The Day I Died

by Lawrence Lariar

  “A penny for your thoughts, Susie,” George Brokaw said.

  “There goes Sad Eyes,” Miss Cumber said.

  “Coyle, isn’t it? He walks okay.”

  “His leg is fine.”

  “He’ll never really lose that limp completely,” George said. “I was talking to Hartnett about his case.”

  “I know,” Miss Cumber said. “I’m not worried about his leg. I hope he has just as little trouble with his head … He’s depressed, George.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “He talked quite a bit about suicide. And once he tried it. Off the roof, up near the sun deck. I pulled him back just in time. Before you came to Camberton.”

  “Forget about it,” George laughed. “He probably knew you were around at the time. The big talkers never really take the leap, Susie.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Miss Cumber said, turning to level her eyes at him, remembering whole passages out of books on the subject and trying for a reasonable quote. The risks are greatest when the patient is in the convalescent stage. As he becomes capable of activity, he can carry out plans that he may have entertained for weeks.” (Affect (Mood) Disorders, in A Handbook of Psychiatry, by Lichtenstein and Small, her mind told her.) “Suicidal talk is serious talk. Tom’s been happy lately, but that’s exactly what bothers me. The so-called ‘smiling depression,’ when a patient masks his mood with a thin veneer of cheerfulness, is a danger signal. It could mean that Coyle has already made up his mind on a dangerous course of action. Agitated patients who for no reason show a marked improvement almost overnight should be watched most carefully.”

  “You’re quoting again, chapter and verse,” George said, and uptilted her chin. “Does Linden agree with you?”

  “Don’t be snippety,” Miss Cumber said with mock petulance. “If you want to be a really good doctor someday, better stop laughing at psychiatry, George Brokaw.”

  “Touché,” smiled George. “But what does Linden say?”

  “Linden was worried too. He’s had long talks with Tom—and he’s told Tom what the score is.”

  “Is that smart?”

  “Linden knows what he’s doing. The depressed patient should be told frankly that from a medical standpoint he’s ill and a potential source of harm to himself.”

  George held her shoulders and said: “Come on, Miss Freud. How about you and me grabbing a quick cup of coffee downstairs? I’ve got all kinds of Freudian ideas about tonight.”

  She started toward the stairs with him, but paused to look over her shoulder once more, at the little yellow sign that said BUS STOP. And in that moment, the bus roared into view and the door flipped open and Coyle stepped up and inside. She saw him for a tick of time, his silhouetted figure looking away from the hospital and then he was being carried away, toward the north, up and out of her life into a world of his own …

  CHAPTER 7

  This was a new and startling world, all of it; the size of the city and the rush of noises and the unceasing activity. Even late at night there were people pushing and shoving to enter the movie houses. Tonight this theatre seemed bigger and higher, much higher than anything Coyle had ever experienced before.

  He was in the balcony, watching a movie that had something to do with a typical Hollywood detective who talked out of the side of his mouth to a very blonde girl. She was very pretty and held her shoulders back when she walked. The figures down there swam in a misted aura of unreality and Coyle only enjoyed the images on the screen when the blonde appeared. She reminded him of Ellen Gardiner, not her figure or her face, but some quality in her voice.

  Thinking of Ellen lifted his mind away from the screen and back to the first day of his arrival in New York.

  Why had he searched for Ellen Gardiner?

  He had hunted down Ellen’s cousin, a Camberton boy named Charlie Burkett who lived over in Staten Island. Charlie would know all about Ellen’s whereabouts and they could discuss her casually, because he and Charlie were old friends, in the same class at high school, and later part of the gang on the block. He could talk to Charlie about Ellen and it would mean nothing to Charlie, only a friendly interest in an old girl friend.

  But Charlie was away on a selling trip when Coyle arrived. Charlie’s wife was as helpful as she could be about giving him information about Ellen. But she could not answer the important questions. Was Ellen happy? Charlie’s wife only knew that Ellen was a young widow now, her husband, Jim Higgins, dead in a plane crash. Ellen was still in Florida. She owned a small restaurant in a town called Miramar, near Miami Beach. The Dunes, it was called. The talk about Ellen soon ran out because Charlie’s wife had never really known Ellen very well.

