A Matter of Love in da Bronx

by Paul Argentini

  --Okay. Okay. As simply as I can, I'll explain. A writer is a writer only when he's writing. No other job in the world has that qualification. If he's not writing, he's a miserable shit. A crocodile on one end, rattlesnake on the other, devouring everything in the world he comes across because he may be able to use it sometime, someway. Endless cycle. No way out. I drink because I can't write, I don't have anything to say. Besides, a writer who drinks is quite acceptable. Those with paper assholes--they don't have to do common things--think it's easyshit to write the truth. Simple declarative truth! Nothing's fucking harder in the world. No more of that crap. Let me tell you about this snatch last night. You really didn't mind I cancelled last night? Head shake. ~We went to this place--nightclub--in Mount Vernon with another couple because this fellow I write jokes for was working there. I give this romp I'm with an ad lib line for him, so it looks like it's spontaneous, right? The comedian asks her his name. She answers, `Debbie!' He says something about her clothes, and she asks him, “will you kiss me?' And he comes back with my line, `Only if you give me a blowjob!' Now that was it! That was the joke! And the place cracks up! And what does she do? Starts to quiet down, and she pipes up, `You all talk? Or are you going to whip it out?' The place explodes! Well, when we see the comedian later, he's so fucking mad at me! He won't even pay what he owes! He's sore, see, because he doesn't have a comeback! She stole his fire, right? He says I should've had a line for him. That she embarrassed him, and practically ruined his career! And she calls him a dumb fuck, and says he didn't know what he was talking about because she all but handed him a new career, and she wants to know why he just didn't whip out his pecker! Man! That put him in a straightjacket because he knew...he knew if he did she woulda!

  --You mean--she's not all talk? Small sip.

  --You bet! Silver-tongue Lily! What a job she can do! I want to tell you... Oh! Shit! What assholes writers are! Hey! I'm sorry... Hey! You know what? I'm not the fuck sorry! You could let me fix you up with a chick just one time. You're a no-fucked celibate only because you won't take a bite!

  --Thanks for the beer. I gotta get back to work.

  --Don't do this to me, Sam. Don't cut me off. You're one of the best people I know in this whole fucking world, and I'd never do anything to hurt you. You can't go through the world like this, mad at everything and everyone. There's gotta be someone out there for you! Empty Moosehead bottle tucked back away, taking out a full one.

  --Oh! I know there is.

  --A-hah! That's a switch. How do you know?

  --I met her last night. It was blurted, hauling embarrassment along with the sheepish grin.

  --You son-of-a-bitch! Jetting to his feet. You super-double son-of-a-bitch!

  --That much of a surprise, huh, that someone would give an ugly guy like me a tumble? Subdued, anticipating the hurt.

  --Shit, Sam. Footstamp derived of frustration. Save that for someone else, not for me! I'm delighted! Happy for you! What's her name? Where'd you meet her? How'd you meet her? What's she like? Did you get laid?

  --Go to hell.

  --You met here...where? A bar? At the porny flick? Right? Right? I bet I'm right!

  Lord.

  In the deadstillness they could hear the fizz in his newly-opened bottle of Moosehead. Neither one looked at the other.

  To Sam, without malice, it occurred that even his best friend might well consider his sole source of social contact to be the bar, or the porny flic.

  To Lou, aware of the change in the atmosphere right after he said it, it was only a guess, and meant to provoke laughter.

  Both wished friendship was its own responsibility, totally non-analytical.

  Sam decided if he was going to tell Lou about the girl, he was going to tell him the truth, all of it. Including the fact that he thought he actually saw her in the porn movie house. As he recalled, she was rather pissed off at him at the last. He gave a description of her that would've put an angel to shame. To add to the fiasco, she thought his name was Sol. Then, he told Lou how he discovered her name.

  --So? What is it? What's her name?

  --Louisa. One could almost sense the swaying figure of the clodhopper kicking a cowflop.

  --Louisa! HolyJesusChristAlmightydidhesay Louisa? --Louisa what?

  --Louisa Golczek.

