Seventh Avenue

by Norman Bogner

  “Visiting privileges? He’s my kid . . . I love him. He’s a baby. It would be deserting him.”

  Her face colored angrily, and she slammed the table with her fist, but no one in the club heard because the band was exploding through something loud and martial, and the girls were dressed in drum majorette costumes.

  “What about my little girl? Jay, it can’t work this way . . .”

  “Listen, I don’t want to argue. We’re supposed to be having a good time.”

  “Jay, don’t you understand? I’ve given up everything for you . . . I can’t go on living in a hotel,” she said with tears streaming down her face. “I don’t want to spend my life as your personal piece of ass. Monday to Thursday.”

  “I don’t like that kinda talk,” he said, pouring himself a huge drink.

  “I’ve got to have something to hope for . . . a future.” She took out the thousand-dollar bill and crumpled it on the table. “Would you give me this if I was your wife? It’s conscience money. I’m grateful to you for the business chance . . . it’s what I always wanted. But there’s got to be more.”

  “Can’t Lorna live with you?”

  “That means my mother as well. No, it wouldn’t work.”

  He stretched out to touch her, and she let him.

  “Be honest with me. Have we got any future? Because if we haven’t, you’ve got to tell me now.”

  “Sure we do. But I can’t get rid of Rhoda right now.”

  “But will you? Ever?” she insisted.

  “Yes, I will, but not now.”

  A man came up behind them and slapped Jay on the back, right between the shoulder blades. He lurched forward, and Eva stared blankly. Her face was seamed with running make-up, and the man opened his mouth in astonishment when he caught sight of her.

  “Oh, gee, sorry.”

  Jay turned around angrily.

  “Hey, I was right,” the man said. “It is Jay, or do my eyes deceive me?”

  Jay glared at Howard, then gave Eva a furtive glance.

  “I’m with that party of guys, and I thought I caught sight of you.”

  Howard pulled up an empty chair and sat down heavily.

  “My brother-in-law, Howard Gold,” Jay said in a reedy voice. “This is Eva Meyers.”

  Howard looked from one to the other uneasily.

  “Eva’s my designer,” Jay said.

  “Oh, well. Glad to meet you.” He addressed Eva, as though Jay was in need of an interpreter. “Hard man to get in touch with . . . That’s what happens when you’re successful.” His eyes turned starry, and his manner was reverential towards Jay, “I’ve been trying to speak to you all week, but I guess you’re never any one place long enough to get messages.”

  Jay poured Howard a long shot, and Howard’s gaze fixed itself on the bottle of scotch that he reckoned must have cost by his standards at least a week’s salary. He had never had anything stronger than beer in a nightclub: who could afford to? Howard held the glass with an emotion bordering on awe.

  “That’s the thing we all admire about you, Jay. You know how to live. Everything first class . . . you want something, you go out and get it. Not many people can do what you’ve done.”

  “Did you want something special?” Jay asked. Howard’s adulation bored him.

  “Well, strictly speaking I hoped to speak to Rhoda, ‘cause it’s not your problem.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Oh, I don’t want to break up your evening.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “It’s Myrna, see?”

  “What about her?”

  Howard paused and smiled meekly at Eva, who said she had to go to the ladies’ room to repair her makeup. When she had gone, Jay explained that Eva had been overwhelmed by the new job he had offered her and had cried.

  “I really don’t know how to begin . . . it’s such a strange situation. Myrna’s always been a little peculiar. She was the artist of the family. Oh gee, Jay, I wish we saw you more often than we do. A while ago, around the time Neal was born - that was the last time we saw you - she came home one night and hasn’t left the house since. What with all the trouble you and Rhoda’ve had with Neal, no one wanted to tell you. Myrna just stays in her room and mopes around the house. Finally, last week, she put all the gas jets on, and when Poppa came in, he found her unconscious. They came for her in an ambulance, and she’s been under observation ever since. The doctor had Poppa and me in the other day and said she ought to be put in an institution. She’s only high-strung.

  “He says - oh, I don’t know what they call it - that she’s a danger to herself and that maybe if she’s given proper treatment she’ll recover and maybe not. We didn’t know what to do, so Poppa said I had to ask Rhoda what she thought we should do, and I said, if anyone could solve the problem it would be you, so he asked me to call you, because he was too embarrassed.”

