Up, Down and Sideways

by Patton, Robert;

  “Who cares? It was a pile of dirt.”

  “Jill!” Gershom called to a girl on the upper embankment. “How much soil you think they scraped? Her dad’s a landscaper,” he told me. His eyes had taken an evil shine. Jill, above us, looked like a landscaper’s daughter as she surveyed the area. At length she concluded, “Four hundred.”

  “Dollars?” I laughed. “Hardly worth worrying about.”

  “Four hundred cubic yards. Possibly more.”

  Gershom did the math. “Eight thousand dollars. Gosh.” I closed my eyes as the horror passed through me. I heard Gershom explain, “His excavators took all his topsoil.”

  “Didn’t he know?”

  “He didn’t know.”

  “So I didn’t know! Now I know, and I’ll take care of it. The workmen are buddies of mine.”

  Gershom looked grave and helpful. “It’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

  “Thanks, Gersh.”

  He dispatched the second group of students to the properties behind my own, rundown brownstones of uncertain vintage. He told them to note architectural styles and to rough out a demographic profile. They skipped to their work happy-go-luckily, like scientists on a government grant. Then Gershom said to me, “Susan calls me Gersh sometimes. Do you mean it as an insult, too?”

  “I have no reason to insult you.”

  “Nor I you.” That did it for me:

  “Can we fight now? This gentleman stuff is scary.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “You should hate my guts.”

  “Nonsense. Regarding Susan and me, you’re a minor player, a plot device. The stage was set for upheaval long before you appeared. You could have been anyone.”

  “Then regarding Susan and me, you’re a minor player. How does it feel?”

  “It feels like the truth.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “What, you want me to hate you?”

  “It’s something I understand.”

  “My capacity for hatred is all used up.” He fixed one eye on me. “Not on Susan. It’s myself I’ve hated.”

  “Because you weren’t better for her?”

  “Because my best wasn’t good enough.”

  “Rule number one: Never give your best.”

  “Keep your wisdom. I’ll survive without it.”

  “The faith helps, I imagine.”

  “The faith?”

  “The skullcap. The new name.”

  “Susan told you I changed my name? That’s worse than sleeping with you.”

  “What was it before? Something Irish.”

  “It was Gerald.”

  “Gerald to Gershom? That really blows off the past.”

  “In fact it honors it.”

  “Minus your father.”

  His eyes widened. “Do I have any secrets?”

  “Tell you what, I’ll share. My real name is Holscheimer. I changed it three years ago.”

  “Bull.”

  “I swear to God.”

  “Why?”

  “To get girls. Halsey’s cooler.”

  “You are a jerk.”

  “It worked.”

  “You’re determined to provoke me. I don’t know why.”

  “To save your marriage, possibly?” I posed my hint as a question. The truth I wanted him to infer was that things could work out if he wanted. Merely say the word, perhaps launch a mild physical assault—he could have his woman back. Clearly Susan and I were a limited proposition, so from my end the scenario had its appeal. Trifling with love and yet destroying no one would seem the perfect crime.

  “But if I wanted to fight for Susan, I would. I don’t.”

  “I thought you loved her.”

  “I needed her. That’s different.”

  “And now?”

  “I have my faith, as you say—and my work.”

  “Methadone.”

  “Worthy substitutes. Time well spent.” He smiled. “I’m not obsessed with her, if that’s what you think.”

  “Your wife told me different.”

  “Did she?” He stopped smiling. “I could hit her, I swear.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “Okay, so I went a little nuts. I followed her, I tapped her phone—”

  “You tapped her phone!”

  “I have a friend in electrical engineering. Susan never knew.”

  “Find any dirt?”

  “Zip. She didn’t need to phone him, anyway. They see each other every day.”

  “You have a suspect? Besides me?”

  “You came later. By then I was numb.”

  “Someone at work, eh? Lyle forget, so—” It hit me. “Your father?”

  “I have no proof.”

  “Susan and your father!”

  Gershom shrugged and turned away—in shame, no doubt.

