“You upset?” Jay said contemptuously. “Nothing can upset you.”
“The minute I met you my life was over. Only I didn’t realize it.”
“What do you want?”
“Love. I want you to love me. You did at one time. When Rhoda threw you out, it was me who picked up the pieces.”
“You could’ve said no. I wouldn’t have minded.”
“Then why did you come back and why did we live together for five years as man and wife, and why did you marry me?”
“Because I didn’t care any longer.”
“It was because of Marty wasn’t it?”
“Marty? Why Marty?”
“You were sore, weren’t you, that Marty should be interested in me?”
“He was welcome to you.”
“I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for you to come back whenever you goddamn pleased, or when you got tired of your college girl. And Marty was very sympathetic.”
“I’m not interested in the details. I wasn’t at the time, and I’m not now.”
“He was going to divorce his wife and marry me, did you know that?”
“I saved him the trouble.”
“And he stepped out like a gentleman. Because he was more concerned about you than himself.”
“I’ll thank him tomorrow at the office. Let’s forget ancient history. It proves nothing. Except that instead of one mistake, I made two.”
“More than two. There’ll be Neal as well. You’re ruining him.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” he said calmly. He was tired, and his heart palpitated. Irregular beats. He was getting dizzy. He moved the palm of his hand under his jacket, and she looked anxiously at him.
“Jay, what’s wrong? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Just treat Neal with kindness and I’ll give you anything you want.”
“I want it to be for my sake, not his.”
“It’s too late. Too late for romance.”
“It’s crazy. I’m still young and you too. You’ll live a long time if you take care of yourself . . . if you let me. We’ve got everything to live for. To be happy.”
He moved his hand away from his heart and lit a cigarette with a shaking hand.
“Eva, why don’t you get a divorce? This time it’ll be painless.”
She glared at him and came across the room, her face beet red, and said venomously:
“Never . . . I’m not going to be easy like Rhoda. I’ll never divorce you. I’ll see you dead first.”
“She’s got a thing with him, huh?” Zimmerman asked as they sat in the schoolyard after classes had ended. “Your mom, and Sports. I think he’s a pretty nice guy.”
“Your mother can marry him then.”
“Aw, c’mon, she’s married to my father. They can’t . . .”
“He’s a phony. You can tell a mile away.”
“A nice one though.”
“There’s no such thing as a nice phony. Either you’re real, like my father, or you’re nothing.”
Moony joined them. He was taller and altogether larger than Neal and Zimmerman. He had slanting peanut-colored eyes, not quite brown, not quite yellow, a large bulbous nose, hair stiff as cardboard that was held in place by something called hair trainer. His hair was pushed forward in a three-inch pompadour, which he combed and recombed four or five hundred times a day. An eleven-inch comb jutted out of the back pocket of his electric blue, ten-inch pegged trousers, which had dark blue pistol pockets in the back. He always felt a bit inferior to the other boys because his father was a mechanic and didn’t make as much money; consequently he was the toughest, most aggressive boy in the school, feared by everyone and the scourge of the teachers. He was the only boy in school who had got laid, and Neal respected him.
“What’re you crumbs doing?” Moony asked. He affected tough-guy talk with anyone smaller than himself.
“Wanta play stickball?” Zimmerman said.
“It’s too hot.”
“Here” - Neal handed him a cigarette. “Have a Camel. Puts hair on your balls.”
Moony took it greedily.
“You always got some, don’t you?”
“I say they’re for my mother when anyone asks.”
“I didn’t mean that. I mean you got money for ‘em.”
“So? Big deal. I’ve got the money.”
“Know how I get mine?”
Both boys looked at him inquisitively.
“I go on jobs.” He took something out of his pocket, pressed a small button the size of a pinhead and there was a zang sound, and they stood staring raptly at the steel blade, six inches long, which glinted in the sun, and reminded Neal of the silver scaly back of a sunfish he had once caught.
“Wow, wow. A pushbutton.”
