Seventh Avenue

by Norman Bogner

  He pushed her to the floor gently and without the suggestion of violence, but he had an instinctive urge to strike her. He picked up his drink and emptied it.

  “If you drink much more of that, you won’t be able to . . .”

  “That could be the general idea. It’s fantastic what you don’t know about people. I think I might be in love with you, at least I was sure it couldn’t be anything else when I was away from you, and now you’re taking that feeling and tearing it to shreds, as though it was a filthy old rag that nobody gave a damn about. I come up to see you, when I should be home with my kid, and all you’re interested in is smutty talk. Drop down to a poolroom, and you’ll get all you can stand for nothing.”

  “It’s the dirt that excites me. Underneath the two-hundred-dollar suit and the alligator shoes and the French aftershave lotion, is a dirty little Jew. That’s what attracts me. And you dress it all up in a fancy slipcover because you’re embarrassed by it. The part that’s important to me is repulsive to you.”

  “You’ve got strange ideas of excitement. If you need some guy to give you a shove, Boston must be loaded with them.”

  “It’s you, Jay. It’s you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I owe your father a favor or two so I’ll forget the dirty Jew crack, but if you’d like me to kick your teeth down your throat, you could try saying it again.”

  “Sensitive spot, isn’t it?”

  “I was just thinking about what a wonderful mother you’d make. I’ve got a few beefs about Rhoda, but she’s a saint by comparison.”

  “My father said she was a drug addict.”

  “Your father was misinformed.”

  “And he said you were an absolute degenerate in your sex life.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you about that too. You’ve had a lot of disappointments in one night.”

  “You can’t keep your hands off women. Everyone who knows you.”

  “Nobody knows me. I was hoping you might be the one . . . Neal and me . . .”

  She did her stockings up and straightened the seams in the mirror behind her.

  “You’ve got a thing about that kid. It’s unhealthy. Morbid. You can’t act like a man because he’s in the room with us, isn’t he? Watching . . .”

  “I’ll call a cab for you. I think you’d better go, while you can still walk.”

  “Just threats . . . full of threats.”

  He got up from the chair very slowly, like an old man suffering from arthritis, and in a voice that rang through the room he began to scream: “Get out, get out.” Tears streamed down his face, and he advanced towards her. She retreated to the door, and he allowed her to escape. He picked the bottle of whiskey up and pulled from the bottle, then he fell on the bed and began to bang his head against the wooden bedpost.

  “Ooooh, baby, that was sensational,” Barney said as Rhoda turned her head to the wall. “Wanta get high again?”

  “It’s late.”

  “Whaat, eight o’clock in the morning’s late?”

  “I’ve got to get home. Haven’t seen Neal for three days.”

  “We could make it all day in bed. C’mon. Send out for sandwiches, a little booze. What’s a day?”

  “It’s breaking . . . all of it’s breaking up, and I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Rhoda, what’re you talking about? We’re on a good time, aren’t we? We laugh it up. In bed, it’s dynamite. You’re the greatest.”

  “Tomorrow, or the next day maybe, or next week.”

  “Well, if you havta.”

  In a trance she rose from the bed, threw some cold water on her face, and rinsed her mouth. The street below was empty, and gray like a bit of ash.

  “My head’s . . .” She dressed hurriedly, threw her crumpled clothes into the small alligator suitcase that Jay had bought her on Mother’s Day.

  “Rhoda, take it easy. Let’s make a date . . .”

  “I’ll call you,” she said, and rushed out. She ran down the flights of steps like someone panic-stricken, escaping from a conflagration . . . On Fiftieth Street, she went into the subway and caught a train. Tired, lined faces hidden behind newspapers turned pages of blurred newsprint. She heard herself sob, and she stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth. At Fourteenth Street she changed trains and caught a Brighton express, then she changed trains again, and again until the names of the stations whizzed past her face without registering. Finally she got off the train and walked through the turnstile into the cold street, past the fruit and vegetable stalls where men and women wearing gloves cut off at the fingers stood by small potbellied stoves that they fed with the street garbage. She crossed the street and stood for a full five minutes swaying on the corner until a car horn blasted through her brain. It was still there: Modes Dress Shoppe with its tattered green striped awning flapping in the wind, its crowded window with hopelessly passe dresses, the window glass cracked as though it had been seized by a sharp and death-dealing embolism, and its mound of dirt in the ruts that had not been swept into the gutter. She dragged her suitcase into the store, and when she was inside it was so dark that she could barely see who was sitting behind the counter. Then she gave an agonized moan. She tried to speak, but nothing would come out. A figure approached her.

