Tepper Isn't Going Out: A Novel

by Calvin Trillin

  “He’s going to have to figure out some way to nail those Ukrainians,” the mayor said again. “Parking is the key. That’s where the disorder starts. Traffic’s important, too. Never sell traffic short. Which is why we have to nail Norm Plotkin. Anybody who would attack a campaign to establish order in taxi-hailing around here is a deeply flawed human being. An irredeemably flawed human being. Worthless. Despicable. We ought to put a homeless shelter in his neighborhood. Actually, that’s not a bad idea for the Ukrainians. A homeless shelter. That’ll nail them. I’m going to put that in the works.”

  With that, the mayor returned to his desk and began scrawling a memo. He seemed to have forgotten Shanahan’s presence. Shanahan, who had no idea why he’d been summoned in the first place, hadn’t uttered a word. For a while, as Ducavelli scrawled furiously on a yellow legal pad, Shanahan watched him, occasionally trying to get his attention with a quiet “Mayor?” There was no response. Finally, Shanahan shrugged and left the office.

  4. Salmon Slicer

  THAT SUNDAY, IN FRONT OF RUSS & DAUGHTERS appetizing store on Houston Street, one of the more desirable Sunday-morning parking spots on the Lower East Side, Tepper gave a silent shake of the head to a Dodge Dart, and then recognized it as the car he had given a wagging index finger to in the same spot the previous Sunday. Was he getting repeaters? Sooner or later they would presumably expect him to offer some explanation of why he happened to be sitting in his car at the same spot—perhaps that he was waiting for an elderly aunt from Riverdale whose only outing of the week was a trip back to the Lower East Side for a few bagels and a piece of kippered lox. But he had no intention of offering any explanation at all. There was no law that required explanations to owners of Dodge Darts. He was in a legal parking spot. He had put a quarter in the meter. He was paid up.

  Apparently, the driver of the car right in front of him had not been paid up. A meter maid was writing out a ticket, ignoring the arguments of a skinny man who was practically shouting in her ear. “I just went to get change,” the skinny man said. “Look! Here’s the change! Here’s four quarters in my hand. Change for a dollar. Isn’t that proof? What kind of person would just happen to have four quarters in his pocket? Nobody, that’s who. I was just going to get change.”

  The meter maid continued to write the ticket, paying no attention at all to the skinny man shouting at her from a few inches away. It was as if he didn’t exist. When she got through, she double-checked the license plate against the ticket one more time. She didn’t hand him the ticket. She put it under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. Then she walked down Houston Street to check the next meter. She still hadn’t looked at the skinny man. He shouted after her. His tone had turned sarcastic. “You couldn’t just ask the counterman if I’d just asked him for change,” he said. “That would be much too much trouble. Couldn’t just ask. You have no use for eyewitness testimony. No, not you.”

  Tepper went back to reading the Sunday Post. The headline on the story he was reading said, COMMISH FORFEITS SKIN GAME TO IL DUCE. Mayor Ducavelli had fired the parks commissioner, Cary Fox, because of the way Fox had responded to the mayor’s order to draft a dress code that would ensure a higher standard of modesty in the city’s parks. Apparently, the mayor had gone to Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, one warm Saturday for a ceremony and had been appalled at the skimpy costumes worn by some people who were jogging or flipping Frisbees or just lolling on the grass. The mayor had been dressed in a dark gray suit himself, although he’d made some concessions to the informality of the setting by leaving off his tie and unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. Describing the dress of some park users as “disgusting and depraved,” Mayor Ducavelli had ordered Commissioner Fox to establish a detailed dress code that would be firmly enforced, with jail terms on the second offense.

  Apparently because of suspicions that the parks department was dragging its feet on drafting the dress code, Fox had been called to City Hall by Mayor Ducavelli to present a progress report. During the presentation, while trying to explain a difficult paragraph that discussed a variety of measurements outlining how many inches from what would constitute thorough coverage of genitalia, Commissioner Fox had burst out laughing. The next morning it was announced in the pressroom that the mayor had accepted the resignation of Cary Fox. City Hall had denied that Fox’s laughter was what brought about his dismissal, but the headline on the front page of the Sunday News, which Tepper had already finished and tossed over on the passenger seat, said, IL DUCE’S LAST LAUGH.