“I saw one that the guineas use. It’s called a stiletto. Comes out of the top. You hold it against a guy’s back and press the button, and the knife goes into him.”
“This one comes outa the side.”
“Where’d you get it?” said Zimmerman, awestruck.
“That schmuck that runs the army-navy store on Utica Avenue. Know the one?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I went into the store and asked him to get something from the back. A tent. By the time he got it out, I’d opened the showcase and robbed this. My big beautiful Betsy, that’s what I call her.”
“What if someone catches you with it?” Neal asked.
“You’re not chicken shit are you, Neal?”
“No, I’m not.”
“So why ask?”
“What do you do with it? Play Territory?” Zimmerman interposed, sticking out his hand to take the knife, which Moony let him hold.
“On Friday nights when the movies are emptying out I pick me a girl and follow her. Or maybe two girls. I wait till they’re alone and then I take out my knife and tell ‘em to give me their money, or I’ll stick ‘em.”
Zimmerman could hardly believe his ears.
“You don’t?”
“I got four dollars last week. Pulled two jobs. And on one of them when the girl handed over her dough, I felt her up too. She had real big soft tits. Then I jerked off in the bushes. Funny girl. She gave me her name and address. Didn’t mind about the money. Said I should come over to her house whenever I wanted to, but to bring my prick along.”
“Bullshit,” Neal said.
“Want to come with me? She’s fourteen years old. Goes to Tilden. Seymour from Carrol Street says she likes line-ups, and he ought to know, ‘cause they had a gang-bang in his clubroom, and she was one of the girls. Her and another broad from St. John’s Place. Fourteen guys screwed them.”
“Gee, I’d like to have been there,” Zimmerman said.
“Get a little hair on your petzel first. I’m going tonight, so if you don’t believe me, you can come too. It’ll cost you a buck. They may have a schvartzer to give blow jobs. Wanta come? Nice big thick Ubangi lips on your skinny little winkie. She pulled one guy’s off a Chinaman - and now they call him One Ball Hung Low.”
“I’ll come,” Neal said.
The challenge was irresistible, and as he studied Moony’s long, horsey face, with its prescience, its overwhelming knowledge and insistence on evil, he felt himself being swallowed up, drawn into fellowship with the bigger boy.
“I’ll meet you at nine o’clock in front of your house,” he said.
“Who’ll have the bags?” Zimmerman asked.
“You coming too?”
“Yeah, please let me.”
“Okay, but it’ll cost you a buck even if you don’t screw her.”
Both the television set and the radio were turned on full blast when Neal entered the apartment. Sports had moved the kitchen table into the small den, and sat with a bottle of rye and a mass of squiggled paper checking the results of the day’s baseball games and horse races, and deciding his bets for the three night games.
“Hiya, Neal,” he said amiably. “How was school?”
“Okay.”
“Your mom’s gone to the butcher and the grocery to do some shopping.”
“Why?”
“For supper.”
“She isn’t cooking, is she?”
“Sure.”
“She doesn’t know how,” Neal said contemptuously. “That’s why we always eat out.”
“No, it’s because she’s so busy at her store. But she can cook.”
“You staying for supper?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“And if I do?”
“I’ll go. I’d like to be friends.”
“I’ve got friends.”
Sports poured himself a shot of rye and eased it back calmly. He was wearing another mohair suit that looked exactly like the one Neal had burned.
“We’ll get along fine. You’ll see,” Sports said.
“Are you going to marry my mother?”
“I’d like to.”
“You only know each other three weeks.”
“Time doesn’t matter in these things. You can know a person five years and not know anything about them. And you can meet somebody and in two, three weeks you know all about each other.”
Neal pondered for a moment the significance of Sports’ declaration of faith.
“Do you work?” he asked.
“I am working.”
“At what?”
“Well, if you can keep a secret I’ll tell you.” He paused and smiled at Neal. “I’ll tell you because I’m sure I can trust you. See, if the police found out what I do, they’d come and arrest me.”
