For Mary, it was just the opposite. She wasn't concerned with so detailed a pre-meeting plan. Four-dozen words from a stranger didn't fill a Hopetree, empty a Dreamcard, deprive a Brainbank, nor stop up a Wishwell. The scenario would be seen when she saw it. Not that she didn't dwell on the man and the meeting to make the day go. There was something different...unique, about this fellow, but he could turn out to be no better, no worse than any of the other, making him worthy of some further thought. Yet, it was his persistence. From all the information gleaned from Louisa, some secondhanded from Lou, there was an abiding sincerity in his pursuit, unlike most of the others, equal apportionment, mutual benevolence. There had to be an attraction, deduced by Mary to be instinctual. No chance he envisioned her as Miss Mature America wearing an evening gown of her own creation followed by a walk on the gangway in a swimsuit. Do you mind if we don't discuss a weight loss program? Maybe the appeal is what I've got, not what I think I might like to be. Whatever, she wouldn't abandon the moat in her mind that guarded against hasty throat-baring, or the usual just plain undressing. It simply meant keeping her distance, letting him prove himself first. She wasn't about to commit any act of faith, a foolstrap. She was snagged once before when a blind date asked her to wait for him on a streetcorner only to realize when he never showed up that he had in fact been there, saw her, checked her out, and decided he didn't want to keep the date. She found it callous, shallow of him, sorry to have been so duped, but smart enough to realize it was kinder on his part, and gracesaving for hers. Still, he could've pretended he was someone else delivering a message that his friend couldn't make it, and not leave her waiting stupidly so long for nothing. That incident, though, was the basis for making one decision concerning the meeting with Sam: She wasn't going to appear outside the photographer's studio like some dummy standing in the middle of the Sahara desert waiting for a raft to come by to pick her up for the short trip to Paradise. He would have to be there waiting for her. She pictured herself walking up to him. She tried to subdue her excitement with no success because what she thought of saying to him came out like so much blather:--You really showed up! Immediately she reprimanded herself. She wouldn't say any such thing! Besides, she wasn't going to think any such thing any longer! It was so much nicer to have the waves of exultation splash through her body, even if the sensations came from so small an expectation as meeting a guy... Hey! Wait! She'd met other fellows for dates before, but they got nothing going like this for her! It meant she felt differently about this occasion. Was there any chance she'd understand the reason before she reached 174th Street? The likelihood was unlikely. Oh! She knew she could come up with a strong variety of good reasons, one of them perhaps even the real reason, but down deep, the woman in her, reminded her of how fascinating it was to forecountenance mystery. The nude never more intriguing than the veiled. The result never more fascinating than the anticipation. There was more to suspect, and consider, and wonder, and pokeabout, and scrutinize in Sam Scopia than any other man in, around, and about in her life. The mystery extended to the idea that the whole ratamatum was a oneshot deal! --Well, you see, Lady, it's like this: I really flipped over you because you reminded me of my ex-wife, but now I see you don't have a moustache. Or something equally as stupid. Another mystery was why did they happen to meet just now? Why not five years before? Five years later? Ai-yai-yai! Could someone go crazy with that! Good thing they were at the stop. Good thing, too, because the old folks always said it wasn't wise to unravel every mystery. And some that weren't unraveled could kill you. One she could settle was where he worked. Following Louisa's directions, she backtracked to the upholstery shop, now closed and empty, read the signs on the doorwindow, looked in at all the plastic protected reupholstered pieces of furniture, and with appointment time approaching, walked full bore toward Eden Farms. It was a familiar trek--rather a familiar stalk, because she never walked directly to the photographer's studio to meet Louisa, who was to meet her here again tonight in two hours. Rather, she tried to move inconspicuously toward her goal. She was always concerned someone would recognize her, reporting her appearance in Eden Farms to her parents, and then! There’d be hell to pay. Now she moved around the square counterclockwise toward her waiting/watching place some distance from the photo shop. She approached from the left.
Sam, down to the right, had consumed three cigars--two chewed to bits, which bits were scattered like so many mousedroppings in a semicircle around his shoes; and the third lit, relit and lit again nearly inhaling the tiny stub on one such occasion.
