My Life Among the Apes

by Cary Fagan

  “Really, I can’t.”

  “You have certain rules. I admire you for it. But this is a gift between friends.”

  Edison sees a movement out of the corner of his eye, Beatrice stirring in the back room. “I have t-to go!” he says. A moment later he is prying the Hand Woman out of her chair and urging her out of the café.

  Turning back again, he sees Beatrice beckoning with a crooked finger from behind the counter. “Was that bag lady trying to come back? That’s right, you give her the bum’s rush. The last thing customers want is a whiff of that stink. Hey, is that sales guy still hanging over one lousy cup of tea? Go tell him his fifteen minutes is up. Never mind, he’s leaving. I don’t like the way you arranged those pastries under the counter. It’s too goddamn artistic. Mix them up —”

  Beatrice stops abruptly and Edison, already moving obediently towards the counter, hears a rasping breath and then a sob. By the time he turns back to her, Beatrice has dissolved into noisy tears.

  “Why d-d-don’t you sit down?” He risks a hand on her shoulder and she complies as he steers her to a chair. He might have put a consoling arm around her if he didn’t fear her taking a swing at him. Instead, he slips behind the counter to spoon some honey into a glass of milk, add a few drops of vanilla, and use the steam spout of the espresso machine to turn the mixture into a warm froth.

  “Here, this will m-m-make you feel better.”

  Beatrice stares at the glass a moment and then took a long draught. “I hate New Year’s Eve.”

  “But why?”

  “My first marriage busted up on New Year’s. We were in this ballroom with a full swing orchestra. I was wearing a gorgeous silk number with matching pumps, cost me a fortune. We drank a bottle of Moët and when midnight came all these balloons cascaded down, hundreds of them, and the band started playing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ We started to dance and Albert said something but it was so noisy I couldn’t hear. I kept saying, ‘What?’ I thought he was trying to tell me that he loved me. But he was really saying, ‘I’m leaving you.’ I couldn’t blame him, the marriage was the shits, but it almost killed me anyway. This time I want it to be different. Marcus keeps asking me to marry him and I keep putting him off just to make sure. I figure that if we can get past the New Year’s curse we’ll be all right. So I had him book us a table at this classy restaurant, four hundred bucks a couple, Tony Bennett singing, twelve course meal. Then a week ago I got cold feet and told him to cancel. He lost the deposit. Then I changed my mind and made him reserve somewhere else. But then I wasn’t sure about that one either. I kept thinking, what if I choose the wrong place? So now tonight is New Year’s and we don’t have a reservation anywhere. Marcus got fed up and cancelled the last one yesterday and today everybody’s booked solid. He says he’s too busy to try anymore — they’re pouring concrete this morning. He says I’ve got to stop calling him before he loses his job. I know he’s right, it’s all my fault, but I can’t stop myself. Two minutes ago I phoned again and when he heard my voice he hung up. You see? It’s all gone to hell. I’m ruining my own life.”

  She looks a ruin: eye shadow in rivers down her cheeks, hair dangling limply, blotches forming on her neck. A thought, fully formed, comes to him, which you may judge yourself for its degree of self-delusion. A waiter who aspires to greatness must make it the sole occupation of his life. That other people should have affairs of the heart is only right. But we are here to be minor players in the dramas of others, not to dwell on our own. It is a sacrifice, but worth everything to make.

  Three silver-haired ladies enter and stand indecisively, trying to choose a table. Perhaps they are senior secretaries forty storeys up, or retirees who like to do their shopping underground. “Push the quiche,” Beatrice sniffles. “It’s starting to get mushy.”

  THE FULL LUNCH-HOUR ASSAULT begins, a line of hungry people or, in Edison’s mind, a terrifying horde with mouths gaping, like figures in a painting by Edvard Munch. They stand four-deep at the counter, shouting their orders, waving office lists. Grabbing the paper bags, they rush out again to get shoes re-heeled, pick up dry cleaning, line up at the pharmacy for Robaxacet, Temazepam, Metamucil, fungicide. He operates the espresso machine and the microwave, Beatrice makes the sandwiches, the tubs of tuna, sliced salami, cheese, jars of mayonnaise and hot mustard placed strategically around the cutting board. For this hour Edison feels them to be comrades almost, and his heart beats fast.

