Epitaph

by James Siegel

  Which left William alone again, savoring the last bit of glass number five before he embarked on glass number six. Only when he went to pour it, he committed the unpardonable. He knocked his good friend Jack right off the armrest.

  Whoops.

  Whiskey ran across his pitifully worn-down carpet like a flash flood, rolling out toward the door, and-what's that?-by way of innocent proximity-toward the box, Jean's box.

  William sprang into action. Okay-crawled, stumbled, staggered, making it there just in the nick of time-lifting up the box before it was hit by a wave of eighty-six- proof alcohol.

  The box seemed heavier than before; of course he was drunker than before. He dumped it onto the bed where it sank into the mattress with a slight groan.

  What was he doing with it anyway? What would Rodriguez try to give him next-Jean's ashes? Ashes, drapes, and pictures. William sat down beside it, looking it over, assessing the damage. Everything more or less shipshape. He opened the top flaps and peered inside.

  Yeah, it was junk all right.

  In Jean's box: a small retractable umbrella, a pair of black rubbers, a library card, sunglasses-one lens slightly cracked-a key chain-no keys-salt and pepper shakers with the words Lake Tahoe painted on the bottom of each, a novelty pen which when held upside down transformed a sweet demurely dressed girl into a sweet undressed girl, three packets of dental floss, several utility bills from Con Edison, several threatening letters from Con Edison, a campaign flyer, a baseball program. And a phone book. He dumped it all out onto the bed.

  Of course it was the phone book he was drawn to; old habits die hard. A small black phone book, the kind bachelors in the fifties were supposed to carry around with them, little black books filled with conquests. But this little black book was filled with empty pages, mostly empty pages, and little proverbs that were printed at the top of each page-one to a letter. A rolling stone gathers no moss was one of them. Don't judge a book by its cover was another. Little pithy sayings, the kind of thing they started putting in fortune cookies when they stopped putting in fortunes. William wondered if Jean had read them, if they had amused him maybe, even caused him to laugh out loud. Probably not. Jean never laughed, certainly not out loud. Am I laughing, William? William guessed that he'd stopped laughing the day they turned his family into a picture. And now, looking down at the contents of the box spread helter-skelter like a rummage sale across his bed, William wondered just where that picture was, because it wasn't here. Maybe all that Scotch tape had simply grown as brittle as the picture itself, finally splintering into a kind of dust, becoming, in a way, like Jean. Maybe one day Jean had simply looked at it and not known them anymore, the way a childhood picture becomes, after a while, just a picture of a child, any child or every child, but not you. William didn't think that likely, but then, it was hard to say. He suddenly wished he'd known Jean then, back when he was helping his Jews across the border, before they'd tattooed his arm and scarred his soul, back before the fall, because then maybe, just maybe, he'd feel sad that Jean had died. But that was crying over spilt ash, wasn't it. William put the pen, the bills, the shakers, the flyer, the baseball program, put it all back into the box; he left out only the phone book.

  He barely made it back to his chair, not so much sitting down on it as flopping into it. The room was kind of spinning on him, a little like a carousel just before it comes to a halt, when nervous parents are already madly racing to grab their children who only want another go- round. William, of course, wanted off.

  He began to leaf through the book again, to take a leisurely stroll through Proverb Land. Under P-People in glass houses should not… -was Sam's Pizzeria 8723490. The page was worn, covered in thumbprints, pizza being a staple of sorts for solitary people who don't cook and don't go out, which in New York means half the people over the age of seventy. William had eaten his fair share of pizza. Under R, under Rule your emotions and they won't rule you, was Rodriguez: janitor, funeral director, and executor of the will. Under D, Don't judge a book by its… were a few names, an Alain, a Marie, a Michelle, but all without numbers, as if Jean had written them down to remind him of something, and under I, It's the bad wheel that does the most squeaking, was a number with no name: 873-5521.

