Looking for Przybylski

by K. C. Frederick

  During the long silence that follows, Ziggy wonders whether memories like this can be any help to someone like Przybylski. Under the circumstances, maybe complete oblivion would be better. But they’ve started down this road; they might as well continue. The city’s changed, Przybylski, the neighborhood’s changed. Hell, the only ones desperate enough to move in anymore are the Yugoslavs.

  Another long silence. How did that happen, Ziggy? Why?

  Beats me. Growing up, you’d think those things were going to last forever. That’s how much we knew. His attention is momentarily captured by the fly. It’s silent just now as he watches its tiny legs moving quickly along the glass. But Ziggy’s thoughts have abruptly taken him somewhere else. You want to hear something funny, Przybylski? This just popped into my head. Maybe it’s all those memories, I don’t know, but I haven’t thought of this for a long time and now it’s like it happened yesterday. He drifts off, his mind filled with images from the past.

  Well, get on with it, then.

  OK, you know, even after the cops raided all the Polish numbers places on the east side, there was a time when everything looked like it was back to normal. The day after the raids people were playing the numbers like always. We knew there’d be trials coming up, but nobody wanted to think about that. I had my big party out on the island that summer and it was the best one I ever had. You should have come to those parties, Przybylski, they were something. Anyway, the festivities were just getting started, you could smell all that great food Mrs. Rowinska had made—ham and kielbasa, homemade horseradish, both white and red, pierogi, kapusta and potato salad. There was the clink of metal coming from where some guys were already playing horseshoes, a couple of the priests were there early. Gabby Sendlik even got the monsignor to give us an imaginary indulgence for any small transgressions we might commit that day like drinking too much. I walked out by myself to the end of the property. It was a great day, with a blue sky, the river was bright with its own kind of greenish blue, there were a couple of boats tied to the dock already—the monsignor’s was one of them—and I looked down the river knowing that in a little while Big Al was going to come cruising up in his big white Chris-Craft, and I realized I was about as happy as I’d ever been in my life and I just wanted one thing more.

  What was that?

  I wanted it to last forever.

  Forever?

  Yeah.

  That wasn’t very smart, was it? Don’t you know nothing lasts forever? For a while there’s no more, just the fly’s restless buzzing. So where did all that flash get you, Ziggy? Those parties on the island, the tickets to the Tigers games? In the end, where did they get you?

  Ziggy has neither the energy nor the will to tackle that question seriously. He laughs to himself. I guess it got me here, to this place on the edge of the desert. Talking about old times with you.

  After a few moments’ silence, Przybylski’s whistling breath sounds like a sigh. Well, I should talk. I suppose I used to think the same thing about my funeral business. We did a good job, we provided a service, we were doing well. It should have gone on forever. I used to worry, though.

  That surprises me. If you worried, you never used to show it. I always thought you were kind of smug, looking down on us numbers guys.

  There’s another silence. Then: Did you ever think I might envy you your flash just a little, that I might be jealous of the risks you took, the freedom not to be careful all the time? In the end being careful didn’t seem to work for me, did it?

  It’s Ziggy’s turn to sigh. I guess neither of us turned out to be much of a success story, did we? But, hell, we weren’t the only ones. Not in that city. Still, when all is said and done, I guess we’re all responsible for our own stories. I’m not going to try to wriggle out of that. I imagine you could see even before you left town what kind of a mess I was making of things.

  Anybody could see that, yes.

  Well, I guess I had my time. I should be thankful.

  And me? Should I be thankful?

  Oh, I don’t know, Przybylski. But I’m still wondering, how did this happen to you? You were smart enough to get out of town early, and still . . .

  This, you mean? Being left alone like this, on the edge of the desert, as you put it a minute ago? Being deposited here between life and death, without anyone in the world giving a fuck?

  Would the real Przybylski actually say “fuck?” Under these conditions, maybe. Yeah, how did all that happen?

  It was Eddie who kept pushing me to leave. I was nervous about what I saw happening in Detroit, but Eddie had big plans. I was too stodgy and old-fashioned, he kept saying. Out west we could not only save the business, we could really make money.