  “Listen. I’ve met Neil. Slippery, maybe. But he’s not evil.”

  “What evil? He’s silly. He’s a silly, immature man.”

  “But seduce his son’s wife!”

  “It’s worse than that. Neil is in love with her. From afar, understand? He’s noble about it!” Gershom paused to calm himself. “Susan knew my insecurities regarding him. She played on them, me against him. Everything he did was just so amusing, so clever. Maybe you’ve seen—with him she’s animated, girlish. With him she’s happy, and he laps it up.”

  “The man is a newlywed!”

  “Dominique? Poor woman, she’s the victim here.”

  “I was told you didn’t like her.”

  “She’s terrific! I was hoping Neil would be content with her. But he’s made her a surrogate. That’s why he’s always buying her things—in apology. He mocks love constantly, but inside he’s a sentimental maniac. For Susan.”

  “Susan can’t know, that’s all.”

  “She knows. It’s a joke to her, it’s preposterous—so she’s careless. She leads him on.”

  “If she knew his feelings, she’d laugh in his face.”

  “You sure?”

  “No.”

  “See.”

  My head spun. “What about me? I have feelings. I matter here. She and I are going steady!”

  “You’re a blip. You’re nothing. So was I till I walked away. Now I’m free.”

  “Free to fixate on God and dirt.”

  “Get it straight, Philip. I don’t fixate.”

  “The skullcap, Gershom. It speaks volumes.”

  “I’m a student of Judaism. If that bothers you, goodbye.”

  “It interests me. If you were wearing a crucifix I’d wonder about that—or a shrunken head, or love beads.”

  “You’re nonpracticing, I take it.”

  “A nonpracticing Holscheimer, yes.”

  “Still, you know what day it is. My being here proves I’m not fanatical.” His meaning eluded me. “Today is the Sabbath, dummy. Work is a no-no, strictly speaking.”

  “You’re not working. Your students are.”

  In retort he grabbed a shovel and began hacking at the base of the well. His face was fierce as he labored, as if God would seriously take offense. After a moment he leaned thoughtfully on his shovel. “This may not actually qualify as avodah—forbidden. Because I’m destroying as I work, not creating.”

  “Destroying in order to create your thesis.”

  “Just so,” he said, and resumed digging. I felt bad for him; it didn’t take Freud to see he was disturbed. His shovel flailing, his breath coming hard, I became concerned for his health. Any mishap or heart attack sustained on my land could leave me liable.

  His students returned down the embankment. Up close they looked frightfully young; my conceit of eternal boyishness took a beating in comparison. Doubtless I seemed a yuppie fart to them, or, worse, some kind of role model. To prove myself a regular guy I launched some wit at Jill the landscaper’s daughter. “Gershom,” I winked, “is defying the Lord. He’ll be done in a minute.”

  Jill resembled a Native Amer
ican in her coloring and vengeful stare. I have great respect for Indians; the way they’re exploiting uranium deposits and casino gambling on their reservations in order to get back in the upward-mobility game has my total support. “It’s not your place to mock our teacher,” Jill chided me.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Another latent maternal type, I thought—Gershom her papoose.

  Meanwhile his shovel had started clanging on impact where before it had smoothly scooped. He’d dug a foot deeper than the well’s former bottom. He paused. “So that’s why the welldigger stopped digging. He dug all this way down only to hit granite.” Gershom scraped away dirt with the shovel to reveal gray rock beneath, scarred white where the shovel had struck it.

  “Tough luck,” I said.

  “For both of you. Must be all ledge under here. To finish leveling this area, you’re going to have to blast.”

  “Oh no,” Jill said. When someone asked if blasting was bad, she answered, “Not bad. Expensive.”

  “Didn’t he know?”

  “He didn’t know.”

  “Hey! My excavator gave me a set price. Any extra’s on him.”

  “There was no clause in his contract about rock or ground water?” Jill asked me. “It’s pretty standard.”

  “Standard” rang a bell. I remembered my attorney saying it as he highlighted a line in the contract. I swallowed. “How much will it cost me, do you think?”