  -Louisa Golczek, right? Holy Shit! I guessed too well! My best buddy is bananas over Louisa Golczek! Oh! Yes! He knew a Louisa Golczek. She graduated high school a year ahead of him, he thought. What he wasn't ready to say was that she was on the locker room honor roll--boys and girls--one of the few senior co-eds that laid every member of the senior class who was willing, and according to tradition, within the confines of the building, including, but not limited to: classrooms, labs, girls' and boys' rest rooms, the boys' and girls' locker rooms, the boiler room, custodial office, the auditorium, on stage behind the curtain, in the balcony, the projection booth, the nurses station, the band practice room, the vocational shops, the hallways, staircases, the guidance office (where moments before she had revealed to the counselor that she was seriously considering taking vows for a religious order which was taken quite seriously inasmuch as those Polacks took their religion quite seriously), the telephone booths near the principals office, the principal's office.

  Hail! To thee, our high school years!

  Fond memories bring joyful tears!

  Paths of learning from your hallowed hall

  And cherished friends will guide us all!

  The fact was, Louisa Golczek was boys' and girls' Locker Room Honor Roll Mamma Come Loudly if one included in her activities extemporaneous masturbations, oral sex, and weekend night parties on the back lawn of the school building of which the custodial staff complained enviously because the condoms left lying around worked havoc clogging up the mowers, an exaggeration, naturally, because Louisa's main line of defense against pregnancy was the pill. There was no report on how she fared with venereal diseases. But, back to the lawn, Louisa wasn't solely responsible for the story, inasmuch as there were a number of other candidates in contention.

  --Oh! Well! Back to work! Lou made an attempt at being merry and gotta-be-off attitude, but all the while was in frenzy, fraught with concern that his escape would be cutoff. He battled with the double snaps on the attaché case. He was riding a leaky raft and it was about to be swamped when he saw Sam had beat him to the front door.

  --You know her, right? It really wasn't a question.

  Lou brushed imaginary lint from his jacket. His mind tried to go into superslot superfast speed, but the works kept jamming on the fact that Sam was his very best friend. One didn't lie to best friends! Unless it was to protect him. Right? --Well, not really.

  --What does that mean, `Well, not really?'

  Sam was asking a lot of him. He was asking him to be smarter than Sam. Not only that, he could get a very strong sense of determination; he was a lunging black panther after a prey. --Sam! Look! You told me this girl you met last night had black hair and eyes like port wine. Right? Or, not right?

  --That's right. Now, why was he doing this to me? Does he know her or doesn't he know her? Why the game? Now, Lou, remember I also told you she was wearing a hat that looked like she got her head stuck in a bell, so I didn't get a real good shot of her hair, and it was dark.

  --Forget it! Can't be the same girl.

  --Why not? Now why is he treating me like a jerk?

  --The girl I thought I knew has got, like...dirty-blond hair, and eyes colored like emeralds. Is that enough to put you off, Sam? I hope.

  --Forget the eyes! Forget the hair! Do you know Louisa Golczek?

  --It's not the same person! I've never seen him like this!

  --Okay, do you know a Louisa Golczek? So, now with my best friend, I have to be a nitpicking Philadelphia lawyer!

  --It couldn't be the same person.

  --You won't give me a straight answer? What is the problem?

  --Sam, I just don't want to get your hopes up. Oh! Shit
! There I go again!

  Maybe he's right. Maybe I'm chasing some Maid of the Mist. He wouldn't say it right out, but perhaps I'm looking for someone who doesn't exist. But, doing it or not? Isn't that my choice? --Lou! You're not a friend! You're a fraud!

  --You've got no right to say that, Sam. And over something you don't even know exists or not.

  --Then why don't you tell me? I get the feeling you're trying to save somebody some embarrassment. If you know her, it could be her that you're worried about, having a friend of yours--like me, Sam Scopia--slathering all over her. I don't really believe that. What I believe is that you'll be embarrassed for me, because you think she'd laugh in my face if I asked her out!

  --No!

  --Yes!