  Ziggy remembers smug little Eddie sitting behind that enormous desk of his. Looks like he was right about that.

  I guess so. I’m not sure it was money I wanted, though. I should never have listened to him. But he was smart, he had a plan. I let myself believe him. There’s a brief silence. Well, what happened, happened. I know what my mother would say: that stroke was God’s punishment. Mine too, Ziggy thinks.

  There’s a cough from the door. It’s Amanda. “I’m going to have to attend to him soon,” she says.

  “Yeah, sure,” Ziggy tells her. “One more minute, OK?”

  She nods and steps back into the corridor.

  Thank God, Ziggy thinks, at least he’s got her to look in on him every now and then. I’ll bet Eddie never comes to visit, does he?

  What do you think?

  Ziggy’s trying to look for the bright side. At least he’s got you a pretty nice place here. It must have cost him a bundle.

  Conscience money, that’s all. It’s cheaper than having me around.

  Ziggy never thought Przybylski was dumb. Well, I’m sorry about how this turned out. I really am.

  Did you have anything more to ask me? I’m getting a little tired.

  OK, Ziggy thinks, here’s your chance to find out if he had anything to do with tipping off the cops. When he was sitting there at the bar at Connie’s, sipping his Vernors, was he just hoping Ziggy would fall on his face, or was he remembering a phone number where people were eager to hear what he had to say? Really, though, at this point, what difference would it make, however Przybylski answered that question? No, I don’t really have anything more to ask. Nothing important. Again, I’m sorry.

  Don’t waste your pity. We all wind up here sooner or later. I just got here a little quicker than you, that’s all.

  When Amanda returns, Ziggy is more than ready to leave. “You never know,” she says. “Sometimes you might just sit there and say nothing, and they still appreciate that. It all helps, I think.”

  Ziggy makes his way down the dim corridor, his steps heavy, as if the clothes he’s wearing are made of lead. So he managed to see Przybylski at last, and where did that get him? He passes a couple of women in hospital scrubs and gives them a vague nod but he doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t belong here, he wants them to know. Alone in the elevator that seems not to move, he raps his fingers against its cool, smooth metal wall, impatient to get to the first floor, to leave the Oasis. He takes a deep breath, assuring himself that the elevator is actually descending. A couple of minutes later he’s sitting in Charlie’s Buick, gratefully breathing in the car’s smell. He turns the key and soon the Oasis is in his rearview mirror, then it’s gone entirely. Already as the car follows the curves of the desert road, his mind is on the route to Glendale, where Gloria will pick him up and drive him back to Burbank, his last stop before the plane that’s going to take him back to Detroit tomorrow.

  He’s said his goodbyes to everyone and Lennie has come for him in an extremely long black limo. He’s dressed a little differently today: in jodhpurs and chauffeur’s cap, the black leather gloves he’s wearing, he looks like the Green Hornet’s driver Kato. He doesn’t have a mask, of course, but his big sunglasses do as much to conceal his face. He must have a really fancy job later today, Ziggy thinks,
because he seems unusually quiet. Without a word, he opens the door for his passenger and deposits his bag in the car’s spacious trunk. Ziggy’s getting a kick out of this royal treatment, figuring that Lennie’s probably practicing for the big shot he’s going to be taking around after he leaves Ziggy at the airport. It’s super quiet in the luxurious interior of the limo, but the backseat is a long way from the driver’s part of the car and Ziggy can’t help feeling all alone. He’d welcome a few of Lennie’s wisecracks just now but his driver remains quiet, which doesn’t help Ziggy’s mood. Something has started to bother him, though he can’t put his finger on exactly what that might be. He hasn’t flown on a jet before, but that isn’t it, there’s something else. It can’t be the fear that he’s going to miss his plane. As far as he knows, they have plenty of time to get to the airport. Relax, he tells himself, there’s nothing you can do about anything now.

  When he looks out the window he’s surprised to see that Lennie has pulled off the freeway and is traveling along a familiar-looking street.

  “Where are we going?” he asks.

  Lennie says something without turning around, but Ziggy can’t catch it.