  Slowly Jay came out of the haze of alcohol. He wondered if Myrna had told them anything, and if this was some kind of trick to implicate him. The old man hated him and would probably like to discredit him.

  “I’m not sure what I can do. One thing though: she ought to get the best medical attention possible. Institutions are probably like jails.”

  “The private sanatoriums cost a fortune. None of us have that kind of money.”

  Jay extended his hand across the table and felt for the crumpled bill; he gathered it into the palm of his hand without Howard noticing.

  “Howard, if I do something, will you promise me one thing?”

  “I don’t want you to do anything. I need your advice, that’s all.”

  “My advice isn’t worth a damn. I’m no doctor.” He handed the bill to Howard, who accepted it reluctantly and held it up to the candlelight.

  “Look, nobody asked for charity, and ten dollars isn’t going to be much use.”

  “It’s not ten dollars,” Jay said quietly. “Here, have another drink.”

  “Oh, my God,” Howard exclaimed. “Christ, it’s not possible! Is it real?”

  “Why don’t you take it to a bank in the morning? They’ll tell you if it’s real or if I made it myself.”

  “How can I say I got it?”

  “You don’t have to say a thing. In a way, it’s Rhoda’s money as well - if she knew, she’d probably do the same thing.”

  Eva twisted through the tight web of tables. She was surprised to find Howard still there, but she forced a smile to her lips.

  “Not a word to anybody.” Jay helped Eva to her chair. “Howard’s just finishing his drink.” Jay had not counted on the degree of shock his gesture would create, and Howard began talking in a loud, excited voice, waving his arms wildly. A waiter came over and asked him to quiet down or leave.

  “He isn’t used to drinking,” Jay explained benevolently.

  The dance band came on, and Howard’s friends waved at him from the distance, but Howard ignored them. The force of Jay’s personality cast a spell over him, and he sat with his chin on his elbow, mesmerized by Jay’s most casual action.

  “They’re going without,” Eva said.

  “It’s okay, we don’t know each other really. Only met tonight . . . the ten of us won a charity raffle, and first prize was a night out at the Monte Carlo. I’ve spoiled your evening though.”

  “No, don’t be silly,” Eva said. His awkwardness and stark innocence reminded her vaguely of Herbie. Helpless and vulnerable they come into the world, she reflected, and they leave untouched. Harried little men, who worry about paying the laundry bill, eat Chinese food after a big evening out at the movies. Sad little men: the minnows of the world. Invariably stoop-shouldered, with sallow complexions, ten-year-old suits, ink stains on their cuffs, who shine their shoes diligently, wear darned socks, and have a holiday every thirty years. They make up ninety-nine percent of the world’s male population, and Eva knew them well; she had married one, borne his child, and apart from his legal identity, he was without identity, faceless, a gray body
of tired, defenseless flesh. For a moment, she hated Jay, for it was Jay - the one percent - who stormed the fortress of life, and reduced everything in his path to dust. It wasn’t Herbie who had been born faceless; it was Jay who had stolen his identity.

  “It’s like magic,” Howard droned, thick-tongued, his eyes alight with a flame that belonged to Jay and was brought out by Jay. “How a man makes out of nothing a fortune! It’s a mystery, isn’t it?” He whispered conspiratorially to Jay: “Tell me, please, tell me, what the secret is?” He didn’t wait for an answer but sought verification from Eva: “He’s a magician, isn’t he? That’s how he does it. Magic.” Sweat beads stood out on his forehead like bubbles on a stippled wall. “How? How?” he asked in an imploring voice.

  “I can’t tell you,” Jay said, after a moment’s silence. “No one’s ever told me. It just happens.”

  “Happens?” Howard was incredulous. “You make it happen, but how do you do it?”

  Jay took out a handkerchief and handed it to Howard.

  “Here, wipe your face.”

  It made Eva uncomfortable to watch him, and she said: “It’s getting late, and I’m a working girl.”

  Jay paid the bill, and they started to get up, but Howard remained in his seat, transfixed. In the glimmering candlelight his face appeared chalk white, bloodless and defeated. He arose with difficulty and veered against his chair, knocking it down.

