The Last of the Wise Lovers

by Amnon Jackont

  That means he must have made another one of his feline leaps - this time over half of Rockland County. Not only was he right beside me, but he had given me the advantage of seeing without being seen: Though his windshield was swept clean by windshield wipers, the back window of the bus was veiled by a film of rain and dust. I milked my advantage for all it was worth. I studied every line on his face, I learned every detail that I could see or imagine: light eyes; full, light, curly hair; a thin mouth; a large nose; glasses. He looked nice, completely non-threatening. He brought his hand up to his face - probably to cough his wheezy little cough, I thought - but he only spit a pink piece of chewing gum into his hand, then chucked it out of his window.

  The guy in the pick-up truck found finally drove on. So did the bus. The limo passed us in the parallel lane, and so did the Chevrolet. On the bridge, he changed lanes so as to stay with the bus; this abruptly aroused my anxiety.

  It began to rain harder. Port Authority wasn't far now, but even that short distance must have seemed long to him. First he vanished behind a truck and then he went down an alley that leads - I think - to 7th Avenue. I was sure we'd lost each other forever, but as the bus pulled into the station I caught a glimpse of the other end of the alley and of him coming out of it and pulling into a parking lot. I realized he was smarter than I'd thought, that he intended to meet me as I got off the bus.

  And that's what happened. I was the only passenger who had someone waiting for him. He stood under the clock in the main hall, watching the stairs. It was my second opportunity to get a really good look at him. It was hard to know whether Debbie had actually seen him or my Dad that night, but it would have been easy to confuse the two. They were the same height, had the same backward-tilt, as if they were leaning on something, and - either because of their profession or because they were Israeli - the same habit of keeping their hands in their pockets. Other than that, everything else about them was different - especially their facial expressions. Dad was tense when he didn't know what was about to happen, but this guy stared at me the way one stares at a fly that has lost a wing: with curiosity, but without concern.

  I left the station and started to walk down 41st Street. He was right there behind me. When 41st Street ended, we continued down 8th Avenue. 8th Avenue was so empty you could see clear to the end of it. I crossed the street, and he crossed after me. Again I stood at a crosswalk, waiting until all the other pedestrians had crossed. He waited patiently, too, some distance behind me. As soon as the traffic light turned green and the cars began to move, I ran across the street. For a moment I thought I'd succeeded; he stood on the curb where I had been a moment earlier, looking for me. A second later he spotted me on the opposite sidewalk and crossed the street.

  He wove dangerously, if cleverly, among the cars, estimating the distance between the cars in each lane and moving accordingly. I was so captivated by the way he did this that I didn't take proper advantage of the chance to get away. Only when he had made his last leap and landed on the edge of the sidewalk did I begin to run.

  He didn't chase me; he chose a pace that kept a constant distance between us. The professional way he followed me made me respect him, but also made me despair. It seemed he would stick to me forever.

  But I had one advantage over him: I knew the area like the back of my hand. A few streets later we came to an empty lot where I used to take a leak sometimes, on the way home from the library. About twenty cars were parked there, side by side. A little girl stood staring out of a window in the adjacent apartment building. I ducked behind one of the cars in the middle of the row. The girl giggled. The guy stopped outside the lot and stared. The girl started hopping up and down gleefully. I put my forefinger up to my lips, then pressed my palms together in a pleading gesture. The girl quieted down.

  The guy entered the lot and peeked behind the first car.

  "Cold, cold, cold...” the girl called. He went on to the second car. "Cold," she said. He went on to the third car, and then to the fourth, and the fifth. The little girl kept instructing him, "Cold." He stopped for a moment and looked at her. Then he continued on to the sixth car - the one behind which I was hiding. "Freezing!" the girl cried, "really freezing." He passed on to the seventh and eighth cars. I started to crawl back toward the street, past the fifth, fourth, and third cars.

  By this time the guy had reached the tenth car.

  "You're getting warmer," the girl announced. He lingered near the eleventh car, peering in the windows and jostling the chassis. "Hotter," the girl pronounced when he'd reached the thirteenth car and I'd moved back to the first, the one next to the sidewalk. When the girl cried "burning" (he had reached the fifteenth car) I waved goodbye and went out into the street. I glanced around the corner of the building one last time. The guy was pressing one foot on the fender of the next-to-last car as the little girl yelled, "You're burning up, mister, really burning!" I crossed the street and broke into a run.

  It's 7:00 p.m. I've been here for eighteen hours now, and I've spent most of them writing. There's not much left. Actually, maybe there is. It's hard to tell.

  Your guys are watching TV. I'd escape out the window, no sweat - if I didn't think you were the only one who could help us.

  THE EIGHTH NOTEBOOK

  I walked west. The farther I went, the fewer lights and the more people there were. Guys were selling crack in the stairwells; girls with black stockings and bras, pressed against the sides of the buildings, winked with the tips of their cigarettes. The opaque door to the Patrician Club looked like the back entrance to a warehouse. The light that glowed above the door made it seem so mysterious and threatening that I doubted whether I should go in without telling someone first.