  As Tepper glanced over at the News, it occurred to him that he had somehow missed reading Ray Fannon, who always appeared on Sunday. Fannon had emerged as the mayor’s most persistent critic. Tepper picked up the News from the seat and turned to Fannon’s column. “This latest firing could mean the eventual dissolution of the mayor’s cabinet and the City Hall staff,” Fannon had written, “since it is increasingly difficult for people who are in Frank Ducavelli’s presence to keep a straight face.”

  Tepper, who always followed the goings-on in City Hall carefully, had been struck by the differing views of proper attire expressed by Mayor Ducavelli and his predecessor, Bill Carmody, who had taken such great delight in being considered a character. At a ceremony that took place in Prospect Park, Carmody would undoubtedly have worn what he referred to as his outdoor clothes—a baseball cap picked up from a catfish festival or a recreational vehicle park or an exterminating company, a T-shirt advertising Red Man chewing tobacco or a topless bar in Daytona Beach, and, if the weather threatened to turn nippy, maybe a warm-up jacket that had block letters across the back saying PASSAIC AUTO BODY and script on the left breast spelling out Rocco. “At an outdoor ceremony, you can read the mayor,” Tepper had once heard Ray Fannon say of Bill Carmody during a television roundtable. “I don’t mean you can look into his eyes and divine his motives, because when you look into his eyes you see absolutely nothing. I mean that he’s got enough writing on him so if you want to pass a few minutes before the speeches start, you can read him.”

  As Tepper glanced up from the newspaper to make a quick perusal of the Sunday shoppers, he noticed that one of the countermen from Russ & Daughters was standing on the sidewalk, about to tap on the window. Recognizing the counterman from past trips, Tepper slid over toward the passenger door and rolled the window down.

  “How you doin’?” the counterman said, bending down to lean on the door.

  “Fine,” Tepper said. “How are you?”

  “I thought I recognized you,” the counterman said. “You come in to buy lox sometimes on Sunday.”

  “Herring salad usually,” Tepper said. “Sometimes a whitefish. Very occasionally, lox.”

  “I’ve noticed you out here for a few Sundays now,” the counterman said. “I figured maybe you’re having trouble getting around or something, and I could get you something. We’ve got some whitefish today. Also sturgeon. The sturgeon here is terrific—sort of a specialty.”

  “Not even sort of a specialty—precisely a specialty,” Tepper said. “I remember when the shopping bags used to say Russ & Daughters: Queens of Lake Sturgeon. Now that was a shopping bag! No cute design. No curlicues. No website mentioned. No plastic. Just an honest brown paper bag, with handles that held some weight, and a straightforward motto—RUSS & DAUGHTERS: QUEENS OF LAKE STURGEON.”

  “Hey, you are an old customer. That was a while back. I could get you some sturgeon. Or herring salad.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Tepper said. “I don’t think anything today.”

  The counterman started to straighten up. Then he said, “Are you waiting for somebody?”

  “No,” Tepper said.

  “Oh. Well . . . ,” the counterman said. “Guess I should get back.” But he made no move to leave. He smiled, in a friendly way. Finally, he said, “Just here, parking?”

  “Exactly,” Tepper said. “I’m just here, parking.”

  The counterman didn’t say anything for a while. He was still leaning on th
e car door, looking in the window. Then he said, “You’re just here parking because you feel like it, and if someone wants the spot, it’s too bad, because it’s your spot, and it’s a legal spot—right?”

  “Well,” Tepper said. “The only thing you left out is that I put a quarter in the meter. So I’m paid up. Don’t forget: the meters on the Lower East Side say, One Hour Parking, Nine A.M. to Seven P.M. including Sunday.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” the counterman said. “A lot of people don’t know that, but you’re absolutely right. Listen, a lot of times, I feel like doing something like this myself.”