According to plan, he was there a half-hour early, just in case she planned to get there ahead, too, to do an inspection of her own. One thing the wait did for him, it gave him a chance to build up his pan threshhold, he had more time to keep telling himself that she wouldn't show up.
At one minute past the hour, that was a foregone conclusion in his mind.
At quarter past, he was certain all the world's clocks had gone crazy, and were jerking him around.
At half-past the hour he recomposed himself, regained the initiative with his thinking, and rationalized himself into an easy half-hour wait knowing--just knowing--that he had misunderstood the signals with the crucial time to be SEVEN by the clock, not six! You dummy! If it was six, she would've been here a half-hour ago! He was overcome with a grandeloquent period of relaxation. There was nothing he could do about it, she would appear in a half-hour and not a moment sooner so you might as well take in the moveable scenery, looking occasionally--but not too often or you'll jinx the whole operation!--toward the entranceway to the photo shop just in case she materialized there ahead of time unable to hide her anxiety to see you again. Oh! Wouldn't that be marvelous? I mean, really! To have a woman! A woman! After all these years! Shifting from one foot to the other, waiting, just waiting! For you to walk up--you, Sam Scopia--to walk up and say, --Well, Hi! Babe! You wanna get laid? Oh! Grunge-oh Shit-Oh! What are you thinking? Look. I'm going to tell you something. She may not be waiting for the words of the Bard to melt out of your mouth, but that Gorgonzolaspitoon breath is not going to be the recipient of her Academy Award except for best Horror Blast! Okay! Lifesaver! Lifesaver! Don't have any! Try chewing gum! Nope. Nope. If I go to the store, I might miss her approach, and that's going to be the best part of this. What else? How about some Breath-O-Mints? Don't have any! Okay, drain some radiator anti-freeze from a car and use it for a mouthwash! Now, Jesus Christ! Where could she be? It's quarter past! Sam? Sam! Who's your best friend in the whole wide world? I am, right? Right. I wouldn't steer you wrong. You know what the story is here. I don't even have to tell you. You can feel it. You can feel it because it feels like your eyeballs are coming out of your asshole! That's how fucking stupid this world is! How goddamn dumb this world is! And what an idiot you are! Did you really believe this...this...Mary Dolorosso was going to meet with you? With the families the way they've been? Don't you think she's got more brains than that to get involved with you, as if you were someone to get involved with! Well, Fuck You, Sam! Fuck you! I'm tired of getting fucked up with you! How do you think I feel? Oh! Jesus Christ do I feel rotten! Do I feel terrible! Here it is, almost eight o'clock. I'm so tired. I'm so weary! I'm so heartsick from this shit. Like someone's pulling my guts right out of me through my skin. What am I trying to do with my life? What did I think? That the world was going to suddenly turn, and treat me like a normal human being? That I was going to have satisfied all the usual and ordinary wishes a person has for their lifetime? All I really know is that this hurts! It pains so bad I could scream! All I wanted was a simple, easy thing; you'd think it was simple and easy. I just wanted to meet this girl, and talk to her a bit, and tell her what a fancy I took to her, and that it didn't have to mean anything more than that, and I could do that and nothing more if we were both stark naked on a deserted moon-lit beach.
--Don't you see, Jacky, all I really needed to do was a really and truly heartfelt thing! Don't be angry at me because I wasn't able! I me
an, I could've done it, if I was there! But because I was so far away, I had to catch it on the machine. I watched it over and over and over again. Each time I pushed the jerk away that was running right behind the left rear tire, and I soared up in the air and caught it in my left wing, through my heart, stopped by my right elbow. The action from then on was fierce! The driver was alert, and we sped off. You turned to me, my head cradled by the roll of leather, took his breast handkerchief, and patted my cheeks and eyes. What transported me, you have to know! wasn't what I did, or why I did it; all that too obvious; it was the look you reserved just for me that said there are times for simple souls to achieve Olympian moments, that I had been a fortunate chosen one; and, that you acknowledged my free gift dedicating that proud moment to the vindication of the privilege and honor of this humble warrior...But it didn't happen. He got it instead. I'd swap places with him, just to have you acknowledge me, and say, Thanks, Sam Scopia...