  You were the only "someone" I could tell. There was a pay phone on the corner. I tried it. It was out of order. I walked on. I went three blocks before I found a working telephone. I only had one quarter, and I didn't feel like investing it in your answering service and its annoyingly polite operators. I dialed your apartment. I got the answering machine.

  "I wish I could talk to you," I said to the machine, "all this stuff has happened, and I'm in the city now...”

  "Ronny?" you broke in over the recording.

  I started to tell you how happy I was to be talking to you, at last, but you cut me off impatiently.

  "What's going on?" Then, perhaps to explain your rudeness, you said you were just on your way out and that you'd been very worried when you'd gotten my previous message, the one I'd left from the pay phone in East Neck about the Chevrolet that had been following me.

  I told you how I'd managed to get rid of him. I must have overdone it on the details a bit, because when I got to the part about the vacant lot and the little girl, you again showed your impatience. "Where are you now?"

  I told you the street number and said that I had something I was going to take care of at the Patrician Club.

  "What are you doing in a place like that?" you asked, appalled.

  At that point I knew nothing about the club, so I assumed you were referring to the neighborhood. I reminded you of my promise to K. and explained, "After all, Mom went out, and there was no sense in my staying home to guard an empty house...”

  I hoped that you'd see the logic in this and thereby also justify - in retrospect - the other things I'd done without telling you. But you were silent. Your dissatisfaction shot through the receiver like an electric current.

  Suddenly you said, "I don't want you to stay there."

  Again I explained my promise to K.

  "Sometimes in an emergency you're allowed to break your promises," you said.

  Boy oh boy, was that ever a relief. But this was a promise I felt obligated to keep. I had another reason, one I was certain would sound more convincing to you.

  "I think my slide is there."

  You said nothing. As the silence continued, I said: "Uncle Harry?"

  This time you didn't remind me to use, "Harry without the `uncle" like you always di
d, and you didn't say anything about the slide; you just repeated your request that I go home.

  The thought of that empty house made me miserable. The idea of the hotel didn't thrill me anymore, either. I could picture your study and the other rooms with their colorful objects and mementos, the smooth leather of the armchairs and the scent of the sample spices and medicinal herbs. Weakly I asked whether I could come sleep at your place.

  "What a shame," you said regretfully. "Actually, tonight I'm going out. Dorothy won't be here either. It's her night off... maybe some other night, like Erev Rosh Hashanah, after I get back from Temple...” There was another option: you could have left a key for me with the doorman; but you didn't offer and I was too embarrassed to ask. So I went back to the subject of Mom. I asked whether you'd managed to arrange something.

  You said not to worry, everything would work out fine, and asked again that I go right home. I said nothing. Your preachy tone of voice was beginning to get on my nerves. I wanted you to be a friend, not another father. After a pause you again asked me to promise that I would get out of there.

  I promised. I didn't have any intention of keeping the promise, but I was tired of arguing. You sounded a bit more relaxed, almost smug - and that made me uncomfortable. As I walked back toward the Patrician Club, I swore to myself that this would be the last promise I'd break. One more day, I vowed, just 24 hours later when I knew that everything had turned out all right, I'd speak only the truth, I'd make up with everyone I'd hurt in the last few days, and I'd straighten out my life.

  Near the entrance to the club two men were arguing out loud. Carefully I skirted them, took out the card and slid it through the slit under the sign "5:00 to 5:00". I didn't have to look at the rip in the lining where I'd scribbled the code. I remembered it: 1956. I typed it in. The lock clicked and the door sprang open. I pushed it and found myself opposite a red reception desk behind which stood a kid not much older than me in a Roman soldier's getup. There was a sign on the wall: "Entrance forbidden to those under 18 - even if accompanied by an adult". The kid narrowed his eyes and peered at me. I tensed up, thinking he was trying to guess my age, but he was only trying to see what was written on the plastic card. I held it out to him.

  "Thank you, sir," he said politely, as if I weren't wet, dirty, and mangy-looking.

  He passed the card through a slot in the computer in front of him. A few sentences appeared on the screen.

  "No messages," he said. It was impossible to see what was written from where I was standing, but there was a tension in his voice that alarmed me. He gave me back the card.

  "Where is the...” I started to ask.

  "Right this way." Mincing his steps, he danced around the counter, grasped my arm, and pointed to a wide door. "Over there."

  I went in the direction he'd pointed.

  "Sir," he called out.

  I turned back toward him.

  "You'll need this," he waved a see-through, plastic pouch on a string.

  I walked back over and took the pouch from him. Awkwardly, I turned it over from side to side. He smiled.

  "The card," he said, extending his hand with the same dance-like movement.

  I gave it to him, a little suspiciously. He opened the pouch with his long fingers and put the card inside it. Then he stood up on tiptoe and looped the string over my head. The flutter of his fingers over the hairs on the back of my neck tickled pleasantly. I took a hasty step backward. He giggled and went back behind his counter.

  I shoved the door. A completely different world stood behind it: A row of tropical trees made of rubber and cloth had been placed around a shallow pool. From the treetops came soft music and the twitter of birds. A picture of an ancient Roman city was painted on the walls. The play of light made it look almost real. Men were sitting in the water, on the edge of the pool, or in niches off to the sides. Some of them were dressed in short robes, others were naked. All of them looked relaxed and at ease, but there was tension in the air - like the kind that hangs over the showers in the school locker room after a baseball game. Everybody horses around as if they're not self-conscious, but inside they're hoping they look all right, compared to the others.

