Corky’s getting so emotional he’s beginning to stammer, he’s on the edge of losing it. “God damn it I told you: I’m concerned. Why the fuck shouldn’t I be concerned! I’m a City Council member, I’m a citizen for Christ’s sake! My stepdaughter is—was—a friend of the d-dead girl and she’s taking it pretty hard.” Lightheaded from the smells and the presence of Death, two dead men he can’t get it out of his head they’re somehow breathing, listening. But why bring in Thalia, asshole.
Wiegler says loudly, it’s almost a jeer, “Stepdaughter? You?” as if there’s something preposterous in this, then goes on, sarcastically, “—What’s she say? It isn’t suicide?” and the two men stare at each other, a long moment, Corky’s trying not to lose it seeing his adversary through a pulsing mist, guessing he’s making mistakes but not knowing how, why. And it’s empty in the morgue now, the attendants have left, just Corky Corcoran and Wolf Wiegler and the corpses amid the rattling ventilators, the promise of more corpses, hidden corpses, in the refrigerated unit to the rear, shelves of corpses, yes but if you can’t see you can’t know. He’s aware too of the tools of Wiegler’s trade close by—hacksaws, scalpels, wicked-looking shears, syringes, what looks like a power drill (for boring into skulls?). His gut’s giving him such pain he’d be doubled over by it except, Wiegler watching, he can’t give in. Can’t.
Watch your mouth, Corky’s thinking, quick and cunning, for maybe Wiegler does know something about Marilee Plummer’s death it isn’t in your best interest to be told. Once you know a thing you can’t not know it.
Corky shrugs. “She’s upset. She’s lost a friend.”
Wiegler screws up his face so it’s meditative, yet still a smirk. “Hell, girls try to kill themselves all the time. Maybe ten percent of the time they succeed. If they don’t get fucked they’re frustrated and if they do get fucked they’re disillusioned.” He breaks off laughing, giving Corky a nudge in the arm like the two of them are sharing the joke. “We’re not like that, eh?—not ‘sensitive.’” He laughs again. Corky stares at him in disgust.
Wiegler sobers up some, and says, changing the subject like he’s an emcee on a fast-paced talk show, “—Leroy Nickson, man! You been following the case?”
“What?”
“This Nickson case, man. You been following it in the paper, on TV? We got in the New York Post yesterday. I was the one who did the dog.”
Corky blinks slowly. “‘Did the dog’—?”
“Opened the fucker up.” Wiegler makes a playful yet precise motion with his fingers, like a harpist. He’s grinning at Corky and Corky’s trying to grin back. “They brought the guy in to headquarters—Nickson—you’ve seen him, right?—Elvis sideburns, floppy mustache, acting outraged, and his wife’s like a zombie—‘Where’s your baby?’ the cops are asking, and he says he doesn’t know and she can’t even answer, it’s the neighbors who called the cops, for weeks the baby’s been crying ‘like a banshee’ one of them was quoted then suddenly it stops, you got to conclude something happened, right?—except the baby not only stopped crying but disappeared. And there’s this German shepherd dog must weigh one hundred pounds, barking all the time big nasty fucker to keep in a two-room apartment—” Wiegler snaps his fingers. “It doesn’t take much brains to put two and two together, even the UCPD cops can figure this one out. So—” watching Corky slyly now, and eagerly, seeing the sick look dawning in Corky’s face, “—they haul the dog over here in muzzle and restraining harness, and I do the dog. Rambo.”
Corky nods. He’s showing he follows this, O.K. “You do the dog. Rambo.”
“Right. I do Rambo.” Wiegler wriggles his shoulders like he’s being tickled. This is a story you can tell he’s already told many times, though it’s new, and will tell many more times through his life. “I stick the fucker and it takes him maybe three minutes to die, Rambo’s so tough, then I open him up on this table here, must’ve been ten cops and guys from the D.A.’s office watching, plus half the staff in this place, forensics, a police photographer, you name it. All we needed was a TV crew. I opened up Rambo’s stomach and bowels, which are so crammed they’re practically impacted, and out comes Baby Nickson, in coarse chunks. Maybe most guys would need to do lab work to see what it was, I didn’t, I could tell right off. Because it wasn’t all that digested. Some was, some wasn’t. Nickson broke the skull with a hammer and pounded it flat, in fragments, and broke up the bones pretty well, but it was all there, or just about, an entire human baby. Sort of, you know?—like chop suey. Christ!”
Corky hears this through a buzzing haze. He hears the words but isn’t sure he’s hearing them. Then he’s walking, he’s in motion.
