Table Money

by Jimmy Breslin

  Told me it was the end of his life, she said to herself. If he ever had stopped moaning for five minutes, he would have wound up with an A. She shrugged. Maybe he didn’t moan all that much. Just acted it out. He couldn’t have been so uncertain if he could work all that time and still do this. She walked out to her car and got in. She glanced at the mirror and saw a car moving down the deserted street and immediately she could tell it was LaVine’s old Buick. He told me not until two o’clock! She adjusted the car mirror to her face and ran the fingers of her right hand through her hair, puffing the front. I can’t believe I’m doing this, she thought. She laughed. Her fingers went back to her hair, Make the front a little fuller. Then she was out of the car and standing in the street with her thumb high in the air as LaVine pulled up. She shouted the mark to him and he got out slowly and walked up to her and then stopped a pace away.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be this early? I wouldn’t have come over here and scared myself to death.”

  The light from the lamppost was full on her face and he said to her, “You look terrific.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, don’t thank me. Thank yourself. You are pretty.”

  “Thank you again. Don’t you want to see your mark?”

  “I’d rather look at you.”

  “Come on.” She went to the mailbox and pulled it out. She found he was still standing by her car. “Don’t you want it?” she said.

  “Only if you stand in the same place. Right where you were.”

  Laughing, she walked back. He held out a hand and said, “Stop right there,” and she stood in the light from the streetlight with the postcard and he stepped up, took it from her, and didn’t look at it. “You’re absolutely beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. Then he stepped back. He did it so quickly that there was no implication to it. She found it delightful. He stood in the street and looked at the postcard. “All right.”

  “All right, what?”

  “All right, let’s get something to eat.”

  “What?”

  “Anything. I’m starved.”

  “All right.”

  “I have to go up and change. I had so much blood on the sleeve here.” He held it out.

  “I’d rather look at the view you told me about. All I can see is the top of the Empire State.”

  He faced Manhattan and shouted, “Here I am, everybody! David LaVine is on deck.” He waved his arms. “Hiya! Thank you. Good night to you, too.”

  “Who could see you?” Dolores said.

  “Everybody over there. Told you. They pay ten thousand dollars a month to look at me.”

  “I can’t see anything but the top of the Empire State. Does that mean the only people who can see you now are the cleaning women?”

  “You don’t like it here?” he said.

  “Yes, I do. I like you. I’m excited about how well we both did. I just don’t think as much of this view you kept telling me about.”

  “You don’t like my view?”

  “So far it’s a fraud.”

  “Huh.”

  He went to the metal door and, making as much noise as a jailer, opened it. “Wait until you see this.” He held a hand out, and without considering it, she followed him up the dark staircase. He opened another lock, flipped on the light, and stepped aside. As she entered the room, she cracked her ankle against one of the cinder blocks that was supporting a bookcase along the wall.

  “You all right?”

  “I broke the bone.”

  “I don’t want to turn on the lights. I want you to see out.”

  As she bent over to rub her ankle, her eyes fell on a book that sat in the hall light atop the pile nearest her: Last Exit to Brooklyn.

  “When I read that book,” she said, “it was the first time I ever found out how homosexuals had sex.”

  “That’s because the guy wrote it was a whacked-out faggot himself,” LaVine said.

  “Must you talk like that, too? I could’ve stayed s in Glendale to hear that.”

  “I can say anything I want,” LaVine said. “What do you think I work with? Half the drivers are gay. They talk, I talk. Say what we please. The ones that aren’t gay are black. You think we call them ‘blacks’?”

  “It still sounds dumb.”

  “I’m not so dumb. I can prove it. I’m with you.” He put a hand on her arm. “Don’t move.” He stepped through the dark room, past a couch covered with green corduroy and two large chairs that didn’t match. At the end of the bookcase, alongside the windows, was a stereo set and speakers. At the windows, he raised the shades and unlocked one window. “Look at this.”

  She stepped to the window and the breath went out of her. Beyond the weeds and the old pier, she saw the river water black in the night and, suddenly, out in the middle, the river turning into a silver fire that ran with dazzling impact up to the foot of the night-bright buildings on the Manhattan side.

  “Ten thousand a month just to see me.”

  “Don’t talk,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to listen.”

  A horn blared in the distance, perhaps from up on the Queensboro Bridge, that went over the water to Manhattan. Up LaVine’s street, a truck bounced hard on a hole. A helicopter thumped in the sky. Otherwise, silence. But a different silence from the one in Glendale. That was permanent. This was a prelude. The air had a heavy smell of river water. Not clean salt air, as you get at the ocean, but a mixture of salt and city streets.

  “No sound,” she said.

  “They let the money talk.”

  “No, it’s because it’s a dream. A dream doesn’t have any sound.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Don’t you stand here and dream ever?”

  “A little.”

  “What about?”