  That's when I realized where I was. My first impulse was to run. Then I considered that the lockers might be someplace else, outside, and that I might not need to pass by the pool and all those naked men to get to them. I went back and opened the door. The kid behind the counter was conspiring into a telephone receiver squeezed between his shoulder and his cheek. I cleared my throat. He looked up at me and stopped talking. Suddenly I recalled what Debbie had said. There was some truth in it. When I'm under pressure, I tend to see evil intent behind the most innocent actions.

  He said something short into the receiver, then put it down. The obsequious expression returned to his face.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "The lockers," I explained. "I just need to get something and get out of here." My voice sounded hard and gruff, maybe because I was trying to sound like I had nothing to do with the place.

  He picked it up. A look of hurt flashed beneath his polite mask. "Through there," he pointed again toward the pool.

  I went back inside. The floor was wet and the soles of my shoes squeaked. Even if they hadn't, I would have been the center of attention, as if the colorfulness of my clothing made me stand out against the uniform pinkishness of the others. All around I could hear the sound of conversation, even laughter, but I felt as if it were intended to disguise the interest in me. I tried to calm myself by thinking that it was still possible for them to assume I was on my way to my locker, to undress. But I knew that something in my step, or perhaps in my expression, gave away the fact that I wasn't one of them.

  I walked around the pool, through puffs of steam that emanated from the open mouths of stone lions. It was hard for me to imagine K. in this place. Had he been one of the ones who sat on the stone steps swishing their feet in the water? Had he been one of the couples who sat naked, back to back, reading the paper? Had he lain alone in one of the niches, shrouded in steam, drowsing inside his pain?

  The lockers were arranged in rows at the end of the room. There was a number on each locker, and a sign indicating the status of its owner. Some bore the sign "Member", and some the sign "Senior Member", while others bore signs that said "Candidate". Number 1956 was a member. The card was a bit damp despite the plastic pouch, but it opened the door.

  When I saw the contents I was sorry I hadn't brought a small suitcase with me. Some of the stuff - prescriptions and pharmacy receipts - I'd seen before in the pile that Miss Doherty had gone through on K.'s desk in the library. There were some other, unexpected things there: a pistol in a leather holster, soft boots with big buckles and steel-tipped toes, a mountain of old tricot shirts, a bomber jacket that looked much too big for K., a towel, two or three bars of soap, and thousands of little pill bottles of all kinds. There were colored jockey shorts, envelopes of photographs, and piles of letters bound by rubber bands. I laid the jacket out on the floor and pushed the rest of the stuff on top of it. I wondered whether to go home after all, to stash everything in the garage, and how much a cab would cost. As I was tying up the sleeves, someone behind me said, "Hi."

  I whirled around. He was tall, 30-ish, with a pleasant face and a shy smile - the type that earns trust. "You're new here," he declared.

  I said, "Uh... yes... no... I mean, sort of."

  He pointed to my clothes. "I walked around like that, too, the first time. I was older than you, but less in touch with my feelings...”

  I pushed the door shut with my foot.

  "I've got to go."

  "Sure," he took a step back.

  That's when I noticed the group of men watching us. They were all ages and all heights. It took everything I had not to stare. I'd never before had a chance to examine so many penises, and I hadn't realized they could be so different, so varied. I thought of K. Under no circumstances could I picture him here.

  "T
he locker," he said suddenly. "It's not yours, is it?"

  "No," I clutched the card tightly and swung the bundle over my shoulder.

  He looked at the overstuffed jacket. "Why hasn't he come?"

  "He's ill."

  A murmur passed through the crowd. I was afraid to turn my back on them. I strode backwards.

  "What's he got?"

  My shoes were soaked through. I looked down. I was standing in the middle of a puddle. I turned around and headed for the door. The guy trailed after me, and behind him all the others.

  "Where is he?"

  I stopped once more. Their need to know aroused my sympathy, but I couldn't help them.

  "I don't know," I said, and quickly walked out.

  The outside seemed cold and dank after the warmth of that room. The kid behind the counter studied the bundle slung over my shoulder, watching me as I walked toward the exit.

  "Sir," he said when I was halfway there.

  I turned around.

  He hesitated. "Someone asked that you wait here a moment."

  "Who asked?"

  "The owner of the locker, he called and asked that you meet someone who should get here any minute...”

  "He called?"

  "Someone called in his name. A woman." He motioned toward a small cloak room. "You can wait here."

  I peered inside. In the dimness I could make out two armchairs, a forest of naked hangers, and a shoe shine machine.

  "Five minutes," he cajoled.

  I took another step toward the door.

  "She said it was his request."

  How could I refuse? I went into the cloak room and plopped down on one of the armchairs, into the stench of stale cigarette smoke and ancient dust. The kid stood behind his counter, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and glancing now and again at his watch. A few minutes later, just as my patience was beginning to wear thin, someone knocked on the door.