The Baker

by Paul Hond

  Ben shrugged.

  Mickey saw some hope there: the kid didn’t say no. “You did a good job,” Mickey said. “I meant to tell you.”

  Ben looked down at his shoes.

  Mickey wondered if this were the time and place to make the formal announcement, to proudly proclaim that Benjamin Lerner, the founder’s grandson and namesake, was to someday assume stewardship over the Lerner Bakery. But what if it backfired? There had never been any sure signs from Ben that he would embrace the idea, and indeed, Mickey had often supposed that the kid might laugh in his face. The bakery—and Mickey harbored no illusions about it—was not exactly the most glamorous place in the world (“It ain’t the Bread ‘n’ Basket,” he would say with underdog pride, referring to those trendy new chain bakeries that were sprouting up in shopping malls, with their espresso machines and three-dollar croissants), and he himself, in all likelihood, did not blaze in the kid’s imagination as the picture of success. And so he was left to dance around the topic, hoping to somehow lure the kid in without revealing his intentions.

  He squeezed his hands together. He knew Ben was getting fed up with the uncertainty of his role here, knew he probably hated working at the bakery the way he’d hated doing homework. But what else was he qualified to do? What kind of future could he expect? The bakery was his best chance in life. Maybe his only chance.

  Nelson’s entrance saved Mickey, momentarily at least, from making any clumsy announcements regarding the future. Nelson dropped a tall stack of empty boxes to the floor and handed Mickey the clipboard, on which he’d recorded the day’s transactions. “Jay Rattner said the rolls haven’t been fresh,” he said. “Told me the members been complaining.”

  Mickey turned his attention to his delivery man. “Can you imagine?” he said. “These people do nothing but play golf and tennis and bridge, yet all they can do is complain.” He shook his head and looked over Nelson’s figures.

  “Well, they are paying a lot of money,” said Ben. “I’d want things to be right too.”

  Mickey ignored that. “The numbers look good,” he said. He set the clipboard on the counter, then went over to a basket by the window and came up with a nice raisin bread. He held it out to Nelson, hoping, out of a vague desire to communicate something—a “hello,” really, nothing more—that he’d take it home to his mother.

  “No, thank you,” said Nelson, putting up his hands. “We got enough at home.”

  Mickey assumed Nelson was only being polite, but something about the refusal gave him pause. He hoped he wasn’t coming across as charitable.

  He wiped some perspiration from his forehead. “Morris? You want a loaf?”

  “Raisins I can’t eat.”

  Mickey felt stupid as hell all of a sudden, holding the loaf of bread. He set it next to the clipboard. “Want a lift, Nelson?” he said, thinking it might be helpful to drive through the old neighborhood, gather up his full history before going to Shaw’s. “I’m heading downtown, so it’s not too out of the way.” He held out his hand.

  Nelson gave him the van keys. Mickey pocketed them.

  “I got the bus,” said Nelson.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” said Nelson. “Thanks.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked askance.

  Mickey sighed, smiled, tried to think of something to do. “Hey! Watch your guard!” He feigned a punch to Nelson’s head.

  Nelson reacted quickly, ducking. His face lit up like a child’s. “Almost got me that time,” he said.

  “Remember what I showed you,” said Mickey. He raised his fists. “Hands up. Lead with the left.” He felt a strain in his rib cage. “See that?”

  Nelson mirrored him, smiling shyly. “A’ight then. Next time, I’ll be ready.”

  Mickey was aware of Ben on the perimeter of their make-believe ring, watching them. Sometimes he seemed to feel left out, sulky, but hell, Mickey thought, it was like Donna said: Nelson grew up his whole life without a father. He needed some special attention.

  “If you want,” said Ben, “I can close up.”

  Mickey turned to his son. Had he heard right? It seemed a little fishy, Ben volunteering to help out. And why wasn’t Nelson leaving for the bus stop?

  “Sounds like a good idea,” said Morris, who had already put on his coat and hat. Mickey’s coat was over his arm. “I’m tired, Mickey,” he said. “Leave Benjie to close up so you can take me home.”

  “What do you think we’re going to do?” said Ben. “Burn the place down?”