  Sam, what do I do? My reason for not saying anything is because I don't want you to find out the girl of your dreams is a fucking tramp! A freehole! Like a carpet, she'll lay wherever she'll be received! And maybe there could be a little bit of the fact that the cheap cunt could turn down a saint like you, who wouldn't be worth a single hair on your head--well, you know what I mean. Maybe I should just stay out of it. And let your friend stick his foot in a bogan hole? Cheap, rotten friend you are. But you'd lose him as a friend if you told him Louisa was a cheap cunt. Besides, what gives you the right to decide who Sam should or shouldn't see? He's a big boy. A mind of his own. Better than your fucking screwed up writer's mind. So what do you think, a guy fucks a girl doesn't mean they're engaged. And if Sam wants to get laid, who's to say, `No?' What happens, happens. Besides, he'd never seen Sam so lit up for life, ever! And wasn't that terrific? Better than him remaining a drudge, right? Right? --Look, Sam! Now please don't get sore at me. Maybe this Louisa you know is the same Louisa I know, and maybe it isn't the same person...

  Sam put both his hands on Lou's shoulders. --That's what I've been trying to say. We've got to find out. Not only do I want to see her again, I perforce must see her again.

  --So spell it out for me, why?

  --Because I couldn't take my eyes off of her. Because she is the embodiment and substance of the ideal I conjured in my dreams. Because she has so fascinated my heart I fear if I do not find a response to this beleaguerment I will be deprived totally of all my emotions forever. Because...

  --...because you think you're in love with her.

  --Your harmonics are mine; mine yours. Simpatico. That's right. Because I think I'm in love in love with her. Do you think I'm stupid, to allow myself...no! Just to say I'm in love with someone I've seen for less than four-five minutes? What's worse, she wants nothing to do with me. Called me a jerk. A Klutz. I know she said it with a capital "K."

  --Know what? Under those circumstances, I'd call you a jerk and a klutz, too. Lose your raincoat, and all that money! Do you know how much beer money you threw away!

  --Fuck that! ...Jesus, I never swear, and listen to me. I mean, so what? I lost her. I can always get a coat, money. Lou, will you help me find her?

  --Eyyyyyy! I always wanted to go around bareassed with a bow and arrow and be Cupid. But what if my Louisa isn't your Louisa?

  --I'll go through that pane when I see it. You know sometimes you get the feeling, just the feeling; you've seen something before...

  --Deja vu? Or, as the joke goes, it's happening all over again, deja vu!

  --No, not that. But I knew Louisa Golczek before. I mean, I've seen her when I was younger. I mean, she reminds me of someone the family used to know a long time ago. I don't know, maybe it was high school.

  --Can't be.

  --Why not?

  --Because...because Louisa Golczek was maybe a year or two ahead of me in high school. She's not your age.

  --Oh! Lost to me? Is she? Walking along, excitedly, admiring the sky; suddenly stepping in a hole. I beseech you, Calamities! Unbeseige me! Not quite.

  --Sam? Fuck. Yesterday...We were supposed to go out...celebrate? I forgot. It was your birthday. Some lousy friend I am.

  I'll take you, lousy friend, over a loving relative.

  CHAPTER 7

  THERE WAS A LYRICAL ESSENCE to the immutable rigidity of the time marking the following days. The modality as synchronous as the metronome, each beat precise, with reason; a playwright at his best unifying time, space, action. Downwardlooking, no doubt; doubtlessly pleased. Every beat of every moment considered, revised, considered again; and then written down; rehearsed, revised, redirected. Thrilling. The heat of the moment. The lights come down. Anticipation. Promises. Billing: Mortals! How Thee Do Agonize! Curtain up. Reality uncreated.

  Eden Farms. Sam Scopia. Night. Bloated darkness. Humid. Touch of steam.