  BEATRICE RETREATS ONCE MORE INTO the back. Edison tips the sack of coffee beans into the grinder, gets down on his knees to pick up splotches of egg salad from the floor behind the counter. Only now does he feel the ache in his arms and back.

  Rising again, he sees her.

  How long has she been sitting there, enveloped in her otter coat? She doesn’t look at him but stares out the glass wall into the corridor as Alfonso goes by pushing his mop. A thin band constricts around Edison’s chest. He wipes his hands on a towel and comes warily around the counter.

  “Hello, m-m-m-Mother.”

  Mrs. Wiese turns her head, the dense collar brushing her sagging chin. She wears horn-rimmed sunglasses, a Gucci scarf over her hair, violet lipstick. With one leather-gloved hand she removes the sunglasses in order for him to see her reddened eyes.

  “Can I get you s-s-something?”

  “I never ask you to wait on me at home.”

  “But s-s-since you’re here.”

  She sighs and drops her glasses into her purse, clamping it shut. “All right. A cappuccino. With just a little chocolate on top, will you, dear?”

  Edison almost bows, catching himself in time, and merely returns to the counter. He attempts to operate the machine with his usual precision, but his hand shakes. When he brings over the cappuccino his mother doesn’t look at it but drops in three sugar cubes.

  “Your father and I want to know if you’re coming tonight or not.”

  “I d-don’t know. I haven’t had t-t-time to think about it.”

  “But you know we’ve been planning this for months. Don’t you even want to wish your mother a happy New Year?”

  “Of course I do. I just d-don’t know —”

  “If you’ve got a better invitation, then just say so.”

  “I might have to w-w-work.”

  “Here? They’d bother to keep this place open? What for? Nobody will come, people want to have a good time on New Year’s. We’ve always celebrated together. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “I have r-r-r-r-responsib-b-bilities now.”

  Mrs. Wiese laughs out loud. What a brave act she is putting on; I know how much it costs her. She looks small in the lushness of the otter coat, an anniversary gift from his father that makes her feel uncharacteristically guilty. Yet she tries to wear it with an air of defiance that exhausts her to keep up.

  “I’m glad you take your job so seriously,” she says. “It’s just that we know how much you’re capable of. I’ve got to meet your father. He closed the office early to go shopping with me. You know, paper hats, noise makers, cute little gifts. You just have to come. I know there are going to be wonderful things for you in the New Year.”

  She clasps his hand with her own. She must have had a manicure that morning, as the nails are immaculate. Edison sees the grayish-blue veins pulsing. “I have to g-get back to work. Do you w-want anything else?”

  “The cappuccino was delicious, I admit. How much do I owe you?”

  She opens her purse again, like a shark’s jaws. “It’s on the house. I’ll t-t-try to come.”

  She holds his arm as she gets up and kisses gently the corner of his mouth. Edison watches her check her reflection in the glass as she leaves. Cafés ought to have special mirrors, to make old women look beautiful again. Cleaning up the table, he sees that she has dropped a glove under the chair. He picks it up and holds it to his face. Chanel Number Five.

  BEATRICE JAMS THE RECEIVER INTO its cradle. She emerges from the back room, reaches around Edison to slide open the
back of the counter, plunges in her hand, pulls out a jumbo brownie square, and bites ferociously. “He might as well be sticking knives in me, it would hurt just the same. Look at me — I can’t stop eating. Last week I gained a pound and a half. It isn’t fair. He doesn’t eat like this.”

  “Perhaps you’d better not,” Edison says. He reaches out to take the brownie from her as if it were a loaded gun, but a growl from deep in her throat makes him draw back.

  “Has anyone ever had a good New Year’s Eve?” she says, mouth full again. “Not just fake good, pretending to have the time of your life. This morning in the car I heard a guy on the radio hoping that everyone’s New Year’s wish came true. I laughed so hard I almost rear-ended the Saab in front of me. What is my wish? What do I want? Do I want to be with Marcus or never see him again? Suddenly the New Year became a big, monstrous thing, like a mouth wide open that I was driving straight into. Move out of my way.”