  “It’s me, Rhoda. I’ve come back. Please, please, Mr. F, forgive me. I didn’t mean it. It was Jay . . . he made me do it. I never stole from anybody. He made a thief out of me.”

  The figure came closer until its head was very close to hers, but all she saw was Finkelstein’s torn and ravaged face.

  “I’ll pay it back. I can afford to now. Please, I’m sorry.” She lurched against the edge of the counter and almost knocked it over and cradled her head in her arms, as though to ward off blows. “I’m a decent woman . . . I was a good worker until he . . . he made me . . .” She couldn’t continue because the man’s eyes looked through her as though she were a pane of glass.

  “For God’s sake, lady, what do you want?” an outraged voice said.

  “It’s Rhoda. I should have stayed on with you and forgotten about him.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Say you forgive me, Mr. F.”

  “I’m not Finkelstein. He died four years ago.”

  She stretched out her hands as if to grab him, and the man drew away.

  “I’ll call the police if you don’t get out,” he said angrily. “You pull yourself together or you’ll wind up in a canary hatch. Now if you don’t want to buy, cop a walk.”

  She edged towards the door, backing away from the man. Where was she? She wiped her eyes, and the voice droned: “If you got somethin’ to confess, go to the station, but don’t bother me. What a way to start the day!”

  Rhoda wiped her face with her sleeve and walked out. She took a shortcut to her parents’ house and sat down on a flight of steps opposite it. The stone was cold and damp, and water had gathered in the cracks. She lit a cigarette and waited. At 9:30, she saw her father open the door, rub his hands like a surgeon in a Marx Brothers film, and then Miriam came out swinging a briefcase and hopping down the steps.

  “You’ll brek the sandwiches,” he said, and Miriam giggled mischievously.

  Rhoda made a move to go to them, but suddenly her father was inside the maroon Chevrolet that Jay had given him, and Miriam had slammed her door and the car shot down the street and she stood in the roadway with her arms stretched out trying to grasp something that was beyond her reach, something so elusive and distant that she came to her senses because the effort of holding her arms out had tired her, and she realized with a chill that what she now wanted, she had once had and that she could never again recapture it. She and Jay had conspired to murder it, and they had been successful. She walked down the street and turned onto Fourteenth Avenue. She stared aimlessly and blankly at the murky shop windows with their tired, out-of-date displays, the people who worked in the stores idling behind counters, sipping coffees, slaves to the use
less and despairing commerce that she had once been a part of. On Forty-Eighth Street, she went into the Royal Music Shop where Myrna had worked. She pointed to a clarinet in a glass showcase and told the salesgirl that she would have it. She wrote out a check for ninety-one dollars, and the manager, who Rhoda recognized but who did not recognize her, approached her with that desperate servility and suspicion that people who are on commission assume whenever an easy, unexpected sale comes their way. She wrote the address to which it was to be sent, and the manager, who spent most of his time demonstrating sheet music on an out-of-tune Steinway located in the middle of the shop on a platform, hummed something vague and tuneless.

  “It’ll have to clear the bank before we can send it.” He studied the name as though calligraphy were one of his hobbies. “Hey, isn’t that . . . aren’t you . . . ?” But Rhoda was out of the door before he could get an answer.

  In the street, she hailed a taxi and gave her address. She waited a few minutes to see if the driver was using his mirror to spy on her, and when she was satisfied that he wasn’t, she took out a bottle of pills and swallowed two.

