by Packer, Vin
There was a light burning in The Mart when Adam arrived, and the stale and too-sweet smell of Mrs. Auerbach’s rum. Before Adam did anything else, he put the Stammbuch back in the safe. Then he walked across to the card table, threw an empty rum bottle in the wastebasket, and looked through the clutter of papers piled there. Sometimes in her drunkenness Mrs. Auerbach had a moment of lucidity when she would wrote Adam a note instructing him to do this or that, which invariably should have been done long ago, or already was done. Usually the latter, for Adam knew the working of The Mart thoroughly. Just occasionally her reminders were important, and often, nearly illegible. But instead of instructions that Monday morning, Adam found a piece of old yellow paper, across which at the top Mrs. Auerbach had printed LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
She must have been even more drunk when she wrote it than she had been when Adam left her. The printed words ran into one another, and the letters were of varying sizes:
I leave my business to my assistant Adam Blessing who must run it and not sell it. That is a law! All my money to him too, and the Stammbuch of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s son. If I die, it is the City of New York who kills me. If Adam Blessing dies, all goes to the Universal Committee on Conversation. That is a law and God’s will, so be it. Ada Auerbach, her signature. May, 1958.
Mrs. Auerbach’s a’s were all closely knotted at the top, too. Adam had noticed that about her handwriting before, and he had often thought of the fact she seldom discussed her past. But this morning it was simply another reminder of Charity Cadwallader.
For a moment while he held the yellow paper in his hand, Adam wished the old woman really was dead. But Adam knew full well his sort of luck. Mrs. Auerbach would live another twenty years, and write a different will each year, and Adam would probably be still making the same salary. He thought of his copy of the Times which he had not yet looked at, and he promised himself that when he did look at it, he would go through the Help Wanted advertisements. He felt suddenly angry at Mrs. Auerbach. The will, like her gift of the Stammbuch, was another one of her meaningless gestures, forgotten even now as she snored through the morning rain, resting her huge fat self for another bout with the bottle, another of her harangues at five o’clock when Adam wanted to go home after a hard day’s work. On an impulse which even Adam recognized as pointless, he folded the yellow paper and put it in his pocket.
Some rain had come in through the mail slot, so that when Adam picked up the morning’s delivery, he found the ink smeared on several envelopes. On one, addressed to Adam, he noticed the M’s in “Mr.” and “Mart,” the high first stroke of the letter — mark of the arrogant social climber. He guessed that it was from that Mr. Clay on East Seventy-second Street, the customer who was so interested in owning a set of the autographs of Virginia’s first families. When he looked at the return address on the envelope, his hands rushed to tear it open. It was from Billy.
Dear Addie:
You never told me where you lived, so I’m writing you at your business. When I returned to my apartment Saturday, I received a cable informing me that my father is very ill in Switzerland. I had been planning to go abroad for a year in September, but I must now leave immediately. Tuesday, in fact.
Some friends from Naples are taking my place in September, but it will be empty until then. I remember your mentioning that you were looking for a bigger apartment. Perhaps you could use mine until September, rent-free, of course. You would be doing me a favor, for I do not like to leave it empty, and you could forward my mail and pass on to phone-callers my situation. It is a large apartment with a garden. Would you call me the moment you get this, at EX 4-6161? It’s a private listing, so don’t lose this.
It was fun running into you last night.
Yours,
Billy.
A smile lingered on Adam’s face after he folded the letter so that the phone number showed. He wondered what Billy would think if he knew that Adam’s “place” was a barren-looking seventeen-dollar-a-week room in the Sixty-third Street YMCA. He could move into Billy’s immediately, and he realized with a pleasant shock of surprise that Tuesday was tomorrow.
Adam tossed the rest of the mail on the card table, and walked, with a new spring to his step, toward the phone in the storeroom. He had the distinct feeling that he was on the threshold of a new way of life, that things were definitely taking a turn. He snapped on the light-button in the storeroom. It was then, at precisely 8:22 that rainy morning at the beginning of May, that he saw Mrs. Auerbach hanging from a piece of rope. The chair she had kicked away from her was overturned on the storeroom floor.