  Where the hell are we? he thinks, I know this place: palm trees, canals and bridges. Then all at once he realizes where he is: they’re on their way to Ted’s, to say goodbye. That’s a nice gesture, he thinks. Lennie must feel they have plenty of time, and he ought to know.

  They’ve drawn up before the little house and, almost before the car has stopped, Lennie comes round to the door, quietly pulls it open, then brings himself gravely to attention. There’s the yard, the brown palm fronds on the grass, the sofa—Ziggy experiences a surprising rush of love for the place where he spent his first couple of days in LA. He’s happy that Lennie has brought him here. He’ll have a chance to tell Ted that he ought to feel good about what’s happened to him since he left St. Connie’s, that in the long run he turned out OK. Linda too. “You’re lucky to have her,” he’ll tell him. When he steps out of the limo, though, his feet seem encased in cement. Could they have fallen asleep during the drive? If he can only make it to the sofa he’ll be halfway to the house, and maybe he can rest there. He tries to push himself forward but it’s as if he’s walking through water until Lennie gently takes him by the elbow and gives him an assist.

  “Thanks,” Ziggy says. “Let me get to the sofa where I can sit down for a while.”

  When they get there he lowers himself onto the sofa’s sagging contours. In fact, so glad is he to have reached his destination that he stretches out and lies full-length, his head propped against one of the armrests, his hands crossed on his chest. Ah, that’s better.

  But he’s very tired all of a sudden, and he remembers the episode he had a couple of days earlier right here when he blacked out on this same sofa for a moment. The fear that rises sharply is countered by a wave of calm, and he’s bathed in a sense of peace. It’s OK, he tells himself. It’s a nice day, after all. Things around him shine with a pearly light, sounds—birds, people’s voices, the drone of a motorbike—seem to be coming from very far away, and then he notices Ted standing before the sofa, dressed in the solemn black robes of a priest. A sweet plume of smoke issues from the censer he’s swinging, the silver chain clicking softly as the incense-bearing vessel falls back at regular intervals, striking the chain. In a soothing voice, he’s muttering something in Latin. Just behind him is Linda, dressed as an altar boy, a black book in her hands. Oh, my God, Ziggy thinks, this is it, and I’m not ready.

  He wakes with a start. His heart is pounding, but he’s already savoring the slow ebb of the terror and he lets out a long breath, as if exhaling after a deep drag on a cigarette. He’s here, after all, at Charlie’s, just a few hours away from leaving for Detroit. He remembers what Przybylski told him, if you could call that telling, that we all wind up where he is, only he’s got there quicker. Ziggy pulls himself up in bed, the contours of the room gradually taking shape in the dark. This is real, he reminds himself, this bedroom in Charlie’s house in Burbank, and that dream has nothing to do with him, it’s even less substantial than the Oasis and that fly in Przybylski’s room, which exist only in his memory.

  He swings out of bed and brings himself to his feet. This isn’t where he belongs, though. He can’t get back to Detroit soon enough. God, he thinks, I’m still alive, that’s the important thing. Who knows for how long, but he’s alive. And he’s done enough traveling for now. What a bunch of stories he has for Maggie. Some he’s not going to tell her, like what he learned about Gloria. That situation is just going to have to work itself out between Charlie and his wife. But the other stories, ah, the others. He can see himself at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and maybe a piece of cake. Why don’t you sit down, he’ll tell her, and then he’ll fill her in on his adventures, one by one.

  His nervousness escalates as the plane makes its bumpy run up the tarmac. He clutches the seat through the earsplitting shriek of the engines that lift the heavy machine off the runway and thrust it upward at a startling tilt. The plane shudders as it continues its climb, and he keeps himself clenched, his lips moving in some wordless prayer. Only after what seems like a lifetime does the long metal cylinder gradually level off. Shortly thereafter, the seat belt bell tolls softly, accompanied by a calm voice and, little by little, Ziggy begins to feel easier. I’m miles above the ground, on a jet, he tells himself, I’m OK. When the stewardess offers him a drink, he accepts gladly. He runs his lips across the rim of the plastic glass, the first sip of bourbon already warming him, expanding his newfound sense of well-being. No longer a terrified peasant cringing before the angry streaks of lightning and explosions of thunder, he’s now a voyager returning home with wondrous tales of strange places and remarkable creatures. I’ve come from above the clouds, he’ll be able to say. And the first person who’ll hear those tales is Maggie.