  If William hadn't been drunk, or at least so drunk, if he'd had, say, two drinks instead of five, he would have put the phone book back into the box then and drifted into sleep, or at least collapsed into a stupor. In the morning he would have carted the box out to the garbage in front and dumped it in. Then he would have gone to OTB and laid a bet, laid several bets, starting with Gold's Sheet, but quickly moving on to horses whose names began with hard consonants. In this way, he would have eventually lost all his money, all being a relative term, since all his money wouldn't fill a regulation piggybank, unless his luck turned, of course, which from time to time it did, but with no regularity he could depend on. Then, either so much richer or so much poorer, he would have made his way back to his room. Just your average day, in which he would've hurt no one and, with a little luck, no one would've hurt him. But okay, he'd had five drinks, not four, and certainly not two. The room wasn't spinning anymore, but it wasn't exactly standing still either. And being five drinks stiff to the wind, being just a little sorry for himself, grappling with this notion that there'd been a serious omission in the matter of Jean's death, because there'd been only two mourners there when there should have been more, and both mourners had mourned nothing, he stared at the lone number for more than a minute, then called it.

  A woman answered.

  "Hello," she said. "Who's there?"

  "A friend of a friend," William said.

  "Uh huh," she said in a tone completely devoid of surprise. "A friend of what friend?"

  "Jean. Jean Goldblum."

  "Oh." Pause. So maybe she knew, had already scanned the obits and knew. "You'd like to see me I guess?"

  Well yes, he would.

  "Sure. Why not. I'd love to see you."

  "Sure. Let me see… wait a minute… how about, oh, nine o clock? Is that okay with you?"

  More than okay. Terrific actually. Couldn't be better.

  "Tonight? Nine o'clock tonight?"

  "Yes. Would you like to come another night?"

  He'd have to consult his schedule on that one. Nope. Sorry, all booked up tomorrow night, it'd have to be tonight.

  "Tonight's fine."

  "Okay. Why don't you write down my address."

  "Sure. Go ahead."

  "Thirteen-eighty-one Yellowstone Boulevard. Apartment 9D. That's Yellowstone. A friend of Jean's, huh?"

  "That's right. A friend."

  "Yes. Well, we're all friends now, aren't we."

  Absolutely. All of us, friends.

  "I'll see you at nine," William said, then he put the phone back in its cradle, smacked it down hard, and wondered exactly what it is that he'd done.

  SEVEN

  He told himself on the way to see Jean's friend that he was just being friendly, that he was on a mission of mercy, a comforting angel here. After all, wasn't it right for the bereaved to seek out the bereaved? And if he wasn't all that broken up himself, perhaps she was, and if she wasn't, then perhaps he was merely tying up loose ends, paying his respects to Jean's memory. And then there were other reasons: that he was maybe just a smidgen lonely tonight, that is, lonelier even than he was on any other night, which was, when he allowed himself to think about it, considerably lonely. And then too she'd sounded sort of sweet on the phone, maybe even grateful for his call. Perhaps she did want to cry on his shoulder; perhaps he wanted to cry on hers. We're all friends now, aren't we. Well, sure.

  But after he'd made his way to Forest Hills, a neighborhood of tall dark towers and rounded driveways, of metal jockeys and endless hedge, after he'd gotten past a rather rumpled doorman who sat stolidly behind a small bright monitor and waved him through, after he'd rung her button and she'd slowly opened her door and asked him in, after that, he'd immediately realized th
at, of course, they weren't all friends, that she really wasn't a friend of Jean's at all, and even if she was a friend of Jean's, she was unaware of something vital, of the very reason for his visit. She didn't, William was positive of this, know that Jean was dead.

  For one thing, she was smiling, something that bereaved people aren't generally known to do-crying, sobbing, frowning, screaming, sure, but not smiling. Well maybe to acquaintances, but then, he wasn't. For another thing, she was dressed as if she was about to go out on the town, but, of course, she wasn't about to go out on the town. A silky black dress that plunged in front and plunged in back and was slit up the sides as high as an elephant's eye, all the way to a tattoo which said Eat Your Heart Out. That's what she wore. And then William remembered the way the doorman had waved him through without first calling up, kind of like a ticket-taker. She was smiling for him, sure, but like this professionally decorated apartment, it was a professionally decorative smile. And she, of course, was a professional.