  “No way to know till they do it. They measure—”

  “Don’t tell me. By the yard.”

  Jill nodded. I had a mental image of her writhing in pagan ecstacy, singing chants for my soul—the shock of lost money had made me feverish. She said, “My dad always figures $2,000 a day, for blasting. He jokes that they never take less than four days, no matter how small the job.”

  “Funny guy.”

  “Four, times two thousand—” Gershom began.

  “I know, goddamn it!” I toed the exposed rock. “Pity it wasn’t gold.”

  “Not your day, old sport.”

  Jill Eagle-Eye knelt to Gershom’s dirt pile and extracted a crudded coin. She spat on it, a primitive girl, and cleaned it with her shirt. “A penny,” she smiled, handing it to me.

  “1943. Hell, I thought it’d be colonial-era, at least.”

  Gershom said, “Circa World War II corresponds to when I estimated this neighborhood to have been settled. It’s nice to be proved right. The coin must have fallen out of the guy’s pocket while he was digging.”

  “He made a wish!” Jill said. “Where’s your sense of romance, Gershom? I bet he wished for world peace.”

  “I bet he wished for water,” I said. As I started to throw the coin away, Gershom grabbed my arm:

  “It may be worth something.”

  “Twenty bucks? Thirty? I have my pride.”

  Jill said, “I’ll take it, if you don’t want it. I think it’s kind of mysterious.”

  I gave her the coin. My Indian hallucination was now out of control, raging through me like smallpox. In the lines of her palm I saw centuries of free love; in her eyes I saw campfires, me sprawled before them, bound and naked as this brown-skinned maid adored my palest parts. Jill’s fingers gripped my wampum.

  “A penny for my thoughts?” she joked.

  “Better yours than mine.”

  Gershom said, “Tell me, is it copper?”

  “Pennies usually are.”

  She scratched it with a fingernail. “Copper it is. Okay?”

  “That’s fine.”

  The students had found nothing interesting. They wanted to go to a bar, catch the end of the Red Sox game. Gershom agreed. I apologized that my well had flopped. “I didn’t expect much,” he confessed. “This area’s fairly static. But when Susan called me, I couldn’t resist.” He got into his truck.

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “With us? You serious?”

  “I love baseball. And my TV’s broken.” My TV was fine and I hate baseball. The game is all situation, all wondering and waiting. I get enough of that in the day-to-day without sitting down to watch it.

  “How can I say no?” He smiled—and fell right into my trap.

  14

  Following in my car, I refined my plan. I must inspire Gershom to fight for his wife, must prove myself to be such utter scum as to compel him, by his duties as a husband and citizen, to deliver her from my destructive attentions and deliver me from hers. I’d never broken up with someone before; I feared a tedious scene. Too, I was sure Susan would dump me any day now, without a tear. I liked my plan better.

  The tricky part was nauseating Gershom while at the same time charming Jill, for I wanted Susan out of my life and this Arapaho maiden in it. Divide and conquer being the objective, when Jill ordered a beer from the waitress and Gershom a club soda, I, not usually a drinker, ordered a beer and a bourbon chaser, hoping to connect with her and alienate Gershom. This was my plan. Even today I believe it could have worked.

  I remember realizing at some point that I was drunk and no one else was even tipsy. To rectify this, I ordered daiquiris by the pitcher and forced them on my companions. Jill several times asked me to stop calling her Little Wing. I agreed in exchange for a dance—to a baseball game, which is easier than you might think. Gershom was a ghost on the periphery of my blurred perception. I didn’t try to salvage my plan till after I vomited. Once purged, however, I was newly cognizant. I asked Gershom to drive me home—or better, that he and Jill drive me home, for I recognized Gershom as a man immune to humiliation unless before witnesses.

  At first Jill refused to come. But when I refused to leave without her, her friends demanded she reconsider. All was settled except the bill. I discovered I had no money. “Only plastique,” I gurgled to the waitress.

  “We don’t take credit cards here.”

