Bag in hand, Morris steps out onto the street. He decides on a beer. The Old Homestead instead of home.
There are four people in the bar, a crowd for a Monday night. One of them is N.J. He’s sitting at the bar. “Hey,” Morris says, surprised. He left him twenty minutes prior. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for Hattie, man,” N.J. says. He’s decked out in a leather cowboy shirt, black leather pants, and blue, red, and orange detailed cowboy boots. He looks stiff and unyielding, like he’s been sprayed with a thick coating of sealant.
“How’d you change so quick?” Morris asks, touching the shirt. He smells of a tannery, rich and woodsy and strong. “And what’s up with the outfit, you kill a cow?
“When in Rome,” N.J. says, waving Mrs. Cruxo over and ordering Morris a beer.
“What do you mean, ‘When in Rome’?”
“Montana, man. This is what they wear in Montana. This is what I’ll be wearing when I herd, man.”
“You’re really going?”
“I’m going, man. Hattie and me are going.” N.J. motions to Morris’s bag. “What’d you buy, man?”
“Things,” Morris says, placing the bag on the bar. “Got you a present.” He takes the cologne from the bag. “To go with your outfit.”
“Thanks, man,” he says, sincerely touched. He splashes some on. “Hattie loves this stuff,” he says, then, “I’m going to miss you, man.”
The beer comes. Mrs. Cruxo sets it down in front of Morris. “I got this one, man,” N.J. says. His pants are so tight he has to stand to get his hand in his pocket. “This one’s on me.”
“The enabled is now the enabler?”
“No, man, I just owe you a round or two.”
“Or two hundred.”
“Or two hundred,” N.J. concedes, pulling out a roll of bills the size of a horse’s leg. He peels off a hundred dollar bill, set it on the bar.
“My God, N.J. Where’d you get that?”
“Hattie, man. She set me up. And check this out, man.” He reaches down the front of his shirt and pulls out a medallion on a thick platinum chain. The medallion has a design, round and painted red. It's the symbol N.J. had shown him on the lamppost across from the Essex Street Retail Market. “That whole thing I was just showing you, the Red Thread, man,” N.J. says. “I’m in the cartel.”
Morris stares at the pendant, not comprehending.
“Hattie introduced me to her parents, man. The Rockworths. Her father and I hit it off and he inducted me into the club, as a junior member.”
“When did this happen? I saw you a half hour ago.”
“This morning, man. Didn’t I tell you? Flew down to Florida and had breakfast with them. And they loved me, man, said I was the best thing that’s happened to their daughter since Yale. Good people, really nice. Really rich, too.”
“The guy who’s always broke is now a member of a cult?”
“Not broke, man, just frugal,” N.J. says, offended. “And I’m not yet a member, man. I’m a junior member, on trial probation. I’ve got to go through a rite of passage, man. An initiation.”
“Like what, sitting naked on a block of ice for an hour?”
“This isn’t some tree house gang, man. This is real,” N.J. says, irritated, then, in a softer tone, “The initiation is to prompt a coup in some African or Central American or Asian country, man.”
“And if a cult member can’t pull off the coup?” Morris asks, playing along.
“Even if he can’t kick the country over, he can still be let into the club, man. Style counts for a lot, man. A guy can get in strictly on style.”
“Style counts with this cult.”
N.J. shakes his head. “Open your eyes, man, listen to the world, read the papers,” N.J. says, then, “A guy’s going for initiation tonight. And it’s a cartel, not a cult. Fordie, Hattie’s dad, is sponsoring me. So I’ve got to go to some meeting in Brussels next month and meet the other members, then I’ve got to go through some sort of rite of passage, man.”
Morris lifts his beer then sets it down. The story’s bluster, but the cash is real. “The money—”
“Yeah, I know, I know, man,” N.J. says, standing again. He pulls the roll out again and peels off five one hundred dollar bills. He sets them before Morris.
“Five hundred dollars.” Morris is stunned. “You’re kidding.”
“Okay, man, Christ.” He lays out two hundred more. “I thought you said you weren’t keeping a tab, man.”
“Seven hundred dollars.”
“Don’t get greedy on me. I can’t owe you more than that, man. No way I drank that much over the years.” N.J. sits down. Mrs. Cruxo brings N.J. his change from the hundred, a wad of dirty bills, sets them before him.
N.J. tips her a twenty. “I’m going to miss you, man,” he tells Morris again.
“No, really,” Morris says, staring at the money. “Where’d you get the money?” He pokes the bills on the bar like they’re alive, like they might bite him. “Tell me the truth,” he says. “The money, the Red Thread club, seeing Mr. Charlies at the gay club, this Hattie woman and you moving to Montana—tell me the truth.”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“It’s all real?”
“What’s real is real, man. I’m sorry you’re not able to see that.” N.J. nods to the door. “Is that that asshole from high school?” he asks.
Morris turns, looks.
In the doorway stands Jetski, his face aflame. He’s in a fury, and pointing his crooked Frankenfinger, yells, “I’m calling you out.”
“Yeah, ” Morris tells N.J., “that’s Jetski.”
“He looks like shit, man,” N.J. says. “Gained a ton of weight. And who’s he pointing at anyway? I can’t tell with that finger of his. Is he pointing at you or me or Mrs. Cruxo? Hey, man,” N.J. calls to Jetski, “who are you pointing at?”
“Bliss, I’m calling you out,” he says, his voice raw.
“He’s calling for you, man,” N.J. tells Morris.
“Yeah, thanks, I heard.”
“You going to want some help on this?”
“No,” Morris says.
“You sure, man?” N.J. asks, though he’s visibly relieved Morris isn’t counting on him. “I mean, he seems pissed. But then, I’d be pissed if you fucked my fourteen-year-old daughter, man.”
“Eighteen,” Morris corrects him.
“Still, man, I’d be pissed.”
“Bliss,” Jetski yells again. He seems smaller, heavier, like he’s gotten denser in the last couple of hours. “I’ve got a score to settle with you. I’ve got your number. I’m going to punch your ticket. Are you coming out or am I going to have to drag you out?”
The few people in the bar turn and look at Morris. Mrs. Cruxo turns to Morris with a look he’s never seen—a look of either compassion or terror, he isn’t sure.
“ ‘Punch your ticket’?” N.J. quietly says. “He sounds like Mrs. Smithdangler, man, our elementary school lunch lady. Remember her, man?”
“Easy, Steven,” Morris says, standing. “I’m coming. And quit your yelling,” he says, “you’re bothering people.”
“Yeah, man,” N.J. adds, feeling emboldened, “cool your jets, Jetski.” He grabs Morris by the arm before he can leave. “One word of advice, man,” N.J. tells him, folding the seven hundred-dollar-bills and stuffing him in Morris’s pocket. “Something I learned in Calcutta. He’s going to take a swing at you, man, and when he does, lean into the punch. Go at him like he’s his daughter, like you want a kiss.”
Morris studies his best friend, a person he’s known nearly a quarter century, a friend who knows more about Morris than anyone else. “Newton,” he says, looking him in the eyes, “when have you ever been to Calcutta? When have you ever left New York?”
The Trouble with Bliss Page 37