“You O.K., man?—Jerome? You’re looking a little—”
Turning, in motion, or is he falling, his knees gone and he can’t remember how he’d come in, which is the way out, the glaring light of the tall windows shifts and contracts and the ceiling begins to sink and he hears Wiegler’s voice raised in mock concern or maybe it’s genuine concern but the voice is far away and the floor pitches so suddenly beneath him there’s no time to catch hold of anything to stop the fall, he’s falling as the wave of nausea rises in him ballooning into his mouth and he’s vomiting, helpless choking acid-hot vomiting but he’s falling, he’s gone, the sharp edge of a metal counter flies up to strike his left temple, Corky Corcoran’s out.
4
Corky Places a Bet
He is being bathed by his mother. A lifetime ago in the house on Barrow Street. Set down gently in the warm soapy water. In a yellow plastic-rubberized baby’s bath. In the kitchen, atop the table. It’s so cold outside, wind-driven snow, rivulets of ice have formed on the insides of the windows, layers of thickness like gnarled roots. The gas oven is lit, the oven door opened. Waves of radiant heat pour out. Rippling over his baby skin. If he could see his mother’s face! Her eyes! But he sees only the hands gently bathing him, squeezing a sponge over his head. He hears a voice, her voice, but he can’t hear the words. Or is she singing, a voice and no words. He looks up, she’s leaning over him, arms around him, the radiant heat rippling over them both. Her face, her young face, a girl’s face, a face of such beauty, the shining eyes, the radiant-rosy skin—he stares, he tries to see, with every fiber of his being he tries to see, but can’t.
You made me love you.
Didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to do it.
“Fuck.”
Corky presses his foot down, hard, on the gas pedal. The Caddy lurches forward. Tires faintly screeching. North on Huron, then over to Ninth, one-way traffic on Ninth going east and out of here.
Corky’s in a wild fucking hurry to get out of here. Whether in the best condition for driving or not.
It’s 1:20 P.M. He’s lost an hour and a half. Where, he doesn’t know. Oblivion.
How do you vomit on a near-empty stomach?—it’s hard.
First the gruel-like substance, tasting of acid and coffee. Then the dry heaves.
Gasping and gagging and choking like an epileptic in a convulsion, but only half-conscious, passing in and out of consciousness.
In the morgue!
And he’d hit his head, asshole might have cracked his skull, never woke up again. So, the first necessary thing, when they revived him and he could sit up, was to crack a joke—“Well, I’m in the right place for this.” Making them laugh, or what sounded like laughing.
Tasting the vomit now, in his teeth. Rinsing his mouth didn’t do it, he’ll have to brush his teeth.
Fuck his necktie’s stained. Expensive God-damned tie and it’s stained. In a fury, while driving, not slackening his speed, racing to make a light, Corky manages to loosen the tie and rip it off and crumple it in his fist and toss it out the window, there it goes flying briefly in the wind and then falling, lost on Ninth Street amid gutter trash.
Can’t face the old man now. Just can’t.
Shit, he can’t. It makes him almost panicked to think of it: driving to Irish Hill, the old streets, passing B
arrow Street, that house, the only house of his dreams, then to Roosevelt, and that house, the house following his father’s death. Maybe he dreams of that house too, but he doesn’t want to remember.
Disappointing Uncle Sean, fuck it, can’t be helped.
The Irish break your heart, break one another’s hearts. It’s in the blood. Can’t be helped.
Anyway, Corky’s more than an hour late, probably the old man gave up on him in disgust. Or maybe thinking, that age, his mind’s not what it used to be, he’d got the time wrong, or the day.
An ambulance racing up Ninth—loud frantic siren growing louder, deafening. Everybody pulls over to give it a wide berth except Corky Corcoran who’s driving fast too, fuck it he’s in a hurry too. The ambulance speeds past him, on the right.
Always a wild thumping heartbeat, any siren passes that close.
But Corky keeps on, looking straight ahead. Bloodshot eyes but determined. The fuckers won’t get the better of him.
Up ahead, on Schoharie, is Bobby Ray’s Sports Bar, Corky’d had a pleasant thought of the place earlier, maybe he’ll drop in. He’s hungry. Thirsty. Dehydrated from losing so much liquid.
A powerful hunger sweeps over him, leaving him shaky. Hasn’t eaten yet today, that’s why he passed out. He’s famished.
Must have been crazy, to go to the morgue so impulsively, at such a time. What worries Corky most, though—his overestimation of his own strength.
What the fuck’s happening to him?—thinking too he could just walk away from Christina. Slam the door, goodbye, forget.