  “Sometimes I think I’m living there. What building do you want to live in? I’ll buy it for you.”

  “No, it’s more than money. It says to you, come here, this is the way it ought to be. You can carry the idea of it with you. It doesn’t belong to them. I’m not afraid of them. I think I might be better than them.”

  “How are you going to take a place like that and go anywhere else on earth?”

  “I can take the lights with me wherever I go. I can keep them inside me. I’ve spent my life on two blocks. In both places, all people ever did at night was turn lights off. They turn the lights off in the room and then inside themselves.”

  “Save money,” LaVine said.

  “They don’t even save that much. And they lose whole parts of their lives inside. It’s some sort of fear of being discovered. They are so uncertain of their own lives that they can’t bear the idea of somebody looking at them when they don’t have this façade on.” She hugged herself with her arms, imitating her mother. “And they keep the lights out inside because they can’t bear to look at themselves. They won’t even stare at the darkness. Afraid their eyes will become accustomed and they might see something.”

  “Maybe they just want to walk around comfortable and don’t want people seeing them,” he said.

  “Oh, Lord forbid somebody should be seen walking around the house in a slip! Oh, they’d die. No, I think it’s more than that, really. They regard themselves somehow as being misshapen. They would prefer an outsider to feel that nobody is at home. A little lamp in the window is the most they want to show the world. And then nothing to themselves.”

  “I don’t know. What do you call your husband?”

  She sighed. She thought of Owney and his parents sitting in the cemetery house. Even in a cemetery, with nobody possibly able to see them, they presented only the tiniest light to the dead around them and to the few living passing in cars out on the street. And they presented utter darkness to themselves. She thought of them refusing to discuss anything about themselves outside of being wet in the rain. “He is reassured when there is something he can
do with his body that requires bravery. Something where he can use his hands and his reactions. Something that threatens him. He is absolutely fearless. But he can’t deal with an interior enemy. Talk about keeping the lights out. If he thought he could see even a vague outline inside him, he’d drown his eyes.”

  “Is he still doing it?”

  “I don’t want to talk any more about it. Let’s talk about you. What do you do with yourself?”

  “You’re seeing it.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. A single man in this city. Nothing else?”

  “Where am I going to meet so many people, on a stretcher?”

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “If it is, it’s too bad.”

  “No, it isn’t. I met you.”

  She smiled.

  “No, I met you and you’re beautiful.”

  She laughed. “It must be getting late. You’re telling me the same thing all over again.”

  Quickly, he stepped over to a lamp. “Here, I don’t want to keep you so long. Just give me a minute.”

  “Don’t be silly. I love to hear you say something nice.”

  “Then I’ll tell it to you again. Just give me one minute.”

  “What for? I better get home, don’t you think?”

  “I just want to change. Don’t worry, I’ll do it quick. In and out of the shower.”

  “A shower? Oh, come on, let me go home and give you time.”

  “Never. You stay here.”

  “What are these, orders?”

  “All right. Please. I have to get you something to eat.”

  “Here?”

  “I don’t have a can of soup here. We’ll go up to Sinatra’s. Place on the corner from the police station.”

  “It’s so late to eat.”

  “The food is good even this late. That’s because of the cops working shifts.”

  “But I don’t want to make you rush.”

  “Forget it. I’ll be right out.”

  He walked out and she remained at the window. Then she looked over the stack of records. He had a new John Lennon album in the middle.

  She was holding the album and trying to turn on the stereo when she heard LaVine in his room.

  “I’m out of the shower. One minute, and I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “Take your time. I’m just trying to figure out how to turn this set on.”

  “What?” He came walking out in a white terry-cloth robe. His dark hair was wet. “I’ll do that.” He brushed up against her and put the Lennon album on.

  “Put side two on,” she said.

  “You don’t want to hear the first side, ‘Give Peace a Chance’?”

  “I want to hear ‘Imagine.’ I don’t want to hear anything about the war, no matter what it is. ‘Imagine.’”

  As the music started, she went back to the window. He was standing directly behind her and he leaned over her shoulder.

  “You look over at the lights and you imagine. See? I said that before.”

  “Your hair is beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I would’ve told you the same thing the first night I saw you.”

  “Really? Why didn’t you?”

  “I was standing outside and you came into the building. You walked right past me and I just looked. I said, I hope I see her again.”

  “And you saw me five minutes later in class.”

  “No, I didn’t. This was way back in the winter. We weren’t even in the same class. I just said, I hope I see that girl again.”

  “Hardly a girl.”

  “All right. Woman. I still wanted to meet you.”

  “You thought about me and you didn’t even talk to me?”

  “I’ve thought about you more than that, but I heard you were married. The guy was famous. When I found that out, I forgot about it.”

  “When you asked me to come to the bar, was it before or after you found out I was separated?”