  Mickey looked to Morris for help, but the old man was already outside, waiting by the car.

  Ben took up the broom.

  “Don’t be a wiseguy,” said Mickey. “And don’t forget the locks.”

  “Okay,” said Ben.

  Mickey took a step back. “I’ll see you later,” he said. “So long, Nelson.”

  “So long,” Nelson said.

  Mickey turned and walked to the door, feeling their eyes on his back like nails.

  David Shaw lived alone in a renovated Victorian row house in an area frequented by artists and homosexuals. Mickey approached the house, swiping at his hair, patting it, straightening his collar. Shaw’s windows were aglow, and faint shadows of bodies could be seen passing, some of which appeared wildly distorted, as though decked with tall hats, wings. A costume party? Emi hadn’t said anything about costumes.

  Mickey pushed the doorbell with a cold nervous finger and waited. He could hear the jangle of a piano—Shaw or Keskov, probably—and the distinctive belly laugh of Gonzalez. Mickey hadn’t seen these notables since the reception after Emi’s performance in Washington, over a year ago. He rang the bell again, and the door was opened by a fat man who stood before Mickey like one of the Japanese stone gods that were arranged on the floor of the vestibule. Gonzalez.

  “Yes?” said Gonzalez, dabbing his forehead with a white hand towel. Mickey guessed that the famous tenor, wearing only a cream-colored robe, was masquerading as the high priest of some gluttonous Eastern sect, though of course there were other possibilities, as was often the case at Shaw’s.

  “Trick or treat,” said Mickey, certain that Gonzalez would recognize him in a moment. When Gonzalez only stared, Mickey cleared his throat and said, “Mickey Lerner. Emi’s husband.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Gonzalez. “Come in. I’ll take your coat.”

  The house was just as Mickey remembered it from the New Year’s Eve party that Shaw had thrown five or six years ago: the bamboo curtains, the rag-weave-covered cushions on the floor, the chandelier hanging like a giant icicle-covered claw, the cherrywood bookcases and the carved marble mantel, upon which stood a collection of stone obelisks.

  Most of the guests were in costume: Sue Wang, the cellist, had penciled in some whiskers and freckles, and host Shaw, in flowing black, was a merry Grim Reaper, refreshing everyone’s drinks and spreading gossip. His face was powdered white, and his reaper, made of tinfoil, was taped over his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to carry it. He spotted Mickey and beckoned him with a black-gloved hand.

  Mickey felt naked without a costume, too easily singled out; and yet to have donned one would have somehow been presumptuous, as if he were making himself one of them. But as he approached David Shaw, Mickey felt himself brighten; he could forget all about the customers at the bakery, about Shirley Finkle, Nelson, Morris, the gang at Chen’s Garden. These people assembled before him, these artists; these were the people who mattered. These were the culture bearers, the world travelers, and damn if they didn’t know him by name.

  Mickey noticed the spread at the back: wooden bowls of chopped liver, sour cream, chickpea dip; fingers of carrot, celery, zucchini; wheat and sesame crackers; wooden boards holding hunks and drifts of imported cheeses; and, on a long silver platter, a golden, honey-basted turkey from whose eroded breast rolled pinkish shavings, curled, fluted, to be placed atop thick slices of the rye and pumpernickel loaves—his loaves—that rose in tanned hills at the far end of t
he table. Pumpkins and twisted bumpy gourds rounded out the display, which Mickey could admire even more than the music coming from the white Baldwin grand in the next room. A crowd was gathered there, and Keskov, dressed in white breeches and a barrister’s wig, was hunched impishly over the keyboard.

  Mickey spotted his wife standing by a fireplace whose flames were beginning to smolder. She was radiant in that failing light. Three young men, possibly students, vied for her attention. Mickey walked over.

  Emi looked up at him without surprise. “You made it,” she said. She seemed pleased.

  “Yup,” said Mickey. “Where’s your costume?”

  She extended her hand. “David didn’t tell me it was a costume party,” she said.

  Mickey lifted her wrist and kissed it.

  “Mickey. I’d like to introduce you.”