That last time like he’d been desperate to jam it up inside her wanting to hear her scream, tear her cunt, womb. Stab her to the heart like she’d stabbed him. Almost, he’d expected to see her bright blood glistening on his cock.
But it isn’t that easy. He’s thinking of Christina all the time. Even when he isn’t conscious of it. He feels it, the loss. Shit, he knows. Wanting the woman’s arms, her voice. Love. Love of him.
Did he dream of her, her holding him, just now?—passed out on the icy floor of the morgue? Vivid as a hallucination, a waking dream, Corky can’t remember. Just the force of it, the terrible longing.
You made me love you. Didn’t want to do it.
Suddenly Corky’s desperate to call Christina Kavanaugh. Tell me I’m still loved, tell me everything’s O.K. Don’t let me die!
He’d come to, on the floor, not knowing at first where he was, dizzy, flailing his arms, trying to speak. Ammonia fumes piercing his nostrils rising to his brain like white-hot wires. It wasn’t the pathologist who was reviving him, crouched over him, but a woman medic Wiegler must have summoned. Happens all the time, visitors to the morgue passing out. One minute all right, the next minute crashing to the floor. No shame to it. They’d tried to prevent Corky from getting up as quickly as he did and walking out, maybe afraid of a lawsuit. Wiegler was looking tense, worried, like he’d gone too far with Corky and Corky would see to it he was made to regret it, maybe lose his job?—did Jerome Corcoran have that much influence with the Mayor?—these thoughts running rapidly through Corky’s head even as, smiling, shaking his head, he insisted he was O.K., he was fine, sorry for causing so much commotion. No, he did not want to be taken to the emergency room, no thanks no X rays for him he’s late for an appointment.
He’d used a men’s room off the lobby, though. Washed his face, rinsed his mouth. Dabbing wetted paper towels against his forehead where he’d banged himself, hoping to keep the swelling down. Wiping at his necktie, getting the worst of the vomit off, he’d thought, and off his coat sleeve, trouser cuffs. Cheap paper towels, standard City issue, cheapest of the cheap, like the single-ply toilet paper too, shredding when wetted. Corky stared at himself bloodshot-eyed Corky Corcoran in the splotched mirror of that dank antiquated men’s lavatory, pale freckles like dirty raindrops against his paler skin. That Irish redhead’s pallor. Curdled-milk pallor. A scared kid no older than seventeen inside the forty-three-year-old’s face staring astonished and appalled at that face.
Is that me? What has happened to me?
Wondering, can you go crazy this way? Is this how it starts? The way a paper towel shreds when wetted, disintegrates? The thin membrane of sanity. The way, at first just alert, attentive, Theresa would glance up, hearing the start of it. The approach.
Corky’s thinking it started yesterday, the traffic jam on Brisbane. Smooth sailing and he’d felt terrific on his way to Christina Kavanaugh, then suddenly—stalled. Since then, things are veering out of his control.
Embarrassed remembering how he’d directed traffic, helping out the cop. Basking in the attention, Christ what an asshole, the cop smiled and waved at him when he drove past, “Thanks, Mr. Corcoran!” and Corky’s thinking no maybe the smile was a smirk, the thank-you sarcastic. And he’d boasted of this to Christina, and who else, Greenbaum, probably Miriam. All of them humoring him. What an asshole.
Corner of Ninth and Schoharie, Bobby Ray’s Sports Bar, a popular hangout, Corky’s grateful to see it though by day, like all these places, it looks diminished, drab. Fake redwood facade that needs refinishing, those fake windows, the old action-neon sign—jerky black dots in rapid motion, cartoon images of boxing, horse racing, baseball, football. Corky has terrific memories of Bobby Ray’s, and Corky has less than terrific memories of Bobby Ray’s. You drop $800 one week, pick up $1100 the next week, drop $500 the next, pick up $400 the next, so it goes. The trifecta, $26,500 (untaxed), was Corky’s big coup. He’d lost a bundle, a cool $10,000, on the Tyson-Douglas title fight, still can’t believe Tyson lost, lost like that. Greatest heavyweight since Ali coldcocked and crawling dazed on the canvas groping for his mouthpiece—a picture it’s hard to erase from your mind.
Down at Pearl Street, in Corky’s codified ledger, he’d have a detailed lists of bets won/bets lost at Bobby Ray’s and he’d guess, if he ever did the calculations, he’d discover he was just about even up. Like his fat Aunt Mildred losing weight, gaining it back, losing weight, gaining it back, a gambler loses, wins, loses, wins, it’s what you do, unless you fuck up totally and you’re out.