  "Sit down," she said, very professionally too. "How about a drink?"

  Drinks, of course, were the problem here. Five drinks had made him a little slow on the uptake, had made William a very dull boy.

  "Sorry," William said.

  "Sorry?" She twisted her eyebrows quizzically, perfect eyebrows too, eyebrows she'd spent some time on. "What for?"

  "I'm not here for what you think I am."

  "Okay," she said, still holding that smile, William thinking it must be hard holding a smile like that. "What are you here for?"

  "Well…" Not exactly sure how to answer that, but willing to give it a shot. "Well…"

  "Why don't you just relax and tell me."

  He was already relaxed, his brain at least, which was off somewhere sitting on a BarcaLounger.

  "Sometimes it's hard to tell these things," she said, "but you don't have to be embarrassed here."

  Well that was a matter of opinion, wasn't it? Her tone very soothing now, like Muzak, William thought, amazing how she could switch it just like that, from genial hostess to dental hygienist. We'll just start the gas now and then you'll feel a little prick…

  "You'd like me to guess, is that it? You don't like to talk about it, that's okay. Have you been a bad boy? Have you been a very bad boy? Would you like Mommy to take you over her knee and spank you maybe, spank you till you say you're sorry."

  Actually, he felt like spanking himself. Yes he did.

  "I think," William said, "I'm going to be sick." The drinks had turned on him, just like that, they'd said enough fun for you, old sod and turned on him. "Forgive me… where's your bathroom?" But it was too late; everything he'd poured into him suddenly began to pour out of him.

  "Shit!" she said, finally and indisputably losing that smile. "Get over there… over there"-pointing to the hallway on the left-"shit… get to the bathroom… you're getting it all over the rug!"

  So William ran, clutching his stomach, ran into the dark hallway, which ran into a dark bathroom, vomit dripping from him like sweat, got to the bathroom, then stood, hunched over the toilet, heaving.

  In two dreadful minutes it was all over. White, trembling, he slowly straightened up, then flushed the toilet. She was somewhere behind him now, frantically laying towels over the carpet, trying to soak up his trail of vomit.

  Wonderful, he thought. Wonderful. A perfect end to a perfect day.

  He walked out of the bathroom.

  "Please," he said, "forgive me. Drinks… five drinks… I couldn't handle… the funeral…"

  "What funeral?" She was still down on her knees pressing the last towel against the carpet.

  "Jean's. Jean's funeral. Your number was in his phone book. I didn't know…"

  Okay. She didn't go teary-eyed on him, or gasp out loud, or even shake her head, but she did finally stop trying to soak up his vomit and look up at him with an expression that registered, well… loss. There was no other way to put it. Okay, William thought, maybe she'd been a friend after all.

  "What did he die from?" she asked.

  "Heart attack."

  "Oh." She nodded, as if she'd expected as much. Perhaps she'd known a lot about Jean's heart; perhaps she'd been, in a way, an expert on it.

  "Look," she said, finally getting up, "I made a mistake. You made a mistake. Mistakes happen." She motioned toward the door, as in the door's that way, as in nice seeing you, bye, as in leave.

  But he was staring at the carpet now, a deep shag, like something that had just been killed, or certainly, violated.

  "What about the…?" nodding at the tapestry of towels that had begun to take on the unmistakable color of Jack Daniel's.

  "Forget it," she said. "I'll get it cleaned."

  "Here." William reached for his wallet, only in reaching for it, lost his balance and nearly tipped over.

  "You don't look so hot," she said. "Sit down."

  He was going to say no, honest he was, but he was dizzy and disoriented and ashamed-not necessarily in that order. And just like with Rodriguez earlier today, he'd been asked.

  He sat.

  "How do you feel?" she said.

  "Like death."

  "I know the feeling," she said.