“No kidding?”
Neal was shaking with excitement.
“Because what I do isn’t strictly legal. In some places, it’s legal but not here in New York.”
“Honest?”
“So if I trust you, you’ve got to keep it to yourself. Promise?”
“I swear to God.”
“I’m a bookmaker.”
“You bet on games and horses and things.”
“No, other people bet with me. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be legal. The church kicks up a stink though, so the cops have no choice. I mean I could be a grocer, couldn’t I? There’s no law against selling milk and butter. It’s a service for people, and the grocer is entitled to make a profit. So I give a service to people. If they want to bet on the Yankees over Detroit, they can get off with me.”
“What happens if they win?”
“I pay them, like a bank would, whatever they’ve bet.”
“And if they lose?”
“I made a profit. Nothing wrong with that, is there? I’m taking a chance.”
“Sure you are. Do you know how to cheat at cards and things like that?”
Sports’ sallow skin turned a bright cherry red, and he eased the large Windsor knot of his white silk tie and opened the top button of his shirt. He poured himself another shot of rye and added an ice cube and some ginger ale.
“I never cheat,” he said primly. “But I know how it’s done. I’ve got to in my business or else I’m sucker bait, aren’t I? Every now and then when I’m playing gin with a heavy and I need a little edge, I make a little peckel and it helps me over the hurdle. But it’s legit.”
“Will you teach me how to cheat?”
“I’ll show you how it’s done. What you do is your business, but it’s not a good idea to cheat, ‘cause if you get caught, it can be a little difficult healthwise. You can get an arm, a leg, both arms and legs maybe, broken and you can do four or five months in the hopsital. Or some night you’re crossing a street and wham” - he slammed his palms together, and Neal jumped back – “a car bangs you. Hit-and-run accident. Better to be legit and try to get an edge.”
“Gee, it must be exciting!” Neal said. Neal sensed that he was an obsessive gambler, and therefore weak.
“Listen, Neal. After supper, I promised to take your mom out. Will it be okay?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t need a babysitter or nothin’?”
He threw out his chest like a Nazi on parade.
“I’m twelve years old.”
“Yeah, I forgot. You’re a big boy.”
Sports stuck out his hand, and Neal shook it. He wasn’t afraid of Sports.
“We’ll be friends, you and me. We just don’t crowd each other and everything’s hunky dory.”
“I won’t say a word to anybody about you being a bookmaker,” he said, but he was dying to tell Zimmerman, and Moony, just to boast about a real underworld connection. “Does Mom know about it? I wouldn’t even tell her if you didn’t want me to.”
“I’ve let her in on the secret. We’ll have fun, Neal. I’ll take you to ball games and to the track. Even though you’re under age, I’ll get you in. A guy at the gate’s a pal of mine.”
“Boy-oh-boy,” he shouted, with false enthusiasm.
The doorbell rang, and he answered it. Rhoda, with a load of packages, her face flushed and exultant, leaned against the door and Neal took a bag from her.
“You two . . . been talking?”
“Yeah, Mom. He’s really a swell guy.”
She put down the packages on the floor and gave Neal a hug.
“I’m so glad you hit it off. It’s the real thing, Neal. I think I’m going to marry him. For years I’ve been wandering around like a drunken sailor, wondering where I could put my head down, and then when I met Sports I knew that I’d found a man who would put me first . . . above everything.”
“You’re happy?” he asked timorously.
“The way I hoped I would be with Jay.”
Surprisingly, Sports ignored them when they walked into the room. He was industriously writing figures on a large piece of drawing paper that had ruled lines on it and the names of teams and horses and racetracks. He wrote in an exquisitely neat hand as the results, from a team of announcers, came in.
“We mustn’t talk to him when he’s working,” Rhoda said, taking Neal into the kitchen, “He’s got to concentrate. One wrong score can cost him thousands of dollars, so it’s better to leave him alone.”
“Does Jay know?”
