“No, no—good to hear your—”
“—you’re sure? Really?”
Quickly swinging his legs, he sees they’re bare legs, off the bed to sit up, he’s in his underwear?—sweaty-entangled with bed-clothes, and head pounding and eyes burning as if somehow while comatose he’s been staring into the sun, Corky’s yet shrewd enough to fall in with Sandra’s kidding, it’s an affectionate kidding never laced with reproach or accusation or sexual innuendo as he’d get with another woman. For twenty-one years Corky Corcoran and Vic Slattery’s wife Sandra have been a fixed equation as two satellites unwaveringly revolving in orbits around a planet are a fixed equation—no sudden attractions, no missteps or mistakes, no collisions. If Sandra wasn’t Vic’s wife and if Vic wasn’t Corky’s closest-oldest friend, not even taking into account who Vic Slattery as a public figure is, and whose son, it’s highly possible, even probable, that Corky-the-rogue would have made moves on her—Sandra is his type: classy, good-looking, smart, self-possessed—and this Corky’s gallant enough, and subtle enough, to have allowed Sandra to suspect since the night of Vic’s and Sandra’s wedding party at the Union City Athletic Club, St. Valentine’s Day 1972, when, under cover of being affably drunk, he’d kissed her a little too forcibly on the lips. “—You know me, Sandra: up since dawn working—” and they laugh together, each comforted by the fiction as by a secret password.
Now he’s sitting up Corky feels a little better. Not great, but better. Trying to concentrate on Sandra’s words which come at a fast clip, “—sorry you didn’t drop by last night, we were waiting for you—we’d hoped—before tomorrow night—” and Corky blurts out, “Oh Christ, Sandra, I forgot—” at once wanting to bite his tongue he’s made this admission which isn’t very flattering to the Slatterys—of all people, the Slatterys!—and a fuckhead remark in any case. So he has to double back and explain, or make a show of explaining. Can’t tell the truth, has to invent a plausible-sounding truth. Not what the past two days have been precisely but what they’ve been in the abstract, sheer confusion and hell, humiliation, anxiety, helplessness—“And there’s more to come. I don’t know how much more of it I can take, but there’s more to come.”
“Corky, what on earth is it? You’re scaring me.”
Corky’s sitting hunched over on the edge of his rumpled bed vigorously scratching his head, his chest, his lumpy belly like a chimp with fleas. Reaches inside the tight elastic waistband of his shorts scratching. His pubic hair, his limp and alarmingly clammy testicles. Maybe in fact he has fleas. Lice? He’s stammering and stumbling not knowing what to say, of course it was a mistake to make such an admission to Sandra Slattery as to virtually any woman, must be a half-deliberate mistake inviting the woman’s solicitude and considerable warmth, every woman a potential mother, and a potential lover if not a wife in reserve. (Is Vic listening in to this conversation? Corky, who believes his friend a man of near-absolute integrity, certainly the most honest man of Corky’s wide and dubious acquaintance, nonetheless thinks this might be a possibility.) He tells Sandra it’s a personal crisis, something he’d rather not discuss, which only piques Sandra’s curiosity the more, and stokes her female compassion, and this in turn weakens Corky who’s dangerously close to losing it breaking down entirely like a hysterical woman confiding in Sandra his anxiety about Thalia, what Thalia has done, what the fuck’s he going to do about Thalia, yes but he can’t expose her for Christ’s sake, no more to his friends than to the police. He can’t, won’t. He’s got to protect her. Thalia’s vulnerable having broken the law and Corky’s for sure not going to report that: not just the theft of the Luger but she’s obviously carrying it on her person, a concealed firearm, the New York State statute’s rough even for first-time offenders, a mandatory two years in prison!—two years! The possibility of Thalia being arrested, booked, actually imprisoned, makes Corky feel faint and he loses the thread of his own subterfuge.