  Her groping hand pulls out a butter tart. “Maybe I’ll try to phone again. He’s had a few minutes to cool down. Anyway, I can’t make it worse.”

  The half-eaten brownie in one raised hand and the butter tart in the other, she shoehorns past him. In the late afternoon the café is empty and he can see the early trickle of people on the way home. Alfonso appears, carrying the ladder he uses to change the bulbs that flicker in the “antique” lampposts between the benches. He always comes in about now for his second espresso. Edison begins filling the filter basket with grounds.

  “So,” Alfonso says, motioning with a tilt of his head. “How is the boss today?”

  “Lots of phone calls.” Edison places the cup, saucer, sugar cube, and small spoon on the counter.

  “Don’t tell me, man trouble again.” He takes his rumpled paper out of his back pocket and looks down the list of soccer scores. “I think that women, they go nuts on New Year’s. Like suddenly they can see all the faults of their men with x-ray glasses. Let’s face it, not so many of us can stand up to a close look, you know what I mean? My wife and me, we stay home tonight. After the kids go out, she makes a nice meal and we drink one of my own bottles of wine. Then we go to bed. It’s a promise we made way back. We make love on New Year’s whether we feel like it or not. That way we know it’s at least once a year, eh? And after, if I can’t sleep, I go to the basement and work with my lathe. This is what makes a marriage last.”

  Alfonso tips his cup, wipes his mouth with an oversized handkerchief, and nods his thanks. Passing through the doorway, he comes upon the Hand Woman and moves aside to let her pass. Like a fortune teller or seer, she moves like some mad Cassandra bearing news no one wants to hear. Not seeing Beatrice about, she sits at her regular table. Edison heaps a bowl with pre-cut fruit salad, giving off a slight odor of preservative, and places it before her. The Hand Woman clutches the spoon and raises a ball of honeydew to her mouth. She too has a smell, a potent combination of earth and old wine. Her hair is braid-like, her chin marked by a scaly rash. He remembers the leather glove that his mother left behind and, pulling it from his back pocket, holds it out to her.

  “Perhaps you c-c-can use this?”

  The Hand Woman takes it from him, sniffing suspiciously and then rubbing it against her cheek. She fishes up the end of her shawl and places it against a gap between a woolen mitt and a ski glove. “A good fit,” she says, nodding. It is the first time he has heard her surprisingly girlish voice. From somewhere among her folds she pulls out a needle and thread and gets to work.

  Back behind the counter, Edison takes advantage of the quiet to eat a sandwich. As he often does at such a moment, he permits himself the pleasure of imagining how the café might be. If only it were a true refuge of the spirit, a window upon the passing human scene; a place where patrons might read, speak to one another, sit in public anonymity, poetic reverie, or deep melancholy. Where they could ponder, draw, work out elaborate algebraic equations, write novels or letters. A café welcoming to rich, poor, the thinker on the verge of a breakthrough, the sexually disappointed …

  His reverie is interrupted by the appearance of an aggressively groomed young man: hair slicked and combed back from the shallow forehead, one understated earring loop, silk tie, and red suspenders, but no jacket. “Hang on a minute,” he says into his cellphone. And to Edison: “You ought to install a fax. Then I could send our order down and not have to wait. We’re doing a presentation. Sure, the food was my call, but who knew they’d eat so much?”

  Edison suppresses a grimace and takes the list from the man. He begins filling a shallow box with Danishes and cups of coffee. The man pockets his change, tucks the phone under his ear, and picks up the box. “Yeah, I’m on my way up. Start the overheads.”

  Edison tries to slip back into his thoughts. He is just warming up with chess boards and international newspapers on wooden dowels when he hears a scream.

  He looks up to the sight of flying Danishes and fountains of coffee spiralling in the air. Evidently the Hand Woman had monumentally risen from her chair and the young man in suspenders had run straight into her. Now the young man dances about swearing, pulling his steaming shirt from his skin. Edison is already scooping up towels when Beatrice barrels past from the back room. She grabs the Hand Woman by the shoulders. “Vermin! Slut! Get out!” Leaning over the counter, she grabs two fistfuls of change from the register and hurls them. Quarters, nickels, dimes pelt the Hand Woman, ricochet off the glass walls, spin about the floor.