  Jay was having breakfast when she arrived, looking very tanned, fit and sad. She sat down at the table, poured herself a cup of black coffee. He stared at her, exerting the terrible fascination of a mongoose, sleek, canny, and fast enough to anticipate any sudden move; an expert in the coarse art of survival.

  “Funny time to get home,” he said, cautiously. He was on dangerous ground, and he didn’t want to sink into a mire. “Your sister any better?”

  “Fine . . . she’s a cabbage. Very good soil up there for growing vegetables.”

  “Maybe we ought to put her in a different place.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  “You’ve been crying,” he said, as she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Her eyes were like red welts.

  “From the minute I met you I started crying. Funny you should notice now.”

  Here it comes, he thought tremulously. He girded himself for the attack, but she held back . . .

  “If it’s going to be one of those . . .”

  “One of those what?”

  “Mornings. Your eyes are popping out of your head again.”

  “Are they? Well, you won’t have to worry about it much longer, will you?” She sipped her coffee meditatively. “Did you know that Finkelstein’s dead?”

  “What?”

  “Dead.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Skip it. I thought when I saw you I’d rant and rave and have hysterics as usual.”

  “Yeah, I know the program . . . it’s been running for five years.”

  “Jay, why don’t you die? Wouldn’t it be much better for everyone if you were dead?”

  “Rhoda, if you’re going to be unpleasant the minute we see each other, then I think we ought to talk seriously.”

  “‘We should talk seriously.’”

  “Don’t mimic me, I don’t like it. You must’ve met a guy if you’re acting this strong. Frankly, I don’t mind. Best thing that could happen to you.”

  “I’m glad you approve. You see your lawyer, and I’ll see mine, and they can arrange things between them.”

  “So long as I can see Neal whenever I want . . . that’s all I give a damn about.”

  “It’ll have to be discussed, won’t it?”

  He got very hot under the collar, but he managed to maintain a hold on his temper.

  “Sore spot with you, isn’t it?” she said, “Nice to see you at a disadvantage for a change.”

  “You’ll poison his mind against me.”

  “Why should I? Typical of you, Jay. Imputing your own motives to other people. Now if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have plenty to worry about. Actually, it’s your moral character that worries me. You’ve got a lot of influence on him, and he doesn’t know right from wrong, so too much time with you might be damaging in the long run.”

  The conversation made him uncomfortable, as did all conversations dwelling on his character, and he lost that surefooted instinct that had enabled him to transcend, with a hawk’s guile and rapacity, all of the positive and glaring deficiencies that disguised a lack of feeling for the responses of other people, and that he had diverted, so that they assumed the plumed wings of strength. She had seen that he was vulnerable, and she dug her nails into the tender belly of his weakness - his love for Neal.

  “What do you want, Rhoda?”

  “To see you suffer.”

  “The harder you make it for me, the harder it’ll be for Neal. So before you make a decision, give that some thought. Even though we get a divorce, I’d like to try to give him a normal life.”

  “With you as a father? That’s a joke.”

  “And you as a mother!” he shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her.

  “Keep your voice down, Maggie’ll hear us.”

  “It’s Myrna,” he said, losing his restraint.

  “Myrna?” she peered quizzically over her cup at him, and tears formed in the pockets of her eyes. “Myrna . . .”

  “You heard some crazy story. That doctor wrote to me about a year ago . . .”

  “Myrna. I suppose that rounds out the picture.”

  “It’s a goddamned filthy lie.”

  “Myrna.”

  “For Christ’s sake, stop saying her name.”

  “The village idiot appears on your list of conquests.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She knocked her cup over, and the coffee ran down the side of the table onto the cream-colored carpet. She didn’t make a move to stop the drip and let it soak into the carpet, fascinated by the regular movement.

  “Myrna . . .”

  “Stop it. I can’t stand it.” He got up from the table and rushed into the bedroom to get his jacket and coat. She followed him.

  “You should’ve jerked yourself off if you needed a woman so bad. Or why didn’t you call one of the whores in your book? You knew enough of them. Or was this too exciting to resist? Sleeping with your wife’s sister. A girl who was absolutely defenseless, who’d had a mental breakdown, and was living on her nerves. In our bed, with my sister,” He tried to push past her, but she stood with her arms out, pressed against the door. “Haven’t you got any shame, any decency?”