There’s a pause. Then, gently as if she’s reaching down inside Corky’s shorts, past his lumpy belly and prickly pubic hair, to take hold of his genitals, gently, so very gently, not as a sexual overture so much as a gesture of sheer female solicitude, and knowing by instinct where to take hold most cunningly, Sandra asks, “Corky, what is it?—you sound so unlike yourself.” And Corky’s in a paralysis of misery wanting to confide in this woman wanting to bury his face against her breasts, he deserves some sympathy himself for Christ’s sweet sake, yes and some pity, but how can he speak of his stepdaughter without betraying her? and how so much as hint of her wild accusations against Vic without betraying Vic?—so soon after Marilee Plummer’s death, this would be an unforgivable insult Corky can’t bring himself to make against his friend. For there’s a bond of maleness that does not so much repudiate the female as transcend her: the anxious intimacy of brother-rivals who dare never accuse one another of any manly sin for fear of being expelled irrevocably from that intimacy.
So Corky says, like a man in a falling elevator rushing to speak before it crashes, “—I’m in love with a woman I thought loved me, and it’s over—I feel like shit—since Friday—oh Jesus, Sandra, I really loved her and it blew up in my face and I’ve come to the end of something—” sobbing appalled at his own sudden helplessness and unable to stop like his heart’s truly broken, poor Corky Corcoran and he hadn’t known that fact until now.
4
Corky Gears Up
Never race a train Timothy Patrick Corcoran used to say with a droll twist of his mouth suggesting the futility and self-destructiveness of such a maneuver, but now Corky’s wondering if the remark also means only race vehicles you’re sure you can beat.
“Anyway I’ll try.”
He spends the brief remainder of Sunday morning preparing for action. It’s an emergency situation with Thalia, he thinks, but he can’t act without thinking, he can’t get desperate and further fuck things up.
At least, the shock of it, discovering the Luger gone, and the lucky call from Sandra Slattery, has had the effect of sobering Corky up.
(It’s a lucky call, coming when it did, and Corky doesn’t care to consider the circumstances of the call, he’s dismissed the possibility there are reasons other than friendship for Sandra’s having made it, fuck such suspicions. He’ll clear things up with Vic when he sees him tonight. Vic would never lie, nor even distort the truth, to him. Sure Corky feels like an asshole breaking down crying over the phone but Sandra was tactful, didn’t pry out of him the identity of his lover, which in his weakened state Corky might have revealed, only exacted from him the promise that he’ll come have dinner with her and Vic tonight—“Just the three of us.”)
Now fully sober, and determined to remain so, Corky takes a cool shower and shaves carefully steadying his right hand with his left avoiding his bloodshot eyes in the mirror, in fact his entire face is showing symptoms of being bloodshot, but he continues calmly swallowing down two more Bufferins and another time he gargles and cleanses his mouth to rid himself of the taste of a colossal drunk and its aftershock. Rehearsing I am an alcoholic, I’m here to get help which is what he’s heard the AA people ask of you. Why’s it supposed to be a tough admission to make I am an alcoholic I need help, Corky’s thinking it will be a snap, like Dave Winfield hitting that homer: the crack! of the ball and its beautiful trajectory out above center field and into the stands and the Brownian movement of the spectators in the stadium leaning inward toward the ball’s flight, drop—and that beautiful too, like a flower’s petals closing. At least, for Corky, alone in his bathroom whistling through his teeth grooming himself for the day, rehearsing the words is a snap.
Shit, thinks Corky—I should’ve bet the Jays would win the World Series too, while I was at it.
Next combing his damp hair as flatly somber as he can. Dressing then not showily today, as if he’s of a mind to attend mass (but he can’t: the last mass for the day, everywhere in Union City, is at noon), but as modestly as his wardrobe allows—white cotton shirt and cufflinks, pl
ain beige-linen tie, tan sport coat and trousers. Before leaving his bedroom he gives in to the need, though he knows it’s futile, to search for the missing gun another time, maybe Thalia played her sucker of a step-Daddy a prank by hiding it in his sock drawer or in the crotch of his silk designer pajamas or in a pocket of a sport or suit coat in his closet—but no. Don’t get excited, and don’t get hot. Corky replaces the table drawer, replaces the alarm clock which is still whirring away, no stopping it, the red minute hand circling the fixed point at the center, now 11:38 A.M.
Still, now his hangover’s lifted and he’s freshened up he’s feeling what you’d call guardedly optimistic.