  The counterman lapsed into silence again. Behind him, the skinny man who’d had the one-sided argument with the meter maid burst out of the door of Russ & Daughters. He wasn’t carrying a shopping bag. Upset by his failure to convince the meter maid that he shouldn’t be ticketed because he’d simply gone to get quarters, he had apparently gone back in the store without remembering to deposit one of those quarters in the meter; Tepper had actually been wondering if the meter maid, who was making her way back down the block, might put a second ticket on the skinny man’s windshield. Before that could happen, though, the skinny man ran to the meter, quarters in hand; someone inside Russ & Daughters must have jogged his memory with one of those periodic announcements: “They’re checking meters out there.”

  Finally, the counterman said, “You know, it can get pretty irritating with some of those customers.”

  “I’ll bet,” Tepper said.

  “They’ll say, ‘Gimme a nice whitefish.’ So I’ll say, ‘One whitefish, coming right up.’ Cheerful. Pleasant. And they’ll say, ‘A nice whitefish.’ Can you imagine? This happens every Sunday at least once. I could prevent it, of course. I could head it off. You know how I could prevent it . . .”

  “Well,” Tepper said. “I suppose—”

  “Of course!” I could just repeat after them exactly: ‘A nice whitefish.’ But I won’t. I won’t give them the satisfaction. What I really feel like saying when they correct me—when I say, ‘One whitefish, coming up,’ and they say, ‘A nice whitefish’—is, ‘Oh? Well, I’m glad you said that, because I wasn’t going to get you a nice whitefish. If you hadn’t said that, I would have looked for a whitefish that’s been sitting there since last Tish b’Ov—an old, greasy, fershtunkene whitefish. Because that’s what we serve here mostly. That’s our specialty. That’s how we’ve managed to stay in business all these years. That’s why the Russ family is synonymous with quality and integrity in this city for maybe seventy-five years—because they sell their steady customers rotten, stinking whitefish. That’s why the boss gets up at four in the morning to go to the suppliers, so he can get the fershtunkene whitefish before his competitors. Otherwise, if he slept until a civilized hour, as maybe he deserves by now, he might get stuck with nice whitefish.’”

  “There’s always something,” Tepper said.

  The counterman, looking exhausted from his speech, could only nod and sigh. He glanced into the store and then looked back at Tepper. “Listen,” he said. “Do you mind if I sit with you for a minute? It looks like it’s quiet in there. I could take a little break.”

  “Why not?” Tepper said, opening the passenger door and sliding over to make room for the counterman.

  “I shouldn’t complain,” the counterman said, when he had settled into the seat. “It’s basically a nice place to work. Good people to work for. Most of the customers are fine. We get a lot of well-known people. Actors. Writers. People from the newspapers are always coming in. A lot of news people. Television news people. I actually enjoy my work, although I realized a long time ago that I have no natural talent for it.”

  “Talent?”

  “Oh, I can slice lox well enough to satisfy the customers,” the counterman said. “But have you ever seen Herman slice lox?”

  “The one who used to wear the badge saying, HERMAN THE ARTISTIC SLICER?”

  “Yes. A natural talent. They say you can read the Times through one of Herman’s slices. You couldn’t read anything through one of my slices. Oh, maybe one of those large-print editions, but I’m not kidding myself. No natural talent. Do you know what I really wanted to be? You’ll never guess. An inventor.”

  Tepper would have never guessed. He studied the counterman—a stout man of about his own age, with gray hair and thick glasses. The counterman had a sort of stolid look. He looked like a counterman.

  “Not Thomas Edison,” the counterman said. “Not Alexander Graham Bell. I’m not kidding myself. But I thought I could invent little things that helped people out. That was my dream. But I didn’t pursue it. It’s probably hard for you to imagine; you’re a man who does what he wants if he feels like doing it. I didn’t pursue it. But that was my dream. Chemistry was my best subject. You know, I haven’t mentioned this to anyone in years, but when I was a young man I came up with an invention I thought would go. I had this idea of inventing this soaking compound for soaking pots and pans. It had different chemicals that dissolved at different rates, so during the night this pot would be attacked steadily, and in the morning: zip, it’s clean! I called it StediSoke, spelled S-t-e-d-i-S-o-k-e. I knew it would work, if I just put enough time in on the chemicals. But I didn’t stick with it. I didn’t pursue it. Then, years later, I saw it advertised in a catalog—not the same name, of course, but the same sort of thing. I could still kick myself.”

