.
“Leave him be,” Vanessa said. She came up behind Big Betsy.
Big Betsy glanced at her, sneered, punched Rayburn again. “Ain’t you a fool?” said Big Betsy.
Leo started to reach across the bar. “Lay off, Betsy.”
“A fool,” said Big Betsy, and she made to hit Rayburn again. Vanessa caught her arm and held her.
“Let him be,” Vanessa said.
Big Betsy abandoned Rayburn and turned on Vanessa. “Well, well, if it ain’t our local vendin’-machine cunt. Anybody got a quarter?”
Vanessa’s nostrils flared but she said nothing. She stepped around Big Betsy and hauled Rayburn to his feet. “I’m takin’ him home,” she announced.
“Merry C
hristmas,” Leo said.
“You like ’em drunk, ’Nessa?” said Big Betsy.
Vanessa got Rayburn into low gear and steered him toward the door. “Shut up, Betsy. I’m just helpin’ him home ’fore you beats him to death.”
“He’s already beat to death,” Big Betsy said. “Can’t nobody help him.”
“Don’t need no help,” said Rayburn. Vanessa pushed him out the door.
“Go to hell,” Big Betsy shouted after them. “Way I hear it, ’Nessa, the onliest way you can please a man is if he’s too drunk to do nothin’.”
“G’night, Betsy,” Jake said. “You could lick your weight in police dogs, you’re such a bitch.”
“Jake, you’re a goddamn wino,” Big Betsy said. “You’re a goddamn wino an’ I’m a goddamn whore an’ Leo’s a goddamn bartender with olives for balls an’ a pickle for a prick.”
“We’re all goddamn somethin’ or others,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” said Leo. “Sounds like I’m a goddamn salad.”
Big Betsy waddled unsteadily toward the door, stopped, and stared out at the street. Leo extinguished the lights. Big Betsy turned ponderously, facing the darkness. “Goddamn, Jake,” Big Betsy said, “I can remember when you was fuckin’ handsome.” She turned again and waddled out.
“Happy Saturday, Leo,” Jake said, draining his glass.
Black sky hanging above him, black water flowing below, Brown sat in darkness on the South Street Bridge, armed with three six-packs of sixteen-ounce cans. He sat near one of the little bastions inserted in the bridge’s design by some romantic architect in an age when lovers strolled and paused to look down at a shining river. Brown was no strolling lover, and the Schuylkill was no lover’s inspiration. Or a poet’s, either. Brown had come looking for inspiration; now he sat working through the sixes, crushing the thin cans in his hand as he emptied them, tossing them outward over the railing. He could not hear them slap the water; that sound was hidden in the background of other sounds—tiny ones nearby, loud ones far away—that merged into a single low moan. Brown listened through the persistent hum for the noise of crushed aluminum can hitting chemical river, heard nothing but the city’s moanings, and opened another can.
It was Saturday, late, almost Sunday, and the other westbound bridges were laden with traffic. South Street’s bridge knew only the infrequent passing of the forty bus, an occasional cab, an occasional car.
It was after one when Brown finished the last beer, crushed the can, tossed it over the railing. He rose, stretching, groaning like an old man. The lights of the refineries swam before his eyes for a moment, then subsided into a steady pulsation in rhythm with Brown’s heartbeat. Brown’s mind floated somewhere above him, giving precise instructions to a body that refused to respond precisely. Brown turned himself with great care, put his feet in low gear, and steered himself down off the bridge. In the shadows he paused to relieve the awesome pressure building up in his bladder. The stream of urine wandered; Brown, overcorrecting, had to do some fancy footwork to keep his shoes dry. He nearly fell, stumbled back, and the errant stream baptized a Volkswagen from bumper to bumper. Brown regained his balance and his composure, completed his mission, headed home.
South Street was restless, as if reluctant to admit that Saturday was over, that Sunday was here, that Monday was sure to follow. Brown walked downtown at what he thought was a good rate of speed, stumbling along like an elderly turtle paralyzed on one side, catching himself against buildings to keep from falling. The three-way intersection of Grays Ferry, Twenty-third, and South presented a difficult problem: there were no walls to fall against for the immense distance of thirty yards. Brown leaned against a car, after checking carefully to make certain it was parked, and considered. It was a question, Brown decided, of inertia and geometry. He had detected a tendency of his feet to steer to the right, and he would therefore have to point himself far enough out into the middle of the street so that when he had traversed the width of the intersection, he would be on the sidewalk on the far side with a wall handy to collapse against. Brown was pleased with his undiminished capacity for logical thinking. He reviewed his reasoning, checking for possible flaws, overlooked elements. Finding none, he stumbled out into the middle of South Street just as a large automobile came roaring down off the bridge. The driver hit the horn and the brakes at the same time. Brown heard the horn, felt the headlights coming toward him, and played a remarkable game of chicken, not flinching or changing course in the slightest as the heavy car swerved past him. “Watch where you’re goin’!” the driver shouted.