Downstairs Corky takes the time to brew fresh coffee and even to drink some fruit juice steeling himself against a moment of gagging, he’s whistling “Angel Eyes” thinking of last night’s decision to buy The Bull’s Eye not wanting to think it’s a mistake and beyond a mistake a mystification, why does Corky Corcoran do the wild impulsive things he does, it’s as if another man makes these decisions, yes but Corky is the man—isn’t he? The Jesuits used to warn of the “influence of the Devil” but in their ambiguous jargon you couldn’t tell really is there a Devil or isn’t there. But there is freedom of the human will. The “age of reason” is only seven years, meaning once you have your seventh birthday you’re on your own and responsible. Meaning you can condemn yourself to Hell and have only yourself to blame.
The Bull’s Eye!—Corky’s heart leaps at the prospect. Sure, the place needs extensive renovations, probably a new kitchen, new plumbing, new wiring, new floor, but that knockout bar! the mirrors! the diner! yes and the location, crummy at first glance, might be made into an asset, there’s the Downtown Refurbishing Project that’s been languishing in a City Council committee for the past year stalled by some Charter code-law and maybe, just maybe, Corky Corcoran and one or two other Council members friendly with the Mayor can get on the committee and push the project through and fuck the Charter, it’s been done before and by both sides, Slattery and anti-Slattery and Corky’s thinking it’s our turn now and if it isn’t a deal can be struck and if it’s struck off the record—no record in the official minutes—the Journal reporter assigned to the City Hall beat won’t know shit about it. And if the Refurbishing Project gets funded, and that much of that section of South Main razed and rebuilt, The Bull’s Eye will be worth a lot more than $460,000 in a few years. Won’t it?
Right now though Corky’s got to think of covering his ass to the tune of $138,000. By Wednesday. Maybe Ross Drummond would lend it, the old man’s been bellyaching he never sees Corky anymore since the divorce. I think of you as a son, Corky, not just a son-in-law, O.K. now’s your chance Pops to help me out.
It must’ve been a wild scene last night at The Bull’s Eye—Corky negotiating with Chantal Crowe amid the jazz. The sly bitch maybe thinks she put something over on Corky Corcoran but Corky Corcoran’s a man you don’t fuck with.
Owing money is like lice in the crotch no matter how hard you scratch but fuck that somber counsel, Corky’s all grown up now.
Fat Sunday edition of the Journal, weighs a ton, and mostly crap—Corky tosses away the full-color advertising sections, the comics he sets aside for later, real estate and business, sports. Quickly scanning the front page seeing there’s no new news of Marilee Plummer, funeral’s this afternoon at 4 P.M., a “private ceremony.” No new news of Marcus Steadman who’s still in hiding in Shehawkin. Can’t blame the bastard. Corky can imagine himself in hiding too, someday. His picture in the paper, front page: City Councilman Jerome Corcoran.
Arrest? Indictment? Obituary?
Multimillion-dollar deal clinched?
Most of the news is depressing as usual, just as well Corky doesn’t have time to read it this morning, neo-Nazi firebombs in Germany, more fighting and killing in that remote region Bosnia, what’s that got to do with us, and, God damn, yet another item on that local motherfucker-creep Nickson who fed his baby to the dog, Family Services checked him and his wife out only a week before the atrocity, and there’s a photo of George Bush with his sappy-phony PR grin and dumb-fuck eyes accepting an honorary degree from Princeton University, and a long feature on this weirdo Texas billionaire Ross Perot—CLINTON KNOCKED OFF COURSE BY RISING TIDE FOR PEROT.
Just what the Democrats need, Corky thinks, clenching his fists, twelve years in the shithouse and now some kooky third-party spoiler comes along to fuck things up.
Corky shoves that section of the paper aside, he’s had enough. Reads about yesterday’s game in Detroit, the Blue Jays flying high in first place in the league, nice photo of Dave Winfield slamming the ball out of the park, some things do turn out O.K. That’s what God made American sports for: to compensate for the rest of the shit.