  On the way back to New York on the ferry, Coyle felt like a damn fool for making the trip to Staten Island. He told himself that he was playing the old role of high-school lover boy, bathing himself in sticky sentiment and foolish memories whenever he thought of Ellen. He was aware that he would be mooning over her later tonight while struggling for sleep. She would be with him as a strong and disturbing picture, adding torture to his sleeplessness.

  The long nights in New York had taken much weight off his already lean and bony body and he dreaded the moment when sheer fatigue would force him back to the quiet rooming house in Brooklyn. He had established a routine for each evening, beginning with the subway ride uptown to the Rebus and the talk with Willis, the bartender, across the streets from Florian’s.

  Masterson! The business of waiting for Masterson became a painful pastime. In the beginning, Coyle went out into the metropolis during the daylight hours, in search of cultural pleasures, the things of the spirit and the soul that he had always yearned to find in New York City; the galleries and the parks and the monuments and the libraries and the exhibitions. He was seeking to forget Masterson during the day. Yet, at every turn, in all his waking moments, Masterson came alive and held his mind away from all reality.

  Masterson was here there and everywhere. Masterson appeared in the Metropolitan Museum, a relentless specter who might have been painted by Titian or Goya, a nobleman in court costume, a grinning mask in a shadowed etching. He was haunted by the teasing image of the man, and he found the faceless mask of Masterson an irritant and a stimulant that would not let him rest. His anxiety allowed him little peace and he wandered the streets aimlessly until the strain of his limping meanderings forced him to find relaxation in the movie houses. But even now, in a cheap and unconvincing melodrama, he saw the kingpin villain on the screen as the mysterious Masterson. Was Masterson cruel and vicious? Was Masterson ugly and scarred? Was Masterson short and apelike, a snarling caricature of crime and vice who ruled the underworld with cruel henchmen, like the growling fiend who at this moment barked commands down there on the screen?

  Coyle laughed out loud, suddenly.

  Somebody whispered: “Ssshhhh!” and Coyle tightened in his seat and tried to forget that his laughter had stemmed from an uncontrollable source. At times like this he seemed surrounded by a sea of eyes, all of them looking at him as though he might be the center of interest, instead of the movie on the screen down there.

  “Pretty corny, isn’t it?”

  There was a girl sitting alongside him. Before this, he had assumed that she was with an escort, but now the accidental pressure of her leg against his seemed purposeful. He squinted through the gloom, trying to determine the outline of her face.

  “They seem to be all alike,” Coyle said. “Easy to guess.”

  “That’s the truth,” the girl said. She fumbled in her bag and held out a pack of cigarettes. “Chesterfield?”

  “No thanks. I just finished one.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She lit her cigarette, holding the match for a long time so that she could see what he was like. In the flash of light Coyle had time to catch a fleeting glimpse of her face. What color was her hair? And her
eyes? Did it matter? She was the first girl he had met in New York, the first stranger to make a kind gesture. In his groping loneliness, she became important to him now. The match went out. In the darkness, she faded into a shapeless blur, with only the smell of her personal perfume to remind him that she was sitting quite close to him, her elbow pressing his with an insistent, purposeful contact. She leaned forward to stare down at the screen.

  “The same old corn,” she said. “I’ll bet the big guy did it.”

  “You and me both,” Coyle laughed.

  “A fine thing, watching a murder movie and guessing the ending. It’s a waste of time, sort of.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Coyle said. “Why don’t we go somewhere and have a drink?”

  “It’s an idea. I don’t really want to see the end of it.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  She got up and squirmed her way toward the aisle and stood there waiting for him. It was too late to change his mind about her and he snaked after her and followed her down the steep steps to the corridor and into the lobby beneath the balcony. She stood near the mirror, primping and fussing with her hair. He walked slowly toward her, observing that she was quite pretty in a hard, soulless sort of way. Who she was and where she came from did not interest him in this moment of his first appraisal. She was friendly and warm and he could talk to her and perhaps sleep with her later on. He took her arm and enjoyed her quick smile and led her downstairs and around the corner to a bar he had visited before.