  “Don’t kick yourself,” Tepper said. “It didn’t sell.”

  “It didn’t sell?”

  “A dog,” Tepper said. “We handled it. We tried a list of people who had sent away for pots and pans offered in gourmet kitchen catalogs. We tried the subscription list of a cooking magazine. We even tested a list that was described on the rate card as ‘Fourteen thousand people in New England who have consulted a dermatologist during the past ten years’—figuring those people might be interested in something that could keep their hands out of hot water. Nothing. Maybe the people on those lists have maids to clean their pots and pans. Maybe most people take a little pot scrubbing for granted as a part of life. Whatever, the returns were terrible. Believe me, it was a dog.”

  “I thought it would work,” the counterman said.

  “It probably did work. It cleaned the pots. But here’s one of the lessons of life I’ve learned in my business: If it works but you can’t sell it, it might as well not work. This is what they call a free-market economy.”

  The counterman had cheered up considerably. “It didn’t sell?” he asked again.

  Tepper shook his head. “A nothing. A big nothing.”

  The counterman was smiling. “It probably lost money,” he said. “It probably lost money! That’s really very satisfying to hear. It probably lost money. I know it’s terrible to take comfort in the business reversals of other people.”

  “With these particular people, it’s not so terrible,” Tepper said. “They were a pain to deal with, and, if I’m not mistaken, they still owe us.”

  The counterman nodded, and reached over to shake Tepper’s hand. “Listen,” he said. “I can’t tell you how much this talk has meant to me. It was inspiring. I hope I didn’t interrupt you.”

  “Not at all,” Tepper said. “In fact, I think I’ll come in with you for a minute. You made me hungry with that talk of whitefish. And I’ve got a good spot here—plenty of time on the meter.”

  “Good,” the counterman said, opening the car door. “I’ll get you a nice whitefish.”

  5. Lists

  AT ELEVEN THE NEXT MORNING, TEPPER LOOKED UP FROM his desk. Arnie Sarnow was standing in the doorway. Arnie held a handful of rate cards, and a computer printout and a clipboard. His collar was open and his tie was pulled down. His hair looked as if he’d been running his hands through it, or maybe trying to tear out a clump here and there. Tepper had been expecting him. Arnie almost always came in by around eleven in the morning, usually looking as if the day had already been almost too much for him.

  “Can I i
nterrupt you for a minute, Murray?” he said.

  “Why not,” Tepper said. It was what he always said.

  Arnie came in. Tepper’s office had a chair next to the desk and, in front of the single window, a table with three chairs gathered around it. The table was, as usual, cluttered with the old-fashioned rate cards that Tepper went through in deciding which lists might be worth testing for whatever was being sold through the mail. Each card described a list that was available for rental—“40,000 buyers of American Revolution decorations and memorabilia” or “61,000 buyers of discount automotive accessories” or “40,000 buyers of deodorizing shoe pads.” As many years as Tepper had been looking through such cards, they still often made him think of the old Ed Sullivan variety show in the early days of television, and the impressions comics used to do of Sullivan telling the audience what wonders were in store for them next week: “On this stage, next week, 40,000 Egyptian dentists, simultaneously pulling infected molars . . .”

  Arnie, as usual, plopped down in the chair next to Tepper’s desk. “Barney Mittgin is trying to drive me crazy,” he said.

  Tepper nodded his head. “How long you been here now, Arnie?” he asked.

  “Almost two and a half years.”

  “Well,” Tepper said, “Howard and I started this business forty years ago. Barney Mittgin was one of our first clients. Came in maybe the second or third week we were open. He was trying to sell an apple corer then, as I remember.”