“Billy, get my sister off my back. She’s called three times.”
The operator in my mom’s office at Sag Harbor put me through right away. Dr. Adler probably put Warren Buffett on hold.
“Oh! Darling! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“Where are you?”
“Uncle Bernie’s.”
“Well, that’s a relief… I suppose. Are you ready to stop this nonsense and come home?”
“Not yet, Mom.”
“Oh, Billy! What’s wrong with you?”
“Mom, you called the cops on me.”
“I had to.”
“That’s wasn’t fair.”
“It’s you who’s not being fair. Not fair to us.”
“Mom—”
“Don’t you see it?”
This wasn’t getting anywhere. It never does. We lived in different skins. So I did what I usually do to avoid an argument: I shut up.
She sighed. Those sighs gave up as much emotion as operatic arias. I could picture her at her desk. Or maybe she was on a cordless, pacing the carpet. Her phones were blinking red; people were lined up begging her to buy Waste Management and Cisco Systems, sell McDonalds and Exxon. She asked if I was eating fruit, drinking milk, brushing my teeth properly, getting enough sleep. I wondered what she thought I was doing at night.
“Yes, Mom. Yes. Yes. Could you and Dad come into the city, so we can talk? Well, Dad’s here already, right? He doesn’t even have to travel. Is Saturday good for you?”
“Billy, this is crazy!”
Was it? I didn’t think so. I was just expecting the same consideration, and demanding the same rights, that any free adult would expect and demand. I was a person, not a subperson, not a pet. I held my ground.
“No, it’s not. Can you make it, Mom?”
“I suppose so, yes, I can, but…”
“Will you ask Dad?”
“Is that the only way we get to see you?”
“Amy and I can’t show up in the Hamptons yet, Mom. Anything might happen.”
“Yes, you might come to your senses.”
“Will you come in on Saturday?”
“All right, all right. I’ll call your father.” But she didn’t sound happy with the idea.
“I love you, Mom. Don’t forget that.”
“Oh, Billy. Oh, Billy.” That was all she could manage. Then she said, “Me, too. Don’t you forget it.”
I didn’t want this to go on and on, so I said, “I never do, Mom. Goodbye, Mom,” and I hung up, which wasn’t easy for me to do, but I did it.
Uncle Bernie had finished mixing his paints. “You want some advice? The cops will be on the lookout. You’re a known face. Amy’s a skinny girl with red hair. Not hard to spot.”
“What’s the advice?”
“Go to New Jersey.”
He wanted to get rid of me. Not that he was inhospitable or ungrateful. He was just worried that he might be harboring a fugitive. And he didn’t want his sister to hate him more than she already did.
“Do you have a pair of scissors, Uncle Bernie?”
He produced one that he said he used to cut canvas for stretching and to trim his beard. That was news to me. His beard was thick enough to hide a family of mice.
It took me about five minutes, in front of his bathroom mirror, to snip off my stand-on-end hair from ear to ear into a buzz cut a quarter of an inch in length. I swept up all the hair and dumped it into the toilet.
When I came out, Uncle Bernie stared at me.
“What’s funny? Do I look weird?”
“No, you look like a normal American kid from St. Louis or Cincinnati. I’m not used to it.”
Amy came bounding up the stairs. She’d been putting her stuff away in the second-floor apartment that Uncle Bernie had saved for us. The other tenant on the second floor was the Russian soprano, but she was off on tour. Amy stopped in the doorway of the top-floor loft and stood there a minute, examining me and my new head.
“You look good, Billy.”
“You didn’t like my hair the way it was?”
“It was dorky.”
“You never said so.”
“Why should I hurt your feelings?” She turned to Uncle Bernie. “There’s only one bed in that room.”
“It’s a queen. You’ll have to share it. The price is right, so lighten up, Miz Scarlett.” To me he said, “That suite at the Mayflower was a mistake. Now she thinks she’s in a slum.”
“Where can we go around here for breakfast?” I asked.
“The special today at Pensione Adler is lox on sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese, accompanied by Colombian coffee and Fig Newtons. I’m Bernardo, I’ll be your server.”