  “Oh, I’m a little dizzy.” He closed his eyes and held the table for support. “I’m feeling . . .”

  Jay held his arm to prevent him from falling in the aisle.

  “I think I’m gonna . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, and his knees sagged. Jay caught him before he fell.

  “Okay, let’s go to the toilet. Lean on me.”

  “You hear that?” Howard shouted to Eva. “Prophetic words: ‘Lean on me.’“

  “Maybe you better hop a cab,” Jay said. “I’ll see you.”

  She shook her head obediently, her long red hair swinging from side to side as though she were trying to remember something. She leaned across Jay and kissed Howard on the cheek.

  “Good night, Herbie,” she said, and there was a moment of recognition between Jay and her.

  “I’ll drive him home . . .”

  She walked away quickly.

  “She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on, and she kissed me. Me! But she thought my name was Herbie. Isn’t that a joke, Jay?”

  The day broke bright and hot. A telephone by the bedside rang, and Jay stretched out an arm and lifted it off the cradle.

  “Six o’clock,” an all-night voice said. “You asked to be called.”

  He hung up the phone and rolled over on his side. Eva lay propped up on two pillows, like a kewpie doll. Her eyes were riveted to the gossamer lace curtains that caught the early morning breeze. Jay’s face was hot and his eyes small and red with deep graven half-moon circles under them.

  “You look like a bull,” Eva said.

  He had never been able to make the adjustment to sleeping with a naked woman, and although he thought he had learned everything there was to learn about every angle and curve of Eva’s body, it still never ceased to amaze him. She had the kind of finely textured skin like ancient parchment that he could stroke for hours, finding satisfaction in a purely obsessive, tactile way, so that when he came to make love to her it seemed to him that he was destroying, or perhaps abusing, the perfect image that existed for him.

  “You’re staring,” she said, as he sat on the side of the bed. “You can touch them. They’re yours to touch.”

  He leaned across the bed, bisecting it, his chest on her lap, and he kissed her breasts, ran his fingers along the soft underbelly, and kissed them again.

  “Your face is all prickly.”

  “I’ll never leave at this rate.”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  “I’ve got such a rotten taste in my mouth,” He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth with energy, then returned to the bedroom.

  “Why don’t you have a shave, then come back to bed?”

  “Best offer I’ve had all morning.”

  “The best one you’ll get.”

  He shook his head morosely . . . the denial of pleasure always made him act like a man on the verge of disaster. He wanted to have a bath, but decided against it because he would then catch the morning traffic.

  “Want me to come down and have breakfast with you?”

  “No, I’ll grab a cup of coffee at the drugstore. What are you gonna do all dressed at seven in the morning? You can sleep a few more hours, can’t you?”

  “Not really. Trouble is, you get used to sleeping with someone and if they’re not there, either the bed’s too hot, too cold, the sheet’s sticky, the street noise bothers you. A million and one stupid things.”

  He slipped on a pair of tan lightweight slacks and went back to the bathroom. The shave refreshed him, but he couldn’t shake his depression. It was 6:40, and he packed hurriedly. He couldn’t find his socks, so she got out of bed and located them in the back of a bureau drawer. She put in three pairs and stood in the center of the room by the luggage rack, with that curious disorientated expression people get when they’re faced with alternatives at railroad stations. He took her arm and turned her to him and hugged her.

  “Gets crazier by the day, the way I knock myself out. Like a man trying to balance both ends of a seesaw. What’s the point of it?”

  “Well, you’ve always got an out. You can drop me, and your life won’t be so complicated.”

  “Christ, you talk the most godawful shit at times.”

  “I’ve forced you into this situation.”

  “Listen, Eva, nobody forces me to do anything that I don’t want to do. Try to think of what’s ahead of you. You’ll be working with me . . . We’ll get straightened out, I promise.”

  She walked with him to the door and stood there for a moment after he had gone. Friday to Sunday was a long wait. Years! She closed the door when she heard a maid humming to herself. She felt suspended between two equidistant walls, and running from one to the other never had any effect on her proximity to the walls because she was running in concentric circles. She pulled up the window and watched him get into the car and drive away.