Shhhhhitttt! Where are you Mary Dolorosso?
Where are you, Sam Scopia? Where the hell are you? As if I ever smoked a pack of cigarettes in two hours in my whole life! Oh! Dark brown yuckky taste! Suffer! The last piece of Dentyne goes into the chompers at the first sign of hero making his appearance in the doorway, not before! Look! He's a proud man! He went home from work, showered, shaved, probably got tied up with one thing and another, and just will be a little bit... I don't have a little bit of time anymore, dumbbroad! It's time to go! Louisa isn't here on time, either! What do I tell her? I don't tell her anything! She probably has something smart, and wise and ridiculous to tell me about why this cugootz doesn't show up! That's it! Wouldn't give him another chance if he were the last watermelon on the block! I bet the son-of-a-bitch spotted me here, had a good laugh, and took off! Waiting to see what I do! How long I piss around here! Doesn't he know I have to wait for Louisa, or I wouldn't have been here ten seconds after six o'clock? Maybe he misunderstood? Maybe he thought like it was a different day? Or another time? No. Dumbbroad. You know what the story is. He's not going to show up. So forget it! Fucking Scopias! All of them! That's why he didn't show up! Afraid if he was caught with me my brother'd...cut his balls off! Yeah! Mary Dolorosso! You've never thought in such a crude, ugly manner before in your whole life! Now what's getting to you? Is he that important? If he is, why is he? Do you think it's The Last Best Chance Syndrome? Miss this Ringfingerring to win another thirty-year wait? Naw! They say there's a seat for every ass. It's just...it's just...this fellow seems so appealing. I can't even say why. I just like him. I feel it in my bones. Here it is, two hours and he's nowhere around, enough time for any excuse. So what do you feel beside tired? That balloon in my chest that gets bigger every time I breathe is disappointment, Lady. How sad the world has to be like this, everything in balance, one side equals the other: We'd have no joy if we had no sad. I understand too much the need for that to wish it were changed, I'd pray rather that I found only joy, happiness, good fortune, health, a long life. If I wasn't so practical I could dream on that for quite a bit, but the reality is I must get home whether Louisa shows up or not. Not that I don't care, but she can fend for herself. She's plenty smart. As if I don't know she had a date with Lou Harness, Sam's friend. She was wise enough to think not to tell me in case Sam didn't show up tonight, it wouldn't make me feel so bad knowing she came out a winner, and I shot a blank. She's a good friend. Who could watch television tonight? I'll get a lot of reading done, I see. I wouldn't if I could, stay in that room with Mom and Dad and their situation comedies, and canned laughter; their bickering; her bitching; his belching. How uglyhorrible! Maybe that's what it is, Sam, you represent the microaperature in my flatblack sphere of a world that'll give back to me my own life to live with a catechism of my own dogma, my own choices, and my own world! Maybe that's what it is, and if so, I wonder why I can't break free of my own accord? What support do I need to justify my existence, as it should be, not as others make it to be? I see the answer to that to be a circle in a circle. If I did just for myself, selfishly, narcissistically, I would be guilty of committing the same injustice to them, as they are to me. So, the question arises, simply, merely: Which end of the whip do you chose? Which victim would you rather be? Ah! Farewell, Sweet Prince! Farewell! You leave me unkissed, tethered to fruited thoughts of you! Dear Prince, though palaces, jewels, servants, lands and armies wait for me, I gotta catch my bus. Sorry.