After breakfast I hunted in the Yellow Pages and found Wanda’s Wig Outlet on Canal Street. Before I was born this part of the world was a crummy wholesale business district, but now it was full of boutiques, bistros, art galleries, and street sculptures. Parts of Canal Street itself, though, were still grotty.
A gum-chewing woman who looked like a younger Dolly Parton came out through the back curtain of the wig store. “Hi, guys, I’m Wanda. Are you lost or somethin’?”
I told her what we wanted.
“Black? For your little red-headed girlfriend? Why, that’s so ka-yoot. What is it, dja run away or somethin’? Don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know. You want human hair or you want synthetic? We got custom European human — toppa the line. We got Asian at a discount. We got domestic human, blended human-synthetic, advanced synthetic.”
“I’ll bet it’s all made in China,” I said.
“Hey, don’t get smart.” She showed me a list of prices. When I chose advanced synthetic, Wanda looked disappointed.
“We have two styles,” she said, “that are gawna look just gaw-geous on you, honey. Fancy Free, which is medium-length casual bob with bangs, slight layering around the face, real popular this season. High Society — that’s shaggy bob, ultra light weight, sensational for summer. You can perm both of ‘em for extra body and more wave.”
Amy chose Fancy Free.
She skipped along Canal Street in the heat. I think she liked looking like someone else.
“Let’s get another hot dog,” she said. “They’re better in New York than on Long Island.”
We found a bodega on the Bowery and I bought milk, orange juice, bananas, apples, grapes, and a few tins of anchovies. Amy filled a paper bag with chocolate chip cookies, frozen pizza, potato chips, and a quart bottle of Coke, which is what she liked to make a meal of when she had her choice. I found a hardware store on East Houston and bought another bird cage to replace the replacement I’d had to abandon in the Mayflower Hotel.
Back on Rivington Street, I put Iphigenia in her cage, fed her a banana and grapes, drank a glass of milk, made Amy drink one, too, and then we set off to see the city. The day was warm and cloudy. I kept an eye out for cops but the few we saw didn’t even glance at us—I think they had a lot more on their minds than a pair of runaway kids from the back of beyond. First stop on the tour today was the bone museum. I was able to tell Amy the difference between a Barosaur and Tyrannosaurus Rex, although I don’t think she cared; she liked the meteorite and the Star of India blue sapphire. We went to the Imax theater and watched a movie about the first explorers riding the rapids of the Grand Canyon. Amy ate a hot dog and an orange drink outside on Central Park West. She licked the mustard off her fingers.
I said, “What do you want to do now?”
“Is that other museum near here? With the French painters?”
We went to the Met and Amy pushed her nose up against Monet, Renoir, Degas and Pissarro, until the guard asked her to please step back. I took her to the Frick to see Vermeer. (“Billy, this Frick guy lived here?”) My feet were tired, and after that we went home to Uncle Bernie’s, and when we got there I began to wonder what we were going to do for the rest of the summer. I didn’t want to keep touring New York City the whole time. I l
iked museums but you couldn’t visit one every day. We didn’t know any other kids to hang out with. We didn’t have jobs. We had to do something. We had to make a life.
All that was something I hadn’t thought about when I’d made my plan for us to run away. I thought by now we’d on our way to a ranch in Texas and I’d be cooking and Amy would be learning to ride.
Uncle Bernie left a note for me saying he wouldn’t be back until late. He told us to use his kitchen and his TV and to make ourselves at home. I thought about making a delicious dinner but it was hot up there without A/C and I was tired from walking all day. I went out and bought a couple of pizzas, one with all the trimmings for Amy and one with double anchovies for me, and brought them back to Rivington Street. It seemed to be warmer in the evening than it was during the day. I drank orange juice with my pizza and Amy drank Coke with hers. After dinner she sucked on an ice cube.
“Let’s watch TV,” she said.
She liked the sitcoms, the same ones Simon liked. While she watched, she giggled and bounced up and down on the sofa.
“You don’t like Friends, Billy? And Everybody Loves Raymond?”
“I like The Simpsons.”