“Eat shit,” Brown retorted amiably, just before a relay closed in his brain and he realized what had almost happened to him. Brown staggered weakly over to the cracked watering trough and vomited into the mass of dead leaves and paper scraps that clogged it. When he straightened up, he was sober enough to realize how drunk he was. Brown considered the extent of his inebriation and was duly awed.
He stumbled out of the intersection and along South Street until he reached the alley beside Lightnin’ Ed’s Bar and Grill. Brown entered the alley and sat down on a garbage can to collect his thoughts. From the deeper recesses of the darkness came a sudden sharp squalling sound made by quarreling cats, a scratching of claws on cobbles, then quiet. Brown spoke to himself, trying to draw his scattered thoughts together. He peered at himself from outside, saw himself being drawn and quartered to the four corners of the earth, tried to pull it all back to one spot, a garbage-choked alley in a smog-smothered city. He closed his eyes, and something twisted in his mind. He got up and staggered against a wall, pushed the wall away and tumbled into a garbage can. Rotting refuse accepted him, garbage aroma rose and enfolded him, bacon grease and banana peels clung to him. He shoved himself out of the garbage, left the alley in a desperate, shambling run, banging back and forth between the buildings on either side. He burst out onto South Street, turned left, ran toward the bridge. His steps were short, choppy, and he forgot to breathe for the first block, so that as he pounded up the ramp onto the bridge he was gasping. He ran across the bridge, not stopping until he reached the traffic light at Thirty-third Street. The light was red. Brown tried to stop, stumbled, and fell into the gutter.
He lay there for a few moments, then pushed himself up and sat on the curb. Something smelled terrible and he realized that it was him. He grunted in disgust, got to his feet, looked around him. He sighed, gritted his teeth, and headed back across the bridge, walking carefully, like an eighty-year-old man aware of his brittle bones. He was nearly sober as he walked down the ramp onto South Street. He moved along close to the walls, clinging to the shadows, skulking like a robber. He sniffed and increased his pace, trying to outrun the smell of himself. He reached the door beside the gaping storefront, opened it, stepped into the darkness. The smell already in the stairway mingled with the offensive odor of Brown, and he held his breath as he started up the stairs. From above him came a noise like the scrabbling of nails on wood. Brown stopped, flattened himself against the wall, his heart pounding. There was a tingling on the patch of skin just below his breastbone as he anticipated the rusty blade of some turkey-crazed junkie sliding home. Brown forced himself to breathe quietly, wasting no time cursing himself for drunkenness, lack of caution. The scrabbling sound came again: short, harsh, fingernails on wood. Rats. Brown relaxed, took a step. “Who’s that?” demanded a voice out of the darkness. Brown slammed himself back against the wall, listening. It had been a woman’s voice. Brown eased down along the wall into a crouch, leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, turned his face into the darkness. He waited for his eyes to adjust. He calmed himself. He listened. “Who’s that?” the woman said again. She was on the right side of the stairs, Brown decided. He eased over against the left wall. “Who is that down there?” The woman’s voice was a little ragged now; the silence was getting to her. Brown took a deep breath, preparing for a low charge. “Who is that?”
“Who’s that?” Brown whispered. Silence from
the darkness. A car hissed by on the street.
“Who’s that?” the woman’s voice demanded.
“Yeah,” said a third voice, male. “Who dat who say who dat when she say who dat?” The third voice broke into a heavy, drunken laugh which turned into an anguished croak as Brown, his nerves gone, came rumbling up the stairs, aiming for the solar plexus of the third voice. Brown’s aim was perfect, and his head sank into a soft belly. A retching sound, a sudden wetness, an increased stench combined to inform Brown that the third voice was attached to a stomach that had just spewed all over his back. Brown heard somebody gasping for breath. Brown did not gasp for breath; he tried to avoid breathing altogether. Light flared, and Brown looked up into the flame from a cigarette lighter. He blinked. As his eyes adjusted he noticed that the lighter was an expensive one, held by a slim, dark manicured hand. The light moved toward him, and Brown leaped a few steps up above the landing. “Who the hell is that?” Brown shouted.
“We been through that, ain’t we?”
Brown cursed, grabbed the lighter, burning his hand in the process. He wrestled it away, then snapped it on again. “Yeah, we been through it before, an’ we gonna keep on goin’ through it. Now who the fuck are you?” He shoved the lighter toward her face, stared at her. She looked back at him calmly. The vomit soaking through the back of Brown’s shirt made him slightly impatient; he shot out his other hand and grasped her above the elbow. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”
She looked down at his hand, smiled slightly. “Ma name’s Vanessa. An’ I was tryin’ to haul this piece a drunk meat on home, until the goddamn marines landed. Or is it Captain Midnight?” She raised her eyes and glared at him. Brown let go of her arm. “Ain’t none a your damn business anyways.”
“You his wife?”
“Him?” Rayburn moaned, clutched his stomach, tried to sit up.
“Yeah,” Brown said. “Him.”
“What would I want with a piece a cat shit like that?”
“Yeah, well,” Brown said sourly. “All right, let’s get him inside.”
“I ain’t got no key. I was lookin’ through his pockets when the fuckin’ cavalry charged.”
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