4
“Getting thin took all my will power. I managed it, but not while the Bollins were living in Auburn. After they moved away. I was eighteen the summer of my new self. I was 145 lbs! So proud! The only one — or at least the first one I wanted to see me, was Marshall Bollin. I knew Billy was off in Europe, so I traveled the 90 miles to Rochester. I pretended to be just passing through. I called on Marshall Bollin, still my idol — though I had not seen him in three years … He not only did not recognize me (that could have been my new appearance) but even after I said my name, he did not recall me right away. When he did, he had only vague recollections. ‘Weren’t you from the Home?’ he said … I wonder if I’ll ever forget how I felt at that moment? But I’m at it again, aren’t I? Dwelling in the past! Damn!
FROM ADAM BLESSING’S JOURNAL
On Tuesday morning the sun came out at last. Adam basked in it out in Billy’s garden. The Mart was closed due to Mrs. Auerbach’s death. Adam had made arrangements for her cremation yesterday, and in last evening’s newspaper there was a U.P. human interest piece on her death. Adam soaked up the hot sun and reread the article, sipping a Bloody Mary. The headline said: VICTIM OF A CHANGING CITY.
She was an eccentric. It was no secret that she kept thousands of dollars in cash in her apartment; no secret that she kept daily rendezvous with a rum bottle. In this city of lacerated minds, she could easily have been the victim of a robbery. She could just as well have become another pedestrian fatality in traffic statistics, as she made her way home unsteadily each evening down Fifty-seventh Street, crossing Park, Lexington and Third Avenues. Many ways were possible for Ada Auerbach, age 67, to become a victim of this huge, busy, often cruel metropolis. And so she was its victim.
“If I die, it is the City of New York who kills me.” These were the words she had written in a suicide note. Police were summoned to The Autograph Mart yesterday morning by Adam Blessing, age 24, who found her in the shop’s storeroom. He told police …
Adam did not finish rereading the clipping. It gushed on about lonely city dwellers and their private universes, taking several pokes at the way the City was tearing down residences to erect office buildings; and it teased the reader with descriptions of the sardine tins in Mrs. Auerbach’s icebox, all of which contained a sum of $37, 000; and of Mrs. Auerbach’s strange ways, as recounted by neighbors and neighborhood tradesmen.
Adam folded it and put it in the pocket of his shirt. Yesterday, an hour or so before Adam had moved his bags from the YMCA to Billy’s, a lawyer had told Adam Mrs. Auerbach’s will would probably hold up. He had sat up with Billy until all hours last night, but the more he discussed his plans with Billy, the more it seemed like all the other times he talked with Billy, as though none of it was true. When Billy went, Adam supposed, it would seem more real. At the moment, the only thing real was Adam’s terrible hangover. It dulled the larger thoughts. The new world which Adam was about to realize seemed to be beginning as he had once read, in a poem, that the world would end — not with a bang, but a whimper.
Adam finished his Bloody Mary and set it on the flagstone beside the deck divan, where he was lying with his legs stretched out.
Always, Adam had thought he would love a garden, and it was somehow typical that Billy would hate it; typical that Adam had read books on gardening without any hope of having a garden of his own; typical that Billy had sa
id last night: “You want to have drinks out there? Hell, Addie, there are bugs and soot, and it’s a pain in the ass, Addie!”
It had been a concession to Adam that Billy had finally agreed to nightcaps in the garden; a “going-away gift,” as Billy had put it; and it was also typical that it was Billy who was going away; Billy giving Adam the gift because Adam was not going away…. Trust Billy to live like this in New York City, Adam thought. Three-and-a-half rooms, the garden, and an address off Fifth in the Nineties — all for a piddling $140 a month. By Billy’s standards, anyway, it was a piddling drop-in-the-bucket rent; by city standards the apartment was a find. And by Adam’s standards? … A question mark…. “The way it looks now,” the lawyer had told Adam, “it most probably will be a sizeable sum, but it’s going to take time, you know. Probate court works slowly, and there are taxes to figure out, the usual red tape…. Don’t make any big changes in your life just yet, that’s my advice.”