“That’s only a cartoon. Want to watch the wrestling?”
Amy liked their antics in and out of the ring. She kept laughing at them and when they threatened each other and the referee she stopped laughing and looked concerned.
“Amy, they’re faking it. Don’t you know that?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to know. Why are people like that? I guess it makes life easier. We all do it in one way or another, and you can see how other people do it but it’s a lot harder to see how you do it. I know that now and I was starting to know it then.
The phone rang. I picked up. It was my mom.
“Billy, thank God you’re still there. I’m sending you something by FedEx. Will you be there tomorrow morning to sign for it?”
“Mom, if it’s clothes, I don’t need any.”
“It’s not clothes. Will you be at your uncle’s until ten-thirty tomorrow?”
“I guess so.”
“Billy, one more thing. Is Amy’s father in touch with her?”
“No way.”
“Does he know where you two are?”
“No, Mom.”
“Mr. Papademetriou says a man’s been hanging around the house. In the road, near the garbage bins. From Mr. Papademetriou’s description, it sounds like Carter Bedford.”
“Did he bang on the door again?”
“No, he’s just hanging around. I don’t like it. Maybe Amy could call her mother. I’d appreciate her asking her mother to tell her father to stay away from this house or I’ll call the police.”
“Amy won’t call Ginette, either,” I said.
“Well, she should. The woman must be worried sick. We’ll see you Saturday, Billy. And be there tomorrow morning to receive my FedEx package. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
I didn’t say anything to Amy about Carter hanging around Oak Lane. She wouldn’t know why he was doing it, and why should I upset her?
The studio apartment that Uncle Bernie had given us had a kitchenette and a bathroom with a stall shower with a plastic door that don’t quite fit. There was no air conditioning. I went downstairs and took a cool shower and washed my hair. That felt good. I climbed back up the stairs. By the time I got to the top floor I was hot again and starting to sweat. I could have taken the elevator but that seemed a dumb thing to do. I mean, this wasn’t a hotel, it was where we were living until we found a place of our own in whatever place we went to from here.
“You want to shower, Amy?”
“No.”
The phone rang again but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want any more orders or suggestions from my mom. I read my book and then I worked on the Sunday Times crossword puzzle that Uncle Bernie had started and given up on, and Amy watched a movie where things kept exploding and somebody was always chasing somebody else and shooting at the hero but always just missing. They make that movie over and over again. When it was finished I put down the puzzle and said, “You want to shower now?”
“Don’t nag me.”
Was I nagging her? Well, I guess I was.
“Tomorrow, Billy. I’m beat. Let’s crash now.”
Our room was huge but it had only the one queen-size bed, which was lumpy, and creaked when you turned over in it. If there had been a sofa I would have slept on it, but there were only a couple of ratty easy chairs that wobbled when you sat in them. There was a table to eat on, a few stiff chairs, and pale green walls with cracks and nails in them. Not a place with what you would call character or charm, and we hadn’t brought anything to decorate it. Nawan Singh, the stock analyst, had lived here; Uncle Bernie said he’d gone back to Jaipur to get married to his childhood sweetheart. They’d been engaged since they were thirteen. People in India did things like that. Maybe Amy and I would have to move to India.
Amy set her kaleidoscope and frog pen on the table, and for a while she played with the wind-up lips that ran around on the floor. A window opened onto Rivington Street and all the street noise came through it: people passing by, talking to each other and laughing and arguing; the bark of a dog in an alley, the yowl of a cat on a rooftop, roller blades scraping on concrete, the click of high heels, motorcycles vra-vrooming, cans banging, the clack of dishes being stacked in other kitchens. You could hear the clink of cutlery and plates from La Perla, a Puerto Rican sidewalk café thirty feet up the street toward Eldridge. You could smell fried plantains. Delicious.
In the bathroom Amy brushed her teeth and put on her Macy’s nightgown. When she came out I could see one of her new little breasts pressing against the cotton. I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas. A big brown cockroach ran across the tiles, heading toward me. I jumped to one side and watched it disappear into a crack in the wall.