  “I’ll get my stuff moved this afternoon. I want to see Neal when he comes home from school, and I’d appreciate it if you weren’t here.”

  “Whenever you got into our bed, you always had a funny smell. The smell of other women, cheap perfume and powder, and their sweat. It was such an ugly smell that it used to keep me awake all night. I couldn’t ever get used to it. Their bodies. And you, like a pig rolling over in his own shit.”

  “I don’t have to . . .”

  “You should die, and if there’s a God or any justice you should spend the time after you’re dead frying in hell. But I suppose you won’t . . . people like you get away with murder and then get congratulated for it, but someday somebody’ll cut your throat when you least expect it.”

  He lifted her arms which were still pinioned against the door and forced his way past her. Their faces were almost touching, and as she looked into his eyes, she could see that for the first time since she had known him, he was hurt and pleading for help. His mouth moved perilously close to hers, and she thought he was going to kiss her. She pressed the heel of her palm under his chin, eased him away and spit in his face. He stood for a moment, as though paralyzed, with the bubbly saliva dripping down his face, then with a movement as swift as a flash of lightning, he lifted his hand to strike her, and she screeched: “Neal, Neal, Neal,” as though the incantation of his name would dispel the terrible vengeance of an enraged god. His hand, suspended in the air, the fingers brown like the leather thongs of a whip, froze in motion, like a film which had suddenly been jerked and was running in slow motion.

  “I won’t forget this,” he said.


  “I hope you won’t. I hope it’s carved on your headstone.”

  Six months of dreamlike apathy passed before Rhoda saw Jay again; six months in which her emotional life resembled the frozen streets and snowcaps of a Taiga Brooklyn winter . . . She would sometimes see his face in the glassy ice of the pavements or emerging from the frozen breaths of people standing in line waiting for a bus. She constantly had the sensation that he was stalking her, and she would slink into obscure ill-lit little neighborhood bars where drunken eyes and mouths reeking of pizza and overcooked spaghetti, pursued her. From time to time she went out with Barney, or sat, sloe-eyed and “charged” in some small lurid club like a tongueless hoplite, listening to him tell jokes to bored and grizzled small-time businessmen whose assignations with mousy, heavily mascaraed women seemed to her affairs of petty and mutual despair. Barney clung to her, and she couldn’t bear the responsibility that failure conferred on him. Once or twice she paid his hotel bill when he couldn’t get work, and this made him impotent in bed with her.

  With a Prussian’s respect for punctilio and ceremony, Jay visited Neal every Sunday at noon, and she would leave the apartment a good hour before, to avoid a chance encounter, sit in the candy store at the corner, sipping black coffee and trying in a totally automatic way to find her bearings in the confused geography of her life. At twelve-thirty, she would return to the apartment, stare out into the street through the opaque misted windows without a thought in her head. The impending divorce represented a caesura in the action of her life, and she could not see beyond it to make plans. Her relations with almost everyone she had known in the past took on the static quality of her own lethargy. Even Neal lost his reality for her, and she avoided questioning him about his afternoons with Jay - how wrong Jay had been, she thought. She lost the power of communicating anything but a simple imperative to the child. She saw Neal only in a formal concrete sense; the rest of him was hidden behind two translucent cataracts that had imposed themselves over her eyes. He always seemed to her to be performing, living, with a thin gossamer veil over him that teased the eye. He was no more than an optical illusion, a trompe-l’oeil that moved from the foreground into her path, then receded across some amorphous horizon, so that what he did, what he said, what he was feeling, was only something vague and putative that her brain carried to her senses. Occasionally, she realized, in the same unreflective way one recalls a useless fact - that the Amazon is the longest river in the world - that she loved Jay more than she ever had. Love would never become hate, as black can never become white, but her love had lost its knifelike edge, and had become unalterably passive. It was like a malignancy whose growth had been arrested - but if she decided to cut it out, it might grow back, larger and more virulent.