  Mickey nodded at her three young men, all cigars and glasses and phony noses, working their eyebrows. He disliked them instantly.

  “Friends,” said Emi, “this is my husband, Mickey Lerner.”

  The Marx Brothers exchanged quick glances.

  “Good to meet you,” said Mickey. He shook each of their hands, not too firmly, but with the calm knowledge that he could easily squeeze their bones to dust and end their careers.

  No, he wasn’t the type to fly into a jealous rage and hurt anyone. Emi had her life, he had his. He’d be a fool to think there hadn’t been a few encounters with other men over the years, but then he’d also be a fool to insist on believing there had. It was precedence that mattered, and the fact remained that whatever trespasses she may have committed, say, during her travels abroad, or even at some party such as this (what if he hadn’t shown up?), she always returned, didn’t she, to the semidetached brick house at the edge of the city, with its gardens in back and the wide alley beyond, the golden porch light in front, the cement steps, the iron falcon with the house number on its wing protruding from the small grassy hill; always she would open the door, ascend the carpeted stairs, and curl up in bed next to her supine husband, his arms at his sides, so that, lying together, they neatly resembled the word Is.

  “Did you come straight from work?” said Emi, observing her husband’s rumpled light-blue shirt, one of several that she had brought him back from France one year, and the Marx Brothers, seeing that Emi’s attention had narrowed, now faded away, coattails dragging.

  Mickey followed them with his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Didn’t want to be late.”

  “Just promise,” Emi said, “that you’ll protect me from David.”

  Mickey turned to her. “Gladly,” he said, though normally he felt it was himself who needed to be protected from the maestro. “Has he been drinking?”

  “No more than usual.” Emi touched her chin. “Is Benjie home tonight?”

  Mickey’s neck heated up. Why would she bring this up now? “He’s closing up the store,” Mickey said, almost defiantly, knowing that Emi wouldn’t argue in these surroundings. “And tomorrow morning maybe he’ll open the store.” He squared his shoulders in challenge, but Emi was looking past him, gathering her features into a reluctant smile.

  Mickey felt a finger on his back; he turned to find David Shaw grinning at him from the shadows of his black hood.

  “Well, if it isn’t the King of Pain,” said Shaw, making the old play on the French word for bread.

  “Mr. Shaw,” said Mickey. They shook hands.

  Shaw threw off the hood, revealing his magnificent copper-colored head. His perfect baldness was his trademark; the skull was like a carved object, something recovered, polished, sought by dealers. “Tell me,” he said, his white makeup flaking, “how is business?”

  “Business is good,” said Mickey. “Making a lot of dough, ha, ha.”

  Shaw screwed up his eye as if in confusion, then raised his eyebrows and burst into a laugh that caused several guests at the piano to turn their heads. Shaw was maybe two or three years Mickey’s junior, but Mickey always felt like an inexperienced young man in the maestro’s presence. It had never bothered him that Shaw was on the “funny” side; Mickey believed in live and let live, and keep your hands to yourself.

  “Thank you for the loaves that Emi brought us,” Shaw said. “Did you bake them yourself?”

  Mickey felt his face go red. No doubt Shaw was picturing him as some sort of jolly, apron-wearing shopkeep, a dab of flour on his nose, forever at war with the resident crumb-hoarding mouse. “No,” he said, “I’ve got a staff that takes care of that.”

  “Of course,” said Shaw. “You have bakers.”

  “Six of them,” said Mickey. He glanced at Emi: she was looking at him with what he thought might be admiration.

  “Baker’s men,” Shaw said. “I haven’t thought of that rhyme in ages.” He fell into a drunken singsong: “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man; bake me a cake as fast as you can. One for the …”

  Mickey found himself growing disappointed in Shaw, who was seeming less and less like a man who had concertized for five presidents and nearly been knighted. Perhaps Mickey was biased by memories of his old jaunts to the conservatory, when, loitering outside Emi’s classroom, he’d catch sight of a younger, sharper Shaw, clicking purposefully down the corridor, books in hand, his gait furious with reputation.

  “Something, something, cross it with a T; put it in the oven …” Shaw turned away to think privately.