  William was sure she did. He was precisely eye level now with her tattoo; Eat Your Heart Out in crimson letters on a bloodred heart, the bloodred heart like a bruise on her milky thigh. He tried to remember how many years ago it was that he was actually with a woman but they were like light-years, more explainable in the theoretical than the actual. He couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted one; he didn't know if he could.

  "You and Jean," she said. "Were you close?"

  "I hadn't seen him for years," William said. Just another old guy with nobody, Rodriguez said, breaks my heart, right. "We used to work together."

  "Another detective, huh?"

  So Jean hadn't just fucked her; he'd talked to her. About the old days, about feats of yore.

  "Jean was a pain in the ass," she said now, as if reading his mind. "But he was okay."

  William imagined she probably had a limited number of categories for men, possibly two: scumbags and okay. And Jean had been okay. Okay, Jean… good for you.

  "He wasn't my usual, understand."

  "Sure," William said, wondering why she'd asked him to sit, and why she was talking to him. About Jean, about anything. But then, that's what he'd come for, wasn't it, to eulogize the dead.

  "We never really did it," she continued, as if it was important that he understand that. Maybe that was what made Jean okay in her book, her book otherwise being like the kind you buy at airports where they do it on every other page. Which led William to wonder what it was Jean and her had done, it being only natural to wonder a thing like that, because Jean had come to see her and he'd come more than once. Maybe, he'd eaten his heart out, maybe he'd eaten to his heart's content, which wouldn't be exactly doing it, but was close.

  But no.

  "He liked to take pictures. You know… playact." There she went again, reading his mind. Either that or stating the menu, because after all, it was still working hours and he was still here. And when you thought about it, William had taken pictures too, hadn't he, a whole lot of pictures, including his masterwork: Rachel and San- tini at the Par Central Motel.

  "What did he do with them?" William asked, because he was kind of curious about this kind of thing, pictures and playacting, and if she was going to kiss and tell, he might as well sit and ask.

  "Them?"

  "The pictures?"

  "How do I know? Kept them, I guess."

  "I guess," thinking that's what he'd do, keep them, wondering now what Eat Your Heart Out looked like in the big picture that was her, like lipstick on a new handkerchief, that red.

  "Hey look"-a kind of defensiveness crept into her voice now-"he didn't want me to beat him, okay. He didn't want me to piss on him, or dress him up like a sissy. He didn't want me to fuck him either. As far as I'm concerned, that made him a prince."

>   Okay, William thought, Prince Jean.

  "I think it's time to go," he said. "I think I've done enough damage for one night," alluding to the patchwork quilt of towels, alluding also to himself, because he felt damaged too, though not exactly sure in which way.

  "Nice seeing you," she said, but even with her smile back, that smile, it was devoid of conviction; it would be nice seeing him leave.

  He lifted himself up off the couch, not an insubstantial feat given all the drinks, all the drinks taken and all the drinks given back, and given the pain too which was dancing the hokey-pokey in his shoulder and threatening to make him cry.

  "Another retired detective you've been more than kind to." A nice closing line, a suitable amount of gentility and humble pie, a line just right.

  "But he wasn't retired," she said, as if lightly correcting a guest's grammar.

  William only half heard her. He was thinking if he shouldn't perhaps offer her money again for the carpet. He was thinking about the odds of making it home without falling down. He was definitely thinking that it had been a big mistake coming here like this, and that the only way to undo that mistake was to leave. Yet while half of him didn't hear her, half of him did, and so he echoed her, buying time while the part of his mind that was already out the door tiptoed back in.

  "… wasn't retired?"

  "Right. He wasn't retired."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" William said.

  "It means he wasn't retired."

  "Do you know how old he was?"

  "Yeah. About as old as you."

  William winced. "What makes you think he wasn't retired?"

  "He told me," she said. "And told me."

  "That he was still working?"

  "Yeah. On a real case too. No more chasing runaways."

  "Runaways?"

  "Right. Runaways."

  "Who hired him to do that?"

  She laughed-okay, more like yuk-yukked. "He hired himself. He'd go down to the Port Authority and wait for them to get off the bus. Then he'd race the pimps to get there first. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he'd call up their daddies for the reward."