  On the table were daiquiri pitchers, beer bottles, and some empty shot glasses by me. No one had wanted this many drinks, so I’d promised I would pay. “You’ll take a personal check?”

  “Local?” the waitress said. “I guess so.”

  “Excellent.” With her pen in my fist I paid the tab and a massive tip. Everyone thanked me for my generosity, except Jill, who held out with charming petulance.

  “What is this crap!” The waitress read from the check I’d handed her: “Not valid for less than five hundred dollars.”

  “Lemme see.” It appeared I’d brought the wrong checkbook. “It’s funny, really. This is from a money fund. It’s—”

  “No good.”

  “For five hundred, sure it is. Got change?”

  She stared at me.

  I shrugged to my companions. “Okay, folks. Ante up.” Wordlessly they emptied their pockets. A meager pile of bills and coins collected at the center of the table. Gershom counted it.

  “We’re good,” he said.

  I protested, “A little light on the tip.”

  “That’s all there is, Philip! We’re broke.”

  “Okay. Fine. She’s lucky to get it.” I laboriously noted everyone’s address on a napkin so I could reimburse them by mail. Jill said send her money care of Gershom. I offered my goodbyes and the three of us departed. Only later did I realize I’d left the napkin with the names on the table.

  In Gershom’s pickup I squeezed between Gershom and Jill.

  “A truck-driving Jew is rare,” I observed. “A Jew in a Mercedes, that’s different. Very common. Your father drives a Mercedes.”

  Gershom was silent a moment. “Yes he does.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. Let bygones be bygones, I say. Though there is a certain irony—”

  He cut me off. “If you’re going to make reference to Nazis and the Holocaust, don’t use the word irony. It does not apply.”

  “I’m speaking of Jews in German luxury cars, Gershom. As for the Holocaust—”

  “Please. It offends me. You offend me.”

  “I understand. But for the record, I too think genocide is bad.”
r />   “Good God.”

  “A Ford-driving Jew?” I continued, referring to the make of his truck. “Also ironic. Because Henry the First was mucho anti-Semitic. I swear, sometimes it seems there’s nowhere to run.”

  “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” he said pointedly. He was proud of that one, was Gershom.

  I gave him directions to Chinaland, my restaurant-home. A sharp turn thrust me against Jill. I surreptitiously sniffed her, detecting sagebrush and woodsmoke. Indians have no personal scent; this is due to a lack of body hair, itself an enchanting attribute. With somnolence beginning to overwhelm me, I skipped the small talk: “Go out with me. Take a chance.”

  She ignored me.

  I sighed, “I have money but no one to share it with.” Girls dig self-mockery.

  “You are not my type.”

  “What is your type? I’ll adapt. I can teach or be taught, these are my gifts to you.”

  “What happened to money?” Gershom broke in. His voice was jokey and meant for Jill.

  “Who needs it?” she said at me, to him. “I’m a hippie at heart.”

  “Love is all you need?” he asked.

  “Love is all.”

  Their banter excluded me, which was Gershom’s intent. His intrusion in my suave seduction was his way of rescuing Jill. It was an act of friendship on his part, but in my impaired state I thought he was stealing my action. “Don’t bother with Gersh,” I told her. “He couldn’t satisfy his wife, much less a love savage like yourself.”

  She recoiled as from fumes.

  “Have you met Susan?” I pressed. “Some might deem her a sexual freak, but I think she’s neat.”

  Gershom slammed the brakes. My spine, alcoholically rubberized, slung me face first into the dashboard. I tasted blood and the pain was severe. “You broke by dose!”

  “You broke it yourself.”

  “Be! You hit the brakes.”

  “Goodbye, Philip. You’re home.”

  “Chida-ladd?”

  “Yes. Now out.”

  I turned to Jill. “By dose, it looks bad?”

  “It looks bigger.”

  “Big dose, big dick. Could it be? Yes it could.” Sensing that ribaldry would get me nowhere, I issued a straightforward plea: “Walk be up?”

  “To your apartment? Get real.”