“Jay? Why should he? What I do is my business. He didn’t tell me he was going to marry that slut of his. He just did, and I found out later. The least he could’ve done . . .” She sounded like a woman with an old and painful grievance that her new happiness had not dispelled. “I mean to say . . . I was entitled to know, wasn’t I?” She turned to Neal, who stared out of the window at a game of stickball in progress in the schoolyard. He couldn’t make out the faces of the boys. “Answer me.”
“He says you’re going out tonight.”
“It’s all right by you? You can look after yourself.”
“Sure, I’ll be okay.” He had an image of the clubroom in his mind: dark, with old camphor-smelling furniture, squalid, dank, with a laundry sink in it and clothes drying.
After dinner, which was barely edible - burned steak - Neal found himself alone again with Sports while Rhoda dressed. She had proved incontestably that she possessed none of the domestic virtues, but Sports thought otherwise, for Neal learned that she had prepared the chopped eggs and onion and steak exactly as he liked it. Neal would go back to the candy store and Levy’s homely cuisine with new enthusiasm. Lounging in the club chair that had formerly been Jay’s, his long legs drooping over the ottoman as though it was his by some divine right, Sports casually said: “I had a good day. Need a few . . . ?”
“I don’t getcha.”
“Moola . . . money?”
“I get an allowance from Jay.”
“How much?”
“Three dollars a week.”
He handed Neal a five-dollar bill.
“Well, maybe there’s somethin’ special you wanta buy yourself? A few extra always comes in handy.”
Neal took the money even though he was uncomfortable about accepting it, for it put him in Sports’ camp. When he held it in his hands, he realized that he had made a m
istake, but it was too late to hand it back. He also felt that he had compromised Jay’s position in his life, for Jay was the giver of bread, the granter of favors, the all-powerful lawgiver who decided right and wrong. But now he was joined by another man, and Neal’s confusion and guilt verged on panic. He had been a traitor to his father’s cause - he had allowed a pretender to usurp his rightful position - but hadn’t his parents been traitors as well? Hadn’t they in effect created him out of climate of hostility, suspicion, lying, deceit, ruthlessly and unfeelingly? Weren’t they still groping in the dark for something, a person perhaps, to give their lives a new direction? Wasn’t treason the responsibility of the first begetter? Why did he owe them loyalty when they had disclaimed responsibility for him?
It had just begun to get dark when he met Moony in the alley behind the apartment house. He didn’t see him at first, because Moony was sitting on top of an ash can, and not by the side of the back entrance where they had agreed to meet. He was chewing a toothpick, and it moved rhythmically back and forth. “Hey, what’re you doing over there?” Neal asked, a bit fearfully. The older boy had a curiously disquieting effect on him at night.
“Sometimes people throw out money by mistake. I found a fifty-cent piece a week ago.”
“Are we going?”
“Yeah, sure we’re going.”
“Where’s Zimmie?”
“He just left.”
“Without us?” Neal moaned.
“Naw, he chickened out. I knew he had chicken shit for blood. Talks a good game, but when it comes to doing somethink he punks out. I could’ve beat his head in.”
“You didn’t, did you?” Neal was frightened for his friend. He didn’t think that he and Zimmerman combined could take Moony in a fight.
“Know what he said to me? Just ‘cause you smell from apeshit, don’t think you’re Tarzan. I could’ve slit his balls off for that. Who needs him anyway? He couldn’t do anythink, ‘cause he don’t have lead in his pencil.”
Neal took out his five-dollar bill and showed it to Moony.
“The treat’s on me, Moony.”
“A fin! Neal, you’re really a friend. I think I’d like you to be my best friend.”
Neal was agreeably flattered, but he already had Zimmerman as a best friend. However, he was reluctant to offend Moony. You didn’t turn people down who offered themselves so openly, and he could use Moony’s friendship for terror value with anyone in the neighborhood he couldn’t beat in a fight.
Seventh Avenue Page 38
