“You’re the third woman who’s called without a license. Oh and by the way, girlie, no, I’m not going to teach you. Do yourself a favor. Learn how to drive.” He hung up. A regular Prince Charming.
I wanted to kill Violet.
I sat in the Olive Tree watching Charlie Chaplin and eating a terrible salad. Charlie Chaplin had fallen in love with a blind girl. He was staring at her and she was staring off into space. They both moved their lips in conversation.
A couple sat down in the booth behind me, and the waitress brought them menus.
“Well, this has been a perfectly lovely evening, hasn’t it?” the man said. He had an English accent.
“Yes it has!” the woman said. “Full of surprises.”
“You’ve been an awfully good sport, haven’t you?” the English-man said.
I wondered how he had surprised her and in what way she had been a good sport. This sounded like it might be an interesting conversation to eavesdrop on. Usually in New York people just talked about their apartments.
“These blind dates are so … Oh, I didn’t mean to use that word,” the woman said, laughing nervously. “I was so nervous. It’s not often one has a date with a judge.”
“It’s not often one has the good fortune to be out on a date with a massage therapist, is it?” the English judge said.
I turned around and found Jerome blindly staring at me. He was wearing his Friday suit even though it was Monday. He must have gotten mixed up at the cleaner’s. I stood up and switched to the other side of my booth so I could watch him without twisting around. The woman’s back was to me.
“Well,” Jerome said, “I’ve never been here before.”
“Oh, it’s a great place,” the woman said. “It’s one of the oldest restaurants on MacDougal Street. It’s Israeli food mostly.” She read him the whole menu. I knew he wished she would read faster. Then she described the entire restaurant to him the way I used to. She described the tall blond waitress with the tattoos, the grill in the front, the long bar in the back, the black slate tables and the little white bowls of chalk, the small Tiffany-style lamps hanging over the tables, the little black baby screaming in his stroller, the couple smoking cigarettes, the two Asian girls playing chess. When she finished she was exhausted. She slumped back in her seat the way I used to when I was with him.
“It’s wonderful,” Jerome said.
Jerome was staring past her. She moved a few inches over to the right to meet his gaze. “They play Charlie Chaplin movies round the clock. They have a screen on the wall and a projector.” When she spoke Jerome knew she had moved. He shifted his eyes, overshooting again. “Charlie Chaplin is handing a woman a bouquet of flowers. She has light hair and her eyes are …” She stopped talking when she realized the woman was blind.
“I’m afraid silent movies aren’t my cup of tea,” Jerome said.
“Oh, uh, of course they aren’t,” the woman said, mortified.
“So was I what you expected?” Jerome said.
“To be honest with you, I thought you’d be, well, sighted.”
I couldn’t believe Jerome hadn’t told her he was blind.
“Is that a problem?” Jerome asked briskly.
“No, not at all,” the woman lied.
“I didn’t think that was a necessary detail to put in my personal ad,” he said. “I mean, does it matter to you?”
I couldn’t believe Jerome had taken out a personal ad. What if I had picked him from Violet’s baggie!
“It’s not that it matters, it’s just that, well, we did speak for two hours on the phone. You might have mentioned it.”
“Well, I’m terribly sorry, Iris,” Jerome said sulkily.
“Well, anyway, we’re here now and we’re having a nice time,” Iris said.
“I guess I’m not exactly Prince Charming,” Jerome said.
Iris laughed, and Jerome looked hurt.
“So do you like being a judge?” Iris asked. “It must be hard….”
“What must be hard?” Jerome interrupted. “You mean, because I’m blind? I have readers to assist me.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Iris said.
“Yes, although I’m mourning the loss of my last one.”
“Did he die?”
“No she left to become a real estate agent.”
“Yuck,” Iris said.
“I couldn’t have put it better myself. Yuck is quite correct. She had tremendous potential. She was a funny girl. Sort of morose, and smart as a whip. She was what they call high maintenance. I miss her. She was a character.”
Iris didn’t say anything. I could tell she didn’t want to hear anymore about this funny, morose, smart girl, but I did. I wanted to hear a lot more about her. This was great.
“So why did you break up with your last girlfriend? What was her name, Sarah?” Iris asked, to change the subject.
“Yes, her name was Sarah,” Jerome said. “It’s a long story really. Well, we were never that serious. The truth is I had an affair with a woman I worked with.”
An affair! I wondered who Jerome could possibly have had an affair with. It couldn’t have been Ms. Howard at the front desk, or Elise, the insane court stenographer, or Cathy, the lady bailiff. It must have been his new reader. The woman he hired in my place.
“Oh?” Iris said. “And what was her name?”
“Her name was Liv,” Jerome said. “It’s actually the girl I just told you about. My ex-reader.”
I almost choked on a tomato. I did a double take as broad as Charlie Chaplin. I wanted to scream but I pretended I was in a silent movie and kept my mouth shut.
“Liv,” Iris said. “That’s an unusual name. Liv Ullmann. Liv Tyler. Is she Norwegian?”
“No, she wasn’t Norwegian,” Jerome said.