Inside Bobby Ray’s is near-deserted, only a few customers and no familiar faces in the bar, at least no familiar faces that matter. It’s dim-lit, soothing to the eyes, especially bloodshot hungover eyes, Corky feels better already. Gives a quick drink order to the guy tending bar then ducks into the men’s room to check the swelling on his forehead. Shit, the size practically of a golf ball, how’s he going to disguise it?—his hair’s receding at the temple.
In this mirror though Corky looks almost his old self, cocky and handsome. Almost.
Anyway he runs cold water, splashes it on his face. Feels good. Rinses out his mouth as best he can. What a taste, puke!—Corky’s read it rots your teeth, too. Sheer acid. These sick females he’d read about in People, bulimics, gorging themselves on food like hogs then sticking a finger down their throats to puke it back up, their teeth rot, along with other bodily miseries. Poor bitches: all to be thin, and men hate thin, that flat-chested look, no more tits than a guy, no hips, shows how unbalanced they are. Corky wonders if Thalia got into that, at Cornell; or if she was strictly anorexic. Bone-thin, ghastly-pale. God-damn attention-getting behavior, but it works. The evil of the world that’s our own shit out there we don’t dare acknowledge. Fuck it, what’s a kid like Thalia know about evil? Corky could tell her a thing or two.
Never has trusted her since that anorexic collapse, the hospital at Ithaca, walking in and seeing her. Starving herself, beautiful Thalia, like that crazy Frenchwoman the Jew who converted to Catholicism then repudiated her race, God grant that I become nothing Thalia quoted as if in approval and Corky had to bite his tongue to keep from saying what he thought about that kind of sniveling half-assed “mystic” crap.
God’s gonna grant you become nothing soon enough, sweetheart. No need to pray to the old fart to hurry it along.
Corky checks his watch: 1:33 P.M. Thalia’s coming to the ho
use at four, gives him plenty of time. He’s sure as hell not going to be late for her.
Out in the bar, Corky’s ale is waiting for him, Twelve Horse, dark, on tap: first drink of the day and it goes down just fine, that sensation in the mouth, in the throat, rushing into the blood, that reliable shock of pleasure to the system signaling All’s well. Like coming, almost. That good. Maybe better. The comfort of it, infantile maybe but what the hell. Mother loves you, here’s my breast.
Corky tastes a second big swallow. Sighs.
Where there’s quantum theory, there’s hope!
The bartender, Lew, pushing fifty but dressed like a jock in a U.C. Mohawks T-shirt, big beer gut pushing at his belt, calls over to Corky happy to see him, “Hey Corky, podna, how’s it going?—haven’t seen you in a while,” and Corky manages to both smile at the guy and freeze him out simultaneously, it’s a trick he’s perfected, “Can’t complain, Lew, except I’ve been busy as hell,” signaling he’s busy now, moving briskly to the rear, to the telephones, with his ale. The last thing Corky wants is to get buttonholed by this guy right now.
Still, he overhears Lew telling somebody at the bar that he’s “Corky Corcoran” and it gives him a little stab of satisfaction.
Bobby Ray’s is one of Corky’s cherished places. His reputation’s known here and he’s liked for who he is as a person not just the fact he’s a generous guy, lavish tipper in the right mood. Bobby Ray Deck, the old man, goes back to Tim Corcoran’s day, every time he sees Corky he has to shake his hand, gaze into Corky’s eyes, ask how are you, son. And the mute message between them, not even words but a feeling distinct as an electric shock: He’s dead. Dead?
Fuck it, now’s not the time. If Corky sights the old man he’ll avoid him.
Corky drinks his ale standing making telephone calls. The first one’s to Sean Corcoran—“Christ, Uncle Sean, I’m sorry as hell, but I’ve gotten tied up—how’s about tomorrow? O.K.? I’ll check at Holy Redeemer, see how Aunt Mary Megan is—if she’s well enough to see visitors—” and what can the poor old guy do but go along with it, this isn’t the first time his nephew’s let him down, and won’t be the last, but so be it. Corky hangs up feeling both exhilarated and like a shit, recalls the last time Lois spoke with him nagging him about not visiting, my father isn’t going to live forever, Corky, you know he loves you, Corky, and Corky shrugs, guilty, annoyed, these damn cunts twisting your balls in the name of “love” like they’ve appropriated the word, you don’t “love” enough like it’s your duty you’re falling short of, well fuck that. He’ll get down to Roosevelt Street tomorrow, or he won’t.
What I Lived For Page 31