Caffeine in his blood so he’s getting charged, geared up, his first call’s to Charlotte, can’t forestall it any longer, she answers on practically the first ring and must be in a rare mood not immediately reproaching him for not having called but actually saying, “Oh!—Corky!” forgetting to call him “Jer-ome” so Corky thinks, That’s sweet, but has to tell her the bad news: Thalia did show up yesterday, and Corky did try to talk to her, but—And Charlotte interrupts, “Oh my God, what? She stole your Luger?” and Corky says quickly, “Not so loud, I don’t think we want anybody to know, do we?” and Charlotte says, alarmed, stammering, “—Oh my God, oh Corky, oh what are we going to do,” and Corky says, “Don’t get hysterical, I’ve got a plan,” but Charlotte as usual isn’t listening running at the mouth, “—How could you! That gun! Where was it, in the bedroom? In that drawer? Is it loaded? Oh God is she—suicidal, do you think?” and Corky says, “I—don’t think so,” and Charlotte lashes out, “What do you mean, you don’t ‘think’ so?” and Corky says, trying to remain calm, picking his nose, “Charlotte, honey, I don’t know, I don’t think she is, I think probably it’s one of her ruses, you know how she is, these attention-getting stunts,” which isn’t what Corky exactly means to say, he’s vulnerable and Charlotte leaps in outrage saying, “‘Stunts’! How can you! When she almost died of anorexia, was that a ‘stunt’?” and Corky, beginning to lose it, temples pulsing, says, “Look, it was a stunt, that kind of behavior is stunt behavior, no matter it was almost fatal, stunts can be fatal, that’s all I meant,” and Charlotte says, “My God, you’re so unfeeling, I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” and Corky says, “Don’t start attacking me, we don’t have time right now to attack me, O.K.?—this is an emergency situation,” and Charlotte says, breathless, “I’ll go to her! I’ll find her! I’ll bring her home with me—I’ll make things right between us!” and Corky says, wiping a slick clot of snot on Ross Perot’s squinty-beaming photo, “Sure, honey, but where are you going to find her? I couldn’t find her all day yesterday and the day before,” and Charlotte says, “Isn’t she—that place on Highland—” and Corky says, and what pleasure in this witty sarcasm, “That’s the one certain thing about your daughter, as of this moment: 8397 Highland is the single place she isn’t.”
So Charlotte shuts up for a while and lets Corky talk, it’s his plan to make some calls and try to track Thalia down, he’ll leave messages for her, and Charlotte should do the same, but nothing hysterical, remember Thalia loves to stir things up, yes she’s a serious young woman and she’s certainly an intelligent young woman but she’s also an exhibitionist, Corky’s tempted to add like her mother except that’s not fair, maybe—practically every woman Corky’s ever known except the homely ones are exhibitionists, and even some of them. Charlotte seems to accept this. (There’s a soft snuffling sound on the line: is she crying?) Hesitantly, she brings up the subject of the police, and they both agree the police should remain out of this, God, if this got in the news! and tied in somehow with Marilee Plummer’s death! and Corky says, “Don’t tell anybody, even Gavin, O.K.?” and Charlotte says, in a faint, sardonic voice, “Oh don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” so Corky’s left to wonder pleasantly what that means. He’s about
to hang up when Charlotte says, in that sudden afterthought way of hers that means really she’s been planning it all along, “Jerome, will you drop by? Sometime today? Regardless of whether you locate Thalia? I’d just like to see you,” and Corky says, flattered but wary, “Well, maybe,” and Charlotte says, not begging because that isn’t her style, but urgent enough, “I’d just like to see you, we need to talk, mainly it’s Thalia but it’s other things too, don’t you feel the same way? I’ll be home all afternoon,” and Corky says uneasily, “Look, don’t wait around for me, you know how things are,” and Charlotte says, “I didn’t say I’d be waiting around for you, I said I’d be home all afternoon in case you drop by, is that too much of an encroachment upon your precious bachelor freedom?” hanging up the receiver just hard enough to make Corky wince.
By this time he’s been picking his nose so furiously he’s started a minor nosebleed.
Corky’s strangely stirred by the conversation with Charlotte, doesn’t love the woman any longer and for sure isn’t in love with her but . . . it’s weird, it’s unsettling, how deep some connections go. Like trees whose roots have grown together underground. It’s the last place in the world Corky’s going to drop by today, the million-dollar house Charlotte and her third husband Gavin Pierson own in Chateauguay Falls, he’d rather return to the fucking morgue than wind up there, that heavy neurotic bitch, that lying manipulative cunt, no thanks! But hearing her cry just now, envisioning her face crinkled and about to dissolve Corky’s baffled at his own response. Or maybe it’s Thalia, the riddle of Thalia between him and Charlotte, as if in fact somehow beyond his reckoning and certainly beyond his wish or desire Thalia is his daughter, and so his responsibility.
What I Lived For Page 40