He felt like the vegetablewagon horse. At the time he saw the animal, he was about five years old. The vendorman with the funny hat, shirtsleeves, heavy workshoes, a street muezzin hawking his wares. His horse collapsed right in his traces, just like that, on top of his legs, awkward, crookedangled. The aged beast tried to draw his breath with ghastly-sounding gasps. His head, flat to the near-melting tar of the street, had one huge eye reflecting the blue of the sky, yellowysquared teeth guarding a limp, wetted tongue hanging way out. If the agony of death was the animal's problem, that presented a bigger one to civilized man surrounding the scene, how to put equus caballus out of its misery. A shotgun was produced. It was aimed, and fired. That succeeded in missing the beast's head, but blasted apart a foreleg. The horse now had a problem breathing and bleeding. There were several moments in succession of high drama as the shotgun shell was ejected, reloaded, aimed again, and this time misfired. Aaaachhhh! Do something! Went the call. Stun him out of his misery! A mason's hammer was brought out. Whamthunk! The blow aimed about as well as the shotgun, missed the forehead, but broke his noseline cleanly. No more of that! For Lord's Mercy! Cut his throat! A blade came out totally unfamiliar with anything resembling a sharp edge. The noble beast was stabbed, and torn through hide and flesh, the jugulars safely hidden from its frenetic probing. The policeman who responded to the call for help almost threw up at the sight, but controlled himself long enough to mark an "X" from ear-to-eye and ear-to-eye, and hit the mark with one shot of his pistol. With it, he ended the beast's death throes, and also removed the burden of pain out of the eyes of Man.
Sam never forgot it, remembering the scene again when he had to admit she'd stood him up. He wished he could low out the pain like a cow. He knew if he loosed a tear he'd release a life's dam of them from which he could never recover, so he held himself in tight wishing instead for a shotgun blast, or a hammer blow, or knife thrust, or an X-marks the spot to his brain. Clouded as his eyes were with his self-involvement he was able to discern the apparition in the window of the moving bus. Rub them hard! Look again! See! See! See!
--Louisa! I mean, Mary! I mean...! What happened? What did I do? I missed her! Mary! Mary! Mary! Holy Jesus Christ Almighty God! It’s stopping! People! Get out of my way! Hit me car, I'll kill you! Rap! Knock! Bam! On the window! Jump up and down to see to be sure! Mary! Mary! Mary!
Who calls? What commotion is this? Lord! Did that frighten me! Oh! Look! It's him! Sol! I mean, Sal! I mean, Sam! He knows it's me! Calling my name! --SAM! SAM! Don't go away! I'll get the window down! How do you get the window open? Oh! Help! Open Sesame!
--Mary! You came!
--Yes! I came!
--You did! You did! I missed you! I'm so sorry! Stop the bus from moving! Make it stop! I have to tell her...
Why is this thing going away? He must've been waiting for me, and I didn't see him! What a fool I am! --No, Sam! I can't get off! I'll be home too late!
--You must! I must talk to you! I must see you! Oh! I can't...run...any...more... Here! Take this! Take it! When, Mary? When? Gasp...
--Wednesday night! Same time! Same place!
--What?
--Be...
--There! Oh! Jesus! I must've run half-way home! I think I'm going to die! Oh! I can't! Not now that I found her again! Oh! If I don't feel like that Vegetablewagon horse when he first fell!
As Mary turned back square in her seat a smile crept over her face. She would never go to meet a date or do anything like that again.
He watched the bus move on as he hugged a lamppole for support the better to admonish himself. He woul
d never go to meet a date or do anything like that again.
The star-splangled acknowledgement reverberated throughout his body for what was mentally a timeless, distantless walk that night. Mary Came! That was it. That was the fact. That alone was enough to light a beacon to dispel most of the black ugliness of his self-imposed withdrawal from the world, whether he was aware of this or not, instinctively his soul scintillated. However consciously clear this message received, the fissure in his armorclad deepself so definite it would never again be Sam-hermetic. Naturally, in his case, the fact was accepted grossly out of proportion for purposes of self-preservation, an end to itself, Nature's manner of stockpiling spare parts which would come in handy even if never used. Sam Scopia, Virile Male, was excellent inventory, extravagant fertilizer. This was how the human computer was directed to compute, and so computed. Garbage in, garbage out; self-esteem in, love out. The vaporous writing on the blackboard of his skymind merely said you are a worthwhile person! This was the fringe benefit derived from the direct: Mary came! There was no way he could contain the exultation, not after getting so close to atomsmashing despair. The result turned him into a somnambulist. For blocks on miles, he looked with unseeing eyes, walked on frictionless feet, passed through static seconds the whole and entire night.
A Matter of Love in da Bronx Page 14