  His figure fills a space, yet he's relatively unseen by otherpassersby--the inwardly concerned about getting done their doings. He's as disapparent as a formless shadow possessing neither malefic nor benign conscription. No thoughts exchanged from one to the other, save what preliminary, cursory identification is needed to adjudge the relative sanctity of or threat to one's sphere. Or, especially in Sam's case, to find what is sought. She's not here. Blessed optimism, add yet. Understand! She's nothere yet! Footsteps scouting a trail once and again and more. Round and round the Carrefour. Measured steps. Start and stop, for shorter for longer for quicker for slower for seeking for checking for finding! The enigma of purposefully wandering, Sam thought of it after Lou left that afternoon. No question he'd do it. He'd go search for her. In the meantime, more concentration to keep his mind on his work to preclude other thoughts. Every now and then, though, he'd betray himself to envision the re-meeting. He would say this and she would say that, and he'd reply this, and she'd reply that. Then, he'd stop and catch himself. Throttle that idea! Make it die aborning! Don't hitch yourself so far out on a limb because life will saw it off for you! Still running blood fresh weren't all the memories of all the other memories that just never worked out his way? Malediction! Don't you remember? And by what lost pale dare he dream even if he did see her again--crushing the odds--did he believe she'd so much as exchange a word with him? She sent him on his way with sterile hopes, what now could give rise to a change of heart? Enough! Enough! He'd be a fool to search her out against deathdefyingodds that she'd show up at Eden Farms again in the next fifty years! Impenetrable logic. He knew that. And so the day went. Working. Doing. Accepting materials delivery. Upholstering. Laboring. Several times when his mind turned to Lou a buoyant heart bobbed on waves of euphoria when he thought Lou would return to report that he had arranged that he and Louisa would meet. In the hour! Throttle that thought, Jackass! And now the machinations went to work.

  Sam made a decision. He would start his amble to Eden Farms at precisely six o'clock. For luck.

  Wearing his blue coach's jacket, bought at the Army Navy Store, and cap, he rounded the corner, stood near the curb to survey the expanse. A cursory review followed by scrutiny of every quarter. Bus, far to the left, leaving. Satisfied, he began his tour. Counterclockwise. He paused by the Sacred Wall where he started to light his cigar. Relived the scene, with revisions. Down past the porno house, the storefronts, apartment doors, alleys. Across the street far down the narrow end by the bridge where he watched kids dive for pennies thrown by Roman-arenaens intent on some watery thrill, even death, registering their disappointment when swimmers held up recovered loot then tucked it securely in their bulging squirrelycheeks. Back now toward the line of busses ingesting caterpillars of people. By more stores and such, including a photographer's studio, up further, cross another street, to check out the latest offering at the Bijou at the foot of the hill leading to Death Bronxvalley above and beyond in the East's modern version. Cross again, and again, cross more streets, including the one that held the deli and the Sanitary Upholstery Shop, back to the point of origination. Another extensive survey, one of the two-dozen stops, then, the same objective, the same outlook, the same goal, but this time clockwise. Only darker. And the shrine had been firmly established as the exact spot of their collision. The first time around, he stopped to light his c
igar, thinking of the incident, not of hallowed ground. Subsequent times, he stopped at precisely the same spot to search hard for her in the faces about. He wasn't aware of it, but he lit a match, touching the flame to his stub of a cigar, every time, a reversion to religious ceremony. In the frenetic bleakness of the square he constantly scanned the spot. And, in the strangest of quirks of the human brain, he knew he possessed the thought but refused to acknowledge it: Was it not possible she would come there looking for him? Sure! And the Pope would take up residence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was his own unacknowledged reply. It was too unbearable to think about, not because it was possible; but because if he asked himself he would have to admit the opposite was true, as well. He'd have none of that. Soon, it grew too dark to see directly across from one side of the square to the other with any clarity, and he found himself stopping less, walking faster through the greater distances, and slowing up as he approached The Scene. Finally, at eleven-thirty, he left the square headed for home convinced that he should go only by the argument that no unescorted woman would be strolling at that hour. The fact that he made the tour for five-and-a-half hours, that he nothing to drink in that time, that having gone without supper left him some bit hungry, and that he had to go to the john didn't have a single thing to do with his decision. He would do exactly the same thing the next night if he wasn't expected at the restaurant

  To her, Eden Farms looked strange in the daytime, rarely any call to find herself in the neighborhood except to meet Louisa. It was far enough away from home to make it somewhat safe from coincidental meetings with anyone who might know her and send word back to her father that she was there, alone, working the walk just like a common Bronx hookerina. There was no excuse to go out of the house on Thursday nights, or be home late from work. She was given no--repeat--no slack for a private life. At the verymost, she had a forty-minute leeway in checking in before a third degree, a tirade, a condemnation, or all three. She had established that amount of time by deliberately extending the time it took to get home from work, by shopping, reading, talking to Louisa. It was Mary's time, her veryown, and she treasured it.