  “After. I’m not crazy. No, it’s more than that. I wouldn’t ever make a move like that.”

  She nodded. She didn’t tell him that after she drove past the bar that night she sat in the car and thought about him while she looked at these same lights. She worried about his nerve then. Now, she saw him differently.

  He leaned forward in the music and had his chin on her shoulder, against her face, and it had been so long that she had had the feel of anything like this that she ran a hand gently against his cheek. His hand came around her waist and touched her middle. She tensed. She hated the feel of her extra weight. The movement caused him to withdraw his hand. She kept her hand on his face.

  “I’m getting so heavy.”

  “Never.”

  “Yes, I am. I eat everything,” she said.

  “And here I’m taking you out for something,” he said.

  “I really don’t want to go out,” she said. She thought she was telling him this because she didn’t want to eat, but suddenly he clasped both hands on her middle and as he kissed her neck, she turned into his arms and his mouth covered hers. The front of his robe opened and now he was full and hard against her and her breath became short. It had been so long since she had been noticed and now she let the anger and the loneliness drop onto the floor with her clothes. They walked into the bedroom where he ran his fingers lightly across the bottom of her stomach. It had been so long since she had been so comforted. She could have remained just doing this all night. She sighed loudly when he entered her.

  She got home at four o’clock in the morning. She made no noise and in the morning she decided that her mother had not known the hour. She took the baby to Rockaway, where the sand had been cleaned for the first time. She watched Christine toddle up to the water, and when it ran spring-freezing against her feet, the baby turned and wobbled back slowly, causing Dolores to laugh aloud. She thought for an instant about LaVine. His touch had lasted through the night. She shook her head quickly. The gentleness and need and innocence of the night before turned into guilt. What are you doing with yourself? she thought. Never in her life had she thought that she would wind up of a night with a man while she was still married. If she was this mixed up by her life now, and she felt the dangers of any more of this were incalculable, then there was only one thing to do: just get out, she said. She looked at the water and thought that she could not survive with Owney no matter what he did.

  At nine o’clock, while she was getting dressed, LaVine called.

  “You were supposed to call me when you got home,” he said, his voice a roadbed.

  “It was too late for me even to pick up the phone here.”

  “You all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Everything good?”

  “Sure. It’s a lovely day. I’m going to the beach with the baby.”

  “I’d say something nice to you, but I got to steal some sleep,” he said.

  “Then sleep.”

  “Yeah. See you. The next time I see you, I’ll say something nice.”

  She began to estimate the meaning of the call, and then found this disturbing and stopped doing it.

  15

  AT FIRST LIGHT, FIVE-THIRTY in the morning, he was as clear as polished glass, with grapefruit juice, coffee, and the first cigarette of a day, which he thought might stir a wind and disperse some of the ground fog in his life. The day before, late in the afternoon, Kellerman had called excitedly to announce that he had maneuvered Owney into something that was sensible: an appearance at a meeting of the Central Labor Trades Council about men returning from Vietnam. Owney saw this immediately as assistance to his personal life; by now he told himself that he was torn by the long separation and he was, he assured himself this morning, ready to make his way back.

  His mother said, “You went by her mother’s house again last night?”

  “I went to see the baby.”

  “I know you. You got your mind set on something.”

  Owne
y didn’t answer.

  “How long until the three of you go back to your own place?” When he said nothing again, she said, “Well, I know you will. You’re going to stay at it until you wear her down.”

  Looking out the window, Owney considered the notion that the only way to resume his marriage would be to have another baby. A simple, beautiful way to ensure that it was not a matter of instant needs: for Dolores, a husband, and for him, order and, yes, he thought, comfort. Lock each other forever with a second baby. That would take care of everything for me; you can’t be in a bar with two kids.

  “We’ll probably all be moving out of here almost the same time,” the mother said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m leaving my wonderful rock garden.”

  Owney made a face.

  “No, this time even I have to say that I think it’s real. We saw a nice raised ranch, Exit Sixty-three. We had a nice talk with the man in the sales office.”

  “What’s talk?” Owney said.

  “Oh, no. Your father showed him the bank book. There’s a ton of money, put a down payment on a raised ranch. Your father did pretty good with his overtime and all this last year. The salesman said it could be done. This’ll be the first roof over our heads that this family ever owned.”

  At work, Owney stood in the puddles and thought nervously about his mother’s enthusiasm for a bank book. Where did this come from again? he asked himself. Guilt rose in him as he thought of all the days he hadn’t been around; who knows what goes on when you’re flopping in some sanatorium? He looked up at the rock roof over his head. Gray and oppressive. And then there were white spurts going through the rock. Iron supports were up, yet the iron seemed thin to Owney as he walked along, looking up at the cracks. Maybe that was because the supports were placed too far apart. All the line in the rock looked jagged, like the teeth of something attacking.