  “Seesaw/Marjorie Daw/Seesaw/Marjorie Daw,” she sang in a lifeless voice.

  “Haaa - peee Burrrth - daaay to you, Haaa - peee Burrth - daaay, Dear Nee - yell,” the cheeping children’s voices trilled, squeakily discordant, as Neal stood dizzily surveying the sapphire blue ocean liner on the table, its five candles flickering in the gust-filled room. He took a deep breath and the air crackled in his lungs as he expelled it. The candle smoke, like discharged guns on the top of an escarpment, filled the air with the reek of melted tallow. Faces, some familiar, some strange, flicked across his view with alarming suddenness - open faces with wagging tongues, fey smiles, and a monstrous number of teeth. Why did they have so many more teeth than he had? Why were some of them lined with gold and silver bands? The teeth came towards him, the face kissed him and held him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe, and the face had a funny smell, like the kind that cats have when they’re wet. He reached out and tried to capture his grandmother’s tooth, but it was cemented against her incisor and would not budge.

  “I want teeth,” he whined, and Celia threw back her head and laughed. “Dad-dee buy me some,” he said in a cajoling voice that held the threat of tears.

  “You wouldn’t like it,” Jay said, helping him to his seat, Neal gave a yawn, but before he could get comfortable Rhoda seized his hand, inserted a knife in it, and guided it over the cake, where much against his will an incision was made across the afterdeck. He tried in vain to pull his hand away, but she pressed it down again into the soft bed of sponge and cream; the jam in the middle looked like blood, and he drew back nervously.

  “You’re the host,” Rhoda said.

  A small dark-haired boy called Zimmerman, w
ith a ferocious mouth and the manner of a cutpurse, laid siege to the cerise-colored smokestacks that tilted waywardly towards the passenger cabins, and Neal swiped him viciously across the knuckles with the handle of the knife. Zimmerman yelped and turned to a fat disgruntled woman, who wore a capacious black tentlike dress which, with her sallow complexion, gave her the appearance of a hippo suffering from jaundice. She removed a fat hand from her mouth and waved her splintery-skinned fingers and gnawed nails in Neal’s direction. She tugged her lips, and there was a hint of retaliation on some dark stairwell on some rainy afternoon in her dark eyes.

  “Well, honestly . . .” she began, then trailed off abruptly as though the cerebral activity needed to lodge a more intimidating protest was too much for her. Swallowing the saliva required for her labials, she slumped back in her seat and glared murderously at Neal.

  “Gee, Ahm sorry,” Rhoda said, rescuing a smokestack for Zimmerman, and placed it in his sweaty palm. He sniggered triumphantly at Neal, who, in a rage, picked up a fork to attack again, but Jay diverted him at the last moment.

  “Watta stingy kid!” Mrs. Zimmerman moaned.

  “He’s excited!” Jay replied. “This birthday business . . . well . . .”

  “Say you’re sorry, to Bea,” Rhoda insisted.

  “Sare-ree,” Neal droned.

  Jay petted Neal’s head, and the child rewarded him with a captious smile. He had coal-black hair, colloid, green eyes, a small, but flared nose, and the ivory-tinted skin common to children who are confined to their homes as soon as the weather becomes mildly threatening. He fought tenaciously against the semi-invalid treatment he received from both his mother and Celia, but because Jay insisted on it neither of them dared disobey. Jay’s feeling for Neal bordered on idolatry, and he could not keep his hands off him; the physical presence of his own flesh and blood inspired a sensation of religious ecstasy. His identification with Neal was so complete and overwhelming that Eva complained regularly of it, regarding Neal as an adversary in the ubiquitous battle she fought for Jay’s affections; but she recognized, over the years, that Jay’s paternal solicitude was genuine, and that she had no alternative but to let herself be regulated and indeed manipulated by yet another human factor in the life of a man who desecrated the human factor in everyone else’s life. The promise of a divorce loomed on the horizon, but repeated postponements, because of his mother’s failing health, Rhoda’s loyalty, and the fact of his love for Neal, had reduced it to a collation of broken hopes. She lived on nerve, even though she lived in sumptuous comfort, and was able to control her disappointment skillfully, turning it, perhaps subconsciously, into a mask of stoicism, inactive but alive.