  It was a quiet place and they sat at a corner table and had a few drinks. The liquor warmed his insides and he observed that she could handle as much as he did without getting giddy or boisterous. They smoked a few cigarettes and talked about New York. She swung the conversation around to hotels and began to tell him about the place where she lived.

  “The Brannington, over on the East Side,” she was saying. When she smiled there was a flick of silver high up on the right side of her mouth. “It isn’t the Waldorf, but it’s home for me.”

  “I wish I’d met you sooner,” Coyle said. “I can’t say that I’m crazy about my place in Brooklyn. Boarding-house.”

  “Not for me,” she laughed. “I can’t stand landladies. I’ll bet anything you’ve got a landlady.”

  She laughed again and the sound of her amusement baffled him. Who did she remind him of? Her eyes were brittle and impersonal, the aimless and empty look of the professional tart. Yet she had a certain warmth, a basic flow of good nature and femininity. And Coyle wanted her with him tonight. More than anything else he wanted to want her, to forget about everything but his hunger for companionship.

  “You don’t have any landlady at the Brannington?”

  “I don’t even have a landlord over there. That’s what I like about it. My room is my own, all hours.”

  “You must have lots of company.”

  “I have it when I want it.”

  “And when do you want it?”

  “I’m always sociable, Sad Eyes.”

  “What?” Coyle asked sharply. “What did you say?”

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked.

  “You called me something.”

  “Sad Eyes.”

  “What for?”

  “Because that’s how they hit me,” the girl said softly. She rubbed his hand and then held it. “You’ve got awfully nice eyes. But definitely sad.”

  Coyle did not feel her hand. His mind rocked and rolled into the past. Sad Eyes? It took him back to the Camberton hospital and Miss Cumber and the afternoon when she first said that name. He had been on his way to the toilet and he wasn’t supposed to be snooping, but the whispered edges of their dialogue struck his listening ear and held him to the wall where they could not see him. Miss Cumber was mumbling something about Sad Eyes in a tone of voice that held him frozen at the wall. And he remained there, a trembling eavesdropper, hating himself for what he was hearing; the soft pity surrounding Sad Eyes and what Miss Cumber and the doctor thought of him. The picture was clear enough to make him shiver now. But where was his mind taking him as he swallowed his drink and watched this girl? Why was his hand trembling on hers? He was shaking because this girl reminded him of Marge, that was it. She was dark and trim, the way Marge was on the night he drove her to her doom. And the awful sweep of his fear and guilt forced him to look away from the girl across the table.

  And he was standing up and saying: “I’ve got to go now.”

  “What for?” the girl asked. “Anything wrong? You look as white as a sheet, Sad Eyes. Sit down and let the drinks wear off.”

  “I can’t,” Coyle said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry, too. I thought you and me could have some fun.”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  He pushed at the chair and it made a jarring, grating sound, so that the man at the bar turned and stared at him. Was the girl laughing? Coyle couldn’t make himself turn to face her. She was Marge and he must run from her. Her hand went up for his, but he shook it off and began to walk to the door.

  And then he was out on the street and walking quickly toward Broadway and the overpowering glow of the lights, the people moving around him in great soundless waves of motion. He avoided their faces, staring up at the great signs in an effort to forget Joey Bader and the two girls on Chicopee Hill. The ruse did not work. He headed across town and slowed his steps and ambled through the dark streets. His feet echoed along the dead pavements and he continued to walk until he reached the downtown section of New York and realized that he was headed for the Rebus again.