  At the piano, Keskov switched to Strauss; several couples began to dance. Mickey saw Emi watching Shaw with horror. What if his memory failed on stage? Mickey took his wife’s hand and led her to the middle of the floor.

  Keskov was rushing the Strauss, but Mickey waltzed his partner leisurely, using techniques he had learned several years back in an adult dance class. He could feel a gravitational pull in her step, but would not allow her to carry them to the pianist’s reckless tempo; there was, in the speed, a certain peril that she seemed to be warming to.

  “I didn’t think I could still do this,” Mickey said, nodding at several passing faces that he thought he recognized. He pressed his lips to Emi’s forehead, and, to his surprise, developed a partial erection. He held her closer: her body was warm, almost hot. The ideas of fever and passion got confused in his mind; he wanted to extinguish with his prick all the troubles he perceived burning inside her.

  “There’s Toshiki Sato,” said Emi. She nodded at a small Oriental Dracula who was pouring himself a drink on the other side of the room. “He’s new in town. I should go over and say hello. Come with me?”

  As she led him by the hand, David Shaw intercepted them.

  “Mr. Lerner,” he said, raising his chin, as if to recall for Mickey a splendor that he feared he may have compromised earlier. “Tell me, how’s business?”

  “Well,” said Mickey. Hadn’t they been through this earlier?

  He felt Emi’s hand fall away.

  “Are you much for apple bobbing?” Shaw said. “I’ve set up a bobbing tank in the kitchen.”

  Mickey saw that Emi had joined Sato at the punch bowl.

  “What you need,” said Shaw, “is a costume. Look at me.”

  Mickey turned. Shaw held a tube of stage blood; he uncapped it and, raising one eyebrow, held it to Mickey’s forehead. Mickey closed his eyes, felt himself be anointed.

  “Very good,” said Shaw, who seemed to be taking inordinate pleasure in transforming Mickey into a severely wounded person. “Emilie once told me you used to box?”

  “A little,” said Mickey. “When I was a kid.” He wondered in what spirit Emi had divulged the information.

  “Now,” said Shaw, “if we can get you into a pair of baggy trunks, you’ll be all set.”

  “I’d be out for the count with all this blood,” said Mickey. He opened his eyes. Shaw was looking at him with a strange expression, critical, concerned.

  “You know,” said Shaw, with what Mickey thought was more than a hint of homosexual intrigue, “we must talk someday, you and me.”

  “Talk?”<
br />
  “Yes.” Shaw didn’t seem quite as drunk now. “Soon.” He glanced around quickly. “You’ll please excuse me,” he said, and turned and made his way to the piano.

  Mickey thought it a good idea to avoid Shaw the rest of the evening. Should he join his wife, then, introduce himself to Sato? He made his way over to the punch bowl, feeling more and more conspicuous. Emi and Sato stood in a corner. Sato, drink held close to his chest, nodded, smiled, nodded some more.

  Mickey watched them for a while and then, satisfied that the little vampire was harmless, went to the long table and helped himself to a slice of his own bread.

  6

  Ben drew hard on the spliff, chased the orange tip halfway to his lips. Skunkweed. No telling where Nelson had gotten it; Ben connected it vaguely with the gun, which Nelson kept twirling on his finger.

  He let the smoke curl up from his nose. “I never bought herb in my life,” he said. “Too expensive.”

  “Always thinkin’ about money,” said Nelson.

  They were in the back of the bakery, sitting on one of the worktables. Mickey had left an hour ago for David Shaw’s party, and the bakers wouldn’t arrive for another two hours. They had the place to themselves.

  Ben passed the spliff. It was different, smoking with black guys. They puckered their big purple lips and drew the smoke in a profound way, as though harboring a tropical knowledge of the plant: the smoke tumbling in the mouth, swirling about the nostrils, disappearing with a suck into the lungs, then out like a smooth musical note. White guys meanwhile coughed, talked about existence, got paranoid. Black guys just chilled.

  “You nice yet?” said Ben.

  “Yeah,” said Nelson. His eyes were pink. “I’m nice.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Yeah. For pussy.”

  Ben giggled, his boyish laughter clumsy with racing hormones. “Me too.”