Adam smiled, leaned his head back and felt the sun’s warmth. He could wait…. Last night when he was telling Billy about his plans, he had practiced great patience and restraint. After all, Billy did not know the true story. Billy thought Adam was already part-owner of The Mart, already something of a success. That was another reason none of it seemed real to Adam yet; he had had to maintain the pose.
Inside, Billy was telephoning.
“… thought I’d buzz you before I took off,” Adam could hear him say. “Idlewild at two-fifty, yes…. It’s premature because of Father, but I expect I’ll keep to the same itinerary after Switzerland…. No, I’m not going near Rome this year. Tired of it; you know how it is.”
• • •
Adam dropped his cigarette on the flagstone, letting his leg swing down and rub it out. He had always dreamed of going to Europe. Now that it was going to be possible, Adam supposed he should dream of being tired of Rome one day…. That was Billy’s style, all right. Tired of this, tired of that; his money made him tired, was all. Last night Adam had sampled one of Billy’s French cigarettes. Billy was tired of the bland American kind, he had told Adam. The cigarette had nearly turned Adam’s stomach with its harshness. Adam had remarked favorably on it, and smoked it down to the end. He felt that Billy was rather pleased with Adam’s entire demeanor as they drank their nightcaps. Much more about Adam than his obvious loss of weight surprised Billy, Adam felt. Without any of Billy’s advantages, Adam Blessing was a far cry from “Fatty Addie” of Auburn, New York. Wasn’t that what Billy thought?
As Adam sat up to light a cigarette, he glanced at his watch again. It seemed that these hours before Billy’s departure were interminable. As Adam smoked, he became aware of sudden noise. In the garden adjoining Billy’s, he saw half a dozen young boys romping around, some on swings, some in sandpiles; one yanking at the fence separating the gardens. With them were a man and woman, standing by an iron slide, observing them.
“I forgot to tell you about that!” said Billy’s voice behind Adam. Billy crossed the garden carrying a fresh pitcher of Bloody Marys. He poured Adam’s glass full, and set the pitcher on the marble-top table. “That,” he said in an annoyed tone, “is King School. Oh, don’t worry; it’s a day school for one thing. And it closes for the summer the second week in June.”
Billy was fastening his cuff links to his shirt, the same ones with the simple, soft-printed B embellishing their faces. They had come from Olga Tritt, Billy had told him last night; they were 22 karat, worth, Billy guessed, about $150. Charity Cadwallader had given them to Billy. He had told Adam that while they were having their nightcaps, Billy with his Sulka tie loosened and his collar unbuttoned, Adam with his tie knotted neatly and his coat on. Ostensibly, Adam could have been the apartment’s occupant, and Billy the outsider, Adam was thinking that as he listened to Billy’s bragging — as he watched Billy’s appearance grow sloppier while they drank. Yet at a later point in the evening, Adam had realized his own speech was a trifle thick; he knew he was much higher than Billy was. When Billy suggested they “call it a night,” he was polite enough to say “we’ve” had enough. It was the first thing Adam had remembered when he woke up in Billy’s bedroom. As Adam recalled Billy’s condescending way of ending their evening, he vowed that even if he had to sit home by himself and drink night after night, he would acquire a greater tolerance for liquor. That was something he had neglected. Billy Bollin had been holding cocktails and highballs in his hand since he was seventeen. He needed no practice.