  He arrived when the stabbings of pain were climbing up his leg. Willis nodded to him and reached for the Scotch bottle, an automatic gesture, because Coyle always drank the same brand night after night. Coyle had little to say to Willis tonight, only anxious to drink away the memories of the night at Valdido’s. He wanted to get drunk in a hurry, so that when he arrived at the boardinghouse in Brooklyn he would be able to sleep easily, and that would mean at least five Scotches, one after the other until the remembered scene on Chicopee Hill might slide out of focus and the sickening memory of Joey and Claire and Marge fade into nothingness …

  CHAPTER 8

  There was always some disturbance at the Rebus for Coyle; tonight, the colors behind the bar. They stung his eyes and made him look away, through the window and across the street to Florian’s. The lights over the Rebus bar were shimmering and sharp. There was a hidden electrical display somewhere behind the long glass. Under it? Coyle studied the array of bottles up on the shelf: Cherry Heering, Grand Marnier, Benedictine, Aquavit. His glance hesitated always at the last bottle; no color, no substance behind the glass, an empty bottle, maybe? The Aquavit fascinated him. He saw it as a symbol of his own personality and smiled sadly at the fleeting thought. There was a shell around him, a body and a label. The label would be his clothes, the suit and shoes and tie and shirt that stamped him as masculine and a personality. This was the label. And a knife through his skin would bring the blood, in the way that the cracked glass might spill the Aquavit. But the bottle itself was colorless and dull and it made no sense to a drinker because you could not imagine the taste of the stuff inside. There was no clue to the eye, no color to suggest the bite of it. He remembered the sting and the weight of the liquor, a powerful brew …

  “A fresh one, Coyle?”

  There was another drink before him and Coyle watched the Scotch pour over the ice in the tall glass. The bartender was humming something through his teeth, a tune that was lost in the greater din from the juke box over in the corner. Coyle felt trapped in a closet of noise.

  The bartender slid away toward the rear. Now he was alone at the bar, contemplating the bubbles in the glass.

  Below Coyle’s eyes, a chrome ash tray wooed him away from the bubbles and h
e gave himself up to following the reflections of Willis, a small and squirming figure on the slick surface of the metal. The image was loose and liquid, like a swimmer in deep, clear water, seen from the sanded bottom of a crystal pool. Coyle shut his eyes against it to close away the vivid thought of suicide by drowning, so bright a picture that his breath came pounding from his throat.

  A sick and weakening wave of loneliness swept over him and he pushed the highball glass away from him so that he could rest his head on his hands for a moment.

  But Willis was tapping him awake.

  “Not here, Coyle. You want to sleep? I can fix you up upstairs.”

  “I’m all right,” Coyle said. Above him, the bartender was muttering sympathetically.

  “Maybe I better get you some coffee, kid,” Willis said. “I got some news for you.”

  “Stuff it,” said Coyle.

  Willis looked down at him with some surprise. It was the first time Coyle had sounded off, the first time in a couple of weeks of waiting for Masterson. “Listen,” Willis said quietly. “If you wasn’t a pal of Joey Bader’s, you know where you’d be this minute? Out on your can, in the street, Coyle.”

  “What’s that? What about Joey?”

  Willis shook his head hopelessly. He was an expert at reckoning the comparative distances between sanity and alcoholic abandon, He went quickly to the side of the bar and shouted something down the hall toward the kitchen. Coyle stared at him angrily, wondering why he had dropped away after mentioning Joey’s name. Then a waiter came out with a tray and a small pot of black coffee and Willis poured some into a cup and slid the cup across the bar to Coyle.

  “Drink that and we’ll talk,” Willis said.

  “You said something about Joey Bader?”

  “Drink the coffee is what I said.”

  Everything was happening in a fog. In the beginning from the very first moment he had stepped into the Rebus, Joey’s name had guaranteed Coyle sanctuary and a certain amount of friendly companionship from Willis. This was another night in a chain of nights spent gawking across the street at Florian’s, and Coyle could not see any climax to his waiting for Masterson to show over there. It was like listening to a ball game from outside the park. Coyle reached convulsively for his wallet. He pulled it out and counted his cash blearily, unaware that Willis was smiling down at him. Coyle gulped the coffee and Willis gave him more of the same and part of the liquor sting began to die away, but not enough to make Coyle feel fully sober.