  Hunched over to protect herself, the Hand Woman shuffles down the corridor.

  The young man says, “I’m a dead man. They’ve been looking for a noose just like this to hang around my neck.”

  AT TEN MINUTES TO SIX the shoe store closes its door, followed by the dental office, tobacco shop, hair salon, and tie stand. The stream towards the subway surges one last time and then slowly lessens. Edison dampens a rag and begins to wipe down the tables and chairs. In a moment Beatrice will emerge to clean out the till and warn him to lock up properly.

  I’ve read too many books. Who knows what people want? A job is a job, that’s all.

  He gives up trying to remove a coffee stain on a table, something he would never have done before, and slouches back to the counter to lean there and do absolutely nothing. But Beatrice springs from the back room, startling him with her whoop of joy. “We’re going, we’re going! Marcus got tickets to the construction workers’ ball. He had to pay a fortune and he did it for me. He must adore me, otherwise he wouldn’t have. I feel faint. My God, what time is it? I’ve got to go home and peel my face. Just leave everything and close up, all right? You can go any time.”

  If he went home now his mother and father would make him help decorate for the party. “I’m n-not in any rush,” he says. “I might clean up a b-bit.”

  “Whatever,” Beatrice mumbles, buttoning her coat. “But I’m not paying you for the time.”

  “You have a great night, Beatrice.”

  “God, I hope so. Maybe the New Year will find me a way out of this subterranean dump. I could sell it. You seem to like it here. Wouldn’t be interested in taking over the lease, would you? Stupid question I guess, on the salary I pay you. Just think, in two hours I’ll be on the dance floor!” She reaches up to kiss Edison on the cheek. “You have a great New Year’s. And close up soon. There ain’t going to be any business. You spend too long in this joint as it is.”

  Beatrice is right about business. The doors of the underground mall are kept open for the subway entrance and now, when anyone passes, Edison can see a flash of satin or a black trouser cuff beneath the hem of a winter coat. He only has to summon the energy to close up and make his way home, but a weariness has come over him and he wants only to lean his head on the counter and close his eyes. There is no more thumping music, just the whirring of an overhead fan. A couple, arm-in-arm, notice the lights on and peer in curiously as they go by. They feel pity for me, I see it in their smiles. I give them someone to look down on.

  Edison begins wiping ou
t the microwave.

  At half past eight he undoes the top button of his white shirt and turns off the espresso machine. He is putting a chair up on its table when a tap on the glass makes him look up. Mr. Lapidarius, holding his salesman’s case in one hand and his fedora in the other. His bald head half in shadow.

  “Of course you are closing,” he said, coming round to the entrance.

  “No,” Edison says, putting the chair back again. He flicks the switch on the espresso machine, catching his reflection which reminds him to redo the top button of his shirt. Mr. Lapidarius eases into the chair, sighs deeply, and places his hat on the table. “A most discouraging day. Perhaps you can make me something a little special.”

  “How ab-b-bout an espresso mocha con panne?”

  “Con panne?”

  “Whipped cream.”

  “Sounds just like what the doctor ordered.”

  “Coming right up.”

  “A shame you don’t have a radio. We could listen to some dance music appropriate to the evening. I was rather a good dancer in my youth. I remember doing the tango once with the wife of the second assistant to the ambassador from Brazil. Ah well, that is a long time ago. Memories, my friend, they save us and persecute us.”

  Edison uses a tall glass, working diligently at the machine, piling a turret of whipped cream on top. He carries the drink on a tray along with the only long spoon in the café. Mr. Lapidarius takes an experimental taste and delivers the verdict with a grateful smile. “This is balm for the soul. There was a time when people took pride in their work as you do. But now? Does anyone know how to enjoy himself? The lexicographers will have to remove the word ‘gaiety’ from the dictionary. Do you know how many confetti cannons I sold? Three. There is no more room for the exquisitely frivolous moment. Tomorrow I will spend the first day of the New Year consulting an atlas for a new destination. I have enthusiasm for nothing more. Perhaps you would care to sit down for a while?”