Now as Adam regarded Billy standing there in the garden, he felt a certain sense of scorn, striped with a heady feeling of superiority. Acquiring a tolerance for liquor was perhaps just a worm’s step in the direction Adam wanted to go. He would go past Billy, in that way and in every way. He envied Billy’s herring-bone-pattern silk tweed suit, silver gray with the black slub and the long roll to the lapels, but he decided that he would never imitate Billy’s taste in anything. Adam would be ultraconservative, just as Billy’s father was. If Charity Cadwallader ever gave Adam a gift, Adam would not mention the shop it had come from, the karats, and certainly not the cost. That thought of Adam’s was followed by a sudden, sharp headache.
“Is there any aspirin in your medicine cabinet, Billy?”
Billy said, “I have a prescription for something much better. Fix you up in no time, Addie. It’s in a blue jar on the right.”
That too, Adam mused as he crossed the garden, was somehow like Billy, to have a special headache pill, unavailable without a prescription.
In the living room, Adam stepped over Billy’s luggage. All of it was plastered with customs’ stamps and stickers from those hotels listed in guidebooks under “Luxury Class.” Adam decided that when he did go to Europe, as soon as the money came through, he would stay in all the best places, and he would not allow anyone to put stickers on his baggage. He would swing to the opposite pole; be unostentatious about everything.
Last night with a bravado afforded by about seven-and-a-half drinks, Adam had asked Billy about Charity Cadwallader.
“Charity?” Billy had said in an off-hand way. “We’re just friends now.”
Adam had said that he thought she was quite pretty and that she had seemed very interesting. He did not know why he was unable to use the word “beautiful,” instead of the bland understatement. The word interesting was not appropriate either, since she had hardly spoken to him, but he wanted to avoid saying something as dull as “nice.”
Billy had jiggled his glass of bourbon thoughtfully for a moment, watching the ice cubes swish around. Then he had said, “I take it you’re not serious with this Schackle-what’s-her-name?”
“Not at all.”
“Nor any girl in particular, ah?”
“I don’t know any.”
There was another brief pause, and then finally Billy said it right out. “Charity’s family is very — well — prominent, Addie…. I guess one would have to know Charity about five years before even so much as walking her to the corner for a soda. In their view, anyway.”
“She’s free, white and twenty-one,” Adam had said foolishly, sounding angry when he wanted most to sound simply matter-of-fact.
Billy had looked at him with a very wise tip to his lips: “Addie, you know that has nothing to do with it! You know full well what I’m telling you.”
Adam immediately protested that he had meant nothing by his questions about Charity; the last thing in the world, he had declared staunchly, that he had on his nind was asking her out. But he knew he sounded completely unconvincing. It was shortly after that point in the evening when he began to show his drinks.
The phone rang while Adam was in the bathroom getting something for his headache, and once again Adam could hear Billy bubbling into the mouthpiece … about leaving Idlewild at two-fifty … about not going near Rome this time … then about Adam. Adam leaned against the door, which was ajar, and listened.
“Actually, I’ve known him all my life,” Billy was saying, “We grew up back in Auburn. Hav
en’t seen him in years, then we ran into each other a day or so ago. He’s a nice enough fellow. He was an orphan. Used to cut our lawn … No, nothing like that. He has some polish…. Anyway, he’s certainly reliable.”
Certainly capable of watering the plants and forwarding the mail, Adam thought bitterly, even though he couldn’t take Charity Cadwallader to the corner for a soda.
Adam swallowed two of the pills and walked back to the garden after Billy finished with the phone call. Billy was pouring yet another Bloody Mary, and Adam was already feeling his. Adam sat down beside Billy, wishing suddenly that he knew some friends he could ask by for drinks after Billy went. Crazily he realized that the one person he would have liked to ask by for a drink in an apartment like this, was Billy Bollin himself.
“Look over there,” Billy was saying now. He pointed to the small boy whom Adam had noticed earlier, the one yanking at the fence separating the gardens. The youngster wore glasses which were incredibly thick, and he was shouting something. Billy held his finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.
“Regardez Timmy Schneider everybody!” the youngster was calling. “Regardez Timmy Schneider!”
Billy snickered. “He’s always yelling that. The whole bunch of them are psychos.”