“So the two of you had an affair and you ended things with Sarah?” she said. “We don’t have to talk about this if I’m getting too personal.”
“Well, it wasn’t an affair at first but then it became inevitable. She fell in love with me and—”
“How did you know?” Iris asked.
“Well, she did little things for me, you see. Insisted on accompanying me to the subway, brought me gifts, never neglected to bring me a hot apple cider each afternoon from Starbucks. Then one morning she simply confessed.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, you don’t want to hear about all this,” Jerome said.
Yes she does, I thought. “Yes I do, tell me,” Iris said.
“Well, I’ll spare you the sordid details. She just simply said she was in love with me and had been since she started working for me and, well, uh, described various effects I had on her body, et cetera. This is an odd conversation to be having on our date, isn’t it?”
“What did you do?” Iris asked, with a hint of disgust in her voice.
“I told her that as she already knew I was involved with Sarah and that I didn’t want to be unfaithful.”
“I thought you said you weren’t that serious with Sarah.”
“Quite true. But I wasn’t sure what to do under the circumstances. But then she sort of hopped up on my lap and threw her arms around me and I realized that she had removed her skirt and was wearing only a garter belt and stockings.” He felt for his glass and took a sip of water. I couldn’t even imagine sitting on his lap. He didn’t even really have a lap—just a round stomach with legs. “And just at that moment Sarah paid me a surprise visit.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Iris said. “You mean she just showed up right when this girl jumped on you?”
“I’m afraid you’ve got it. Of course Sarah broke things off. Liv stopped working for me and became a real estate agent but she came to my office every day and described all the apartments she had seen. She saw wonderful places. Sometimes she even took me to a few of them when she had the keys.”
I suddenly felt bad that
I hadn’t visited Jerome and described the apartments to him. He would never see any of them. I had just packed up my eyes and left.
“Even though what she did was very immature. Of course I wished she wouldn’t have been quite so wild,” Jerome continued. “But she was very young. I do feel I taught her a lot. But of course she taught me a thing or two.”
“I’m sure she did,” Jerome’s date said, sarcastically. “Do you still see her?”
“No. I had to put a stop to it. It had to end. She still calls me, though,” Jerome said wistfully.
“What did she look like?” Iris asked.
“Plump,” Jerome said. “Quite delightful.”
Plump! That was the last straw. I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out the gun, and held it on my lap. Why was Jerome under the strange impression that I was plump? I looked around and when I was sure no one was looking, I lifted the gun very casually and inconspicuously a couple of centimeters above the table and pointed it right at Jerome.
“She was fat?” Iris asked.
“Not exactly fat, but ‘healthy’ would be the right word, wouldn’t it?”
He had no idea that there was a loaded gun pointed at him. That was the truly amazing thing about being blind. A gun could be pointed at you and you wouldn’t know it. You would just keep talking. Which was worse, I wondered, seeing that a gun was pointed at you or not seeing it? Which made you more vulnerable? I put my gun away.
“Check, please,” I said, in a loud voice. Jerome looked startled.
“What’s the matter?” Iris said.
“I need some change,” I told the waitress.
“Are you okay, Jerome?” Iris asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She laughed nervously when she realized she had said the word “seen.”
“Jerome, hello!” I said. “It’s me, Liv.”
“Hello,” he said in the back of his throat. He looked like he was going to throw up.
“Hello, I’m Liv,” I said to Iris.
“Oh, uh, hello,” she said, tentatively. She looked me up and down to see if I was plump.
“Oh yes, Iris, this is Liv, an old employee of mine,” Jerome managed.
“Well, I was more than just an employee,” I said in a sexy voice. “Wasn’t I, Jerome?”
“Yes, yes of course,” he mumbled.
“Jerome, I’ve been meaning to call you. I finished your book.” I hadn’t been able to read it. It was so wordy and filled with typos. Finally I just flipped to the last page where a man gets run over by a car on Montague Street in Brooklyn. “I really loved it,” I said.
“You’re being kind,” Jerome said.
“No, I’m not. It was a real page-turner.”
“What did you like about it?” Jerome asked.
“Uh,” I said. “I loved the end, where the blind man gets run over on the street.”
“The man in my book isn’t blind!” Jerome said.
“Oh, uh, of course I know he isn’t blind,” I said. “I’m just using the word as a sort of metaphor for his character. You know, getting run over and everything.”
“Yes,” Jerome said, miserably.
“See ya,” I said and walked out of the restaurant.
33.
CONVRTD SYNAGOGUE—CATHDRL CEILS
I spent the whole next day at the Olive Tree thinking it was Saturday even though it was only Tuesday. It must have been Jerome’s Friday suit that did it to me. Luckily, for an independent contractor, it didn’t matter much what day it was.
I watched a man with a shaved head write notes on music paper.
I looked out the window and saw a tall, handsome man carrying an upright vacuum cleaner.
The cook turned a dozen eggplants on the grill.