I peed against the side of the toilet bowl so it wouldn’t make a splash. I don’t know why I did that. I knew you didn’t have to be shy about natural things like that but still I did it that way. I felt foolish but, on the whole, better.
Amy climbed into bed, and when I walked out of the bathroom I slid in on the far side of the bed next to the wall.
“Can we shut the window?” she asked.
“Why?”
“It’s noisy.”
“If we shut it, we won’t have any fresh air.”
“You call that air out there fresh?”
I clambered across the bed and shut the window. When I jumped back into bed it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes before it felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was really hot in there. It was airless. I thought I could smell Indian spices from Nawan Singh’s cooking when he had lived here and slept in this bed. Amy went right off to sleep; I could tell by the sound of her breathing. She twitched. She moaned in her sleep and buried her face in the pillow, so that I wondered if she was having a nightmare. I couldn’t do anything about it. She’d had a hard life. Now it was going to be better. It was going to be wonderful. She would be happy. And I would make sure she stayed that way for as long as possible. I knew that in the end it was up to her, but we were a long way from the end and right now she needed help.
I lay awake a while, wondering about everything that was happening to her and to me, but I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew I opened my eyes and it felt like I was suffocating. I listened for the sound of crickets. No crickets. This was the city. Light was flickering on the bedroom wall. It was bright enough for me to see my watch. It was five minutes to midnight. It wasn’t quiet but apparently that wasn’t bothering Amy, and I guess she had enough air because I could hear her sucking it into her lungs without complaint. She must have been hot, though, because in her sleep she had peeled the sheet off her. Her nightgown had slipped off one shoulder. Her skin was so white. You could see her collar bone sticking out. I looked away; I didn’t want to s
ee too much.
I got up, crawled down over the bed again—my side of it was stuck up against the wall; the springs creaked, but Amy didn’t budge—and then I padded barefoot to the window. The party outside in the street was in high gear. They were playing merengue music. I shoved the window open a few inches and waited for air. I didn’t feel any. No air was coming in. There was nothing in that street except heat rising off the pavement and the constant clank of dishes and the sounds of people having a good time at La Perla on a summer night.
Could I call down and ask them to keep it a little quieter? I didn’t think so. People had a right to have a good time. No one cared if a kid couldn’t sleep.
Maybe it would be better without the covers. We had been under a white sheet with a pale blue nylon blanket next to the bed in the unlikely event it got cool. I pulled the sheet off, let it slide to the floor. Every time I moved, the bedsprings creaked.
I climbed back into bed. Amy hadn’t showered and there was a pungent smell coming from her. At first I thought it was curry — maybe curry had spilled a long time ago on the mattress — but then I decided it wasn’t curry. I remembered my mom’s remark about feminine hygiene. I still wasn’t sure what that meant exactly but I was beginning to get some kind of idea about it. I couldn’t say anything, though, even if she had been awake. I wouldn’t have known how to say it.
On nights like that you think you’ll never sleep, but you do. However, it wasn’t a good sleep. I tossed and turned — a couple of times I pulled up the sheet and used it to wipe sweat off my neck, and I had a few dreams that I didn’t choose to remember. I mean, they were there one minute, noisy and technicolored, perfectly clear, and the next minute they just slid away to wherever dreams go to.
One of those dreams was special, though, even if I can’t remember it. Because in the morning, when I woke up, I had pulled the top sheet up, and it was wrinkled, screwed up, thrown all over the place. So was the bottom sheet. The old mattress ticking showed. My pajama bottoms and the bottom sheet were all sticky. My dick was sticky, too, and poking out of my fly.
I jammed it back in as fast as I could.
It wasn’t my first dream of that kind, but it had been a while since the last one, and this was certainly the first one I’d had when I was in a bed with someone else. Well, actually, it was the first time I’d slept the night in a bed with anyone else, and the unusual part of it was that this someone else was a girl, and now and I’d gone and had this dream, which I couldn’t even remember, and here was the result — a lot of it, too — and I wanted to run away and hide and pretend it had never happened. But it had. I looked at my watch. It was seven minutes to nine in the morning.
Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller Page 24