  Maggie’s always been the one who’s listened and made those stories real for him, ever since they were both teenagers, when he told her about the time he first started to believe he was going places. It was odd her mentioning that very story when he’d talked to her on the phone yesterday, the one about his fixing the flat for the guy from Chicago.

  By the time he’d told it to Maggie, he’d already replayed that sequence of events over and over in his own head, what happened that November day. The sky was gray, no snow had fallen yet but pedestrians hurrying along Chene Street were remembering winter once again. Twelve-year-old Ziggy was one of them, on his way to get the evening paper for his father. As if it made any difference what was in the paper. “Oh, yeah,” he knew his old man would say, “things have never been better. That’s what they say. But any day they could cut back on my overtime and then where would we be?” He’d shake his head. “You know why they write this stuff? They’re just trying to get you to spend money.” His mother would be nodding approvingly as her husband went on. “You have to get ready for the bad times,” he’d say, “because the bad times will always come.”

  But Ziggy didn’t want to think about the bad times. It was the 1920’s, after all, not the 1820’s. Actually, he felt that his father would probably welcome bad times, the way he was always talking about the terrible things that had happened to his family, the uncles who were trapped in a coal mine in Pennsylvania, the aunt who died in a fire, the times, if you believed him, when he went without food for days. Even if, as he said, the only way they’d get him into a church is in a casket, in some ways he was just like the nuns with their stories of God’s punishment.

  Ziggy was telling all this to Maggie:

  So I’m out on Chene getting the paper and this guy calls, “Hey, kid.” I guess he had to say it twice before I realized he was talking to me. Then I look and I see this Packard pulled up to the curb, black, shiny, big as a battleship. “Hey, kid,” the guy inside says again, “can you change a tire?” He wasn’t from around here, I could tell right away—I never heard anyone who talked like that.


  “Sure,” I said. I’d already spotted the Illinois plates. “I can fix a flat.” The car was one of those big four-door twelve-cylinder models that can go like the wind, with a long boxy hood with louvered ventilation panels, and that lady with wings on the grille that all Packards have.

  “Can you work fast?” the guy asks. He was leaning across the front seat.

  “Sure,” I said, my eyes still on the car. I wanted to tell the guy they make Packards not far from here, over on Grand Boulevard.

  “I’ll give you a buck if you don’t waste any time,” he says. A buck! That’s when I stopped looking over the car and started to pay attention to the guy. He had a wide face that made him look like an Indian and he was wearing a pale gray fedora pulled down close to his eyes. And he was big, like a bear in that fur coat he was wearing. When he stepped out, that Packard rocked a little. I couldn’t help thinking, Where would you be going in a car like this?

  “Here,” the guy says, and he shows me the place in the back of the car where the jack and the spare were stored. “Ever work on a car like this before?”

  “No,” I told him the truth, “but I know about cars.” I took out the spare, I leaned it against a light post, real gentle, and I put the tools on the sidewalk. Even though my eyes are on the tools, I can’t keep my mind off the guy’s coat: it was fur, thick, dark and shiny. I’d never seen anything like it on a man. Well, I know how to change a tire, so I loosen the lugs on the flat, then set the jack under the car’s frame. Still, out of the corner of my eye I keep looking at the big guy in the fur coat. He’s on the sidewalk a few feet away. He lights a cigar and I can smell it as I’m lifting the car on the jack. I can see that people who are passing by get real quiet as they come close to him, and I tried to imagine what they’re seeing: the shiny black Packard with the long hood, the man in the fur coat and fedora smoking his stogie, me at work on the car, like we were together. It made me feel proud to be part of the scene and for some reason I was reminded of the stories the nuns tell at school about the saints, who were always doing extraordinary things. That was the word Sister Rachel used, “extraordinary,” and I remembered it. I always liked to collect unusual words, though I knew enough not to try to use them around the house when the old man was there.