Mike, the neighborhood crazy, came in and switched all the salt and pepper shakers around. He was thin with gray hair. His hands and face never stopped moving. “Hello, Moses,” he said to me. Every time he saw me he called me Moses. He had a different name for everyone. They were all Biblical, or made up, except for one waiter he called Garibaldi. But my name was the best—Moses—and I personally loved it even though I didn’t know much about who Moses was. I knew the real Moses had a white Santa Claus beard and stood on a hill with the Ten Commandments like a scary judge.
Mike slid into the seat across from me and slid out again in one motion. Then he continued on his restaurant rounds.
It all seemed like an omen. I felt close to God, closer than I had ever been. I hadn’t spoken a word all day, just smiled and pointed to what I wanted on the menu when the waitress came by. I am Moses, I thought. I was surrounded by symbols of God—sheet music, vacuum cleaner, eggplants. The smell of lamb filled the air. The lamb rotated on its spit like a skein of wool being unwound. Strange place for a lamb to end up, MacDougal Street. On the screen Charlie Chaplin stood in a church preaching the story of David and Goliath.
I paid my check and left. As soon as I got out on the sidewalk a red Porsche pulled up in front of me. The car door swung open and a man who looked like he was about my age leaned all the way out with one foot on the street. He was gorgeous with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He was alone.
“Get in the car,” he said.
I stepped back. I wondered if this had something to do with Andrew. Recently a girl had been pushed onto the subway tracks and killed. On the news she was described as “a well-liked receptionist.” I felt sorry for her, being summed up in that way. I wondered what they would say about me. She was a real estate agent last seen getting into a red Porsche.
“Just get in the car,” he said, evenly.
I smiled at him and then pointed to myself to ask if he meant me.
Suddenly Mike, the crazy, was at my side. “Dad, get in the car,” the driver of the Porsche said.
Mike jumped behind me and put his hands on my waist, like a boy hiding behind a tree.
“Dad, will you please fucking get in the car?” the man said. Mike let go of me and spun around me in a circle. The man pulled some money out of his wallet. “Then take this,” he said.
A few people had gathered to watch. Mike zigzagged around them.
“Ma’am,” the man said to me.
“It’s Moses,” I said.
He looked at me as if I were crazy. He had no sense of humor. “Would you please give this money to my father?” I knew I had ruined my chance to have a date with him.
I walked over to him, and he handed me a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills. “Thank you,” he said. “Take the money, Dad,” he yelled.
I stood for a moment holding the money. Then I walked over to Mike and held it out to him. “Thank you, Moses,” he said, bowing. He took the wad of bills and threw them up into the air. They scattered all over the sidewalk. No one tried to grab any.
I admired Mike. He wanted to be independent from his son the way I wanted to be from my father.
His son slammed the car door and drove away. As soon as he was gone, Mike ran around chasing the hundreds and shoving them in his pockets.
“I like your father,” Mike said to me.
“You know him?” I asked.
“He’s very generous,” Mike said. “I saw him yesterday.”
“You saw my father yesterday?” I asked, confused. My heart was pounding. Was my father in town? Had he come to New York and not called me? Sometimes he rode around in the back of a cab or limo, looking at what kids were wearing in the Village and the Lower East Side. Had he stopped to talk to Mike?
“Tell your father I said thank you for the radio. Even though it’s not working very well.”
“I don’t understand, Mike, how do you know my father?” I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking.
Mike looked annoyed. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Moses, I’m surprised at you. Your father,” he said, pointing up to the sky. I looked up. “You know your father,” he said, kindly. He was
talking about God.
34.
WASH SQ NORTH—LANDMRK TWNHSE
Right before he bit off my ear, Andrew had started bragging all the time about taking Pilates with a girl named Timothy who he said was extremely attractive and worked as a stripper on the side. I had never heard of Pilates.
“I’m planning to take Pilates,” I had said.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“Yes I am.”
“You just want to take Pilates because I’m taking Pilates.”
“That’s not true. Everyone’s taking it,” I said.
“If I ate shit would you eat shit?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Andrew. Why don’t you try eating some and we’ll see.
“If you go you can’t tell Timothy about us because the owner of the studio knows Jordan,” he said, nervously.
I called the Pilates studio and made an appointment. “Your name? the woman on the phone asked.
“Moses,” I told her. I loved having a man’s name.
The Pilates studio was a big open loft with a few strange pieces of equipment and a few mats scattered around the old painted floor. As soon as I got there I had to sign something saying that they weren’t responsible if I got killed or injured. I wrote my name as “Moses” on the medical questionnaire. I wrote “God” as who to contact in an emergency and “Father” as that person’s relationship to me. I wrote “Andrew Lugar” as the person who referred me.
“Put your feet in the strap,” Timothy said. “Soften your ribs.”
“How the hell am I supposed to soften my ribs?” I lay there on the contraption staring up at the ceiling. I was supposed to slide myself back and forth using my legs. The apparatus was invented by Joseph Pilates, who, from what I could tell, was an insane male nurse in World War II who couldn’t stand the thought of anyone resting, even sick people in the hospital, so he devised a way to exercise in bed.
I was lying on something that looked like a cross between a hospital bed and a torture device with pulleys and springs and attachments. It looked like something Andrew would have liked to have sex on. I told myself not to think about Andrew.
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