Three Balconies

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  “I guess I’ve been waiting for the right time to do them,” she added.

  Harry couldn’t handle that one at all, so he let it sit there for awhile. Then she asked if he was free for dinner. She was meeting her sister and brother-in-law, who was a therapist. The plan was for them to attend a party in Queens for a woman who was dying. Friends and relatives had been invited to sit around with her, in a party atmosphere, with incense burning, while she continued to die.

  “It’s kind of a die-in, I suppose,” she said. “Would you like to come along? Afterward, we have a reservation at a Thai restaurant.”

  Harry said that under normal circumstances, he would love to join her, but he had promised Julie he’d be home in time for dinner.

  She pressed him on it, but he held his ground. And then he paid the check and walked her to the elevator which took a long time to get there. While they were waiting, she tilted her head up to be kissed, in the sorority style, and Harry took her up on it, not quite getting all of her mouth, no doubt because he was torn twenty different ways. But he felt the length of her, the long legs, and the spare chest. Then his hands dropped to the substantial, maybe oversubstantial bottom that didn’t quite go with the rest of it – and he saw for the first time that it wasn’t his youth and inexperience and fear that had kept him from taking her into the woods many years back. The fit wasn’t quite right, and it wasn’t quite right now. He had probably known it then too, but had preferred to blank it out so that he could hold on to the sweet agony he felt in the years that followed. Still, he enjoyed her fragrance, the freshness of her mouth, the rich feel of her fur coat against his cheek. Harry had been leading a quiet, pleasant life, but there had been something missing, and now he thought he knew what it was.

  “Would you like to come up for a drink?” she asked.

  He looked at his watch and said he’d love to, but that he had better not.

  “I have to get moving if I want to miss the rush hour.”

  “Well,” she said, clearly disappointed, “if you ever get to Charlotte . . .”

  Charlotte again. Twenty-five years later. He thought about the house and the twins and the way she lived, but he knew he was never going to see any of it. All the same, he told her that if he was ever in the area of Charlotte, he would be sure to look her up.

  They shook hands, and with her fragrance still trailing after him, Harry headed straight to the gift shop. Because of the kiss, he felt he had better pick up something for Julie. He had been struggling with a film project that had to do with wood nymphs and, as luck would have it, he found a vanity table mirror that had a wood nymph for a handle. Harry picked it up and was about to bring it over to the sales clerk when he spotted a gossip columnist he knew at the magazine rack. He was all filled up with his recent experience and decided to tell the gossip columnist about it, even though he didn’t know her very well.

  “You’ll never guess what just happened,” he said.

  And then it all came pouring out in a rush, starting with the college romance and his broken heart, the passage of time and then, years later, the letter, all of it culminating in the lunch he’d just had at Trader Vic’s. She listened without comment and when he had finished, she pointed to the mirror and said: “That is the tackiest piece of shit I have ever seen.”

  There was still some daylight remaining when he got home. He went straight up to the bedroom and found Julie curled up on the bed, with a lapful of mysteries, puffing on a Nat Sherman cigaretello and working her way through a six-pack of Amstel Lights. In other words, all of her favorite things to do. He wondered how one person could read so many mysteries until one day he caught her skipping ahead and unconscionably peeking at the last page of one.

  “So how’d it go, stud?” she asked, not quite taking her eyes off the book she was working on.

  “Just fine,” he said.

  The casual tone made her look up.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “What I said,” he answered, slinging his coat on top of the jumble of clothing piled up on a chair. “It went just fine.”

  Harry gave her the gift and when she had unwrapped it she said it was very nice. The lack of enthusiasm didn’t bother Harry. It took her awhile to warm up to gifts. In another month or so, she would go around saying it was one of the best things she owned.

  “Was she gorgeous?”

  “In a way,” said Harry, popping open one of her precious Amstels.

  “In what way was that?” she asked, her interest picking up. And then, with a playful kind of panic, she said: “You didn’t do anything, did you?”

  “How can you ask a question like that?” he said, continuing the game.

  And then, before she could get out another one of her Harry’s, with her eyes dancing, he sunk down beside her in the unmade bed in a tangle of beers and mysteries and laundry and cigarettes and blue jeans that was his life whether he liked it or not and hugged her so hard he almost broke her bones. He knew then that he loved her upside down and inside out, fat or skinny, rich or poor, sick, healthy, the whole list. He loved her wet green eyes, the chuckle, her rough hands, the right one extended, palm up, when she wanted to make a serious point. He loved her whiskey voice, her teenage breasts, her crazy hair, after a shampoo and before one, too, and if she didn’t want to be buried right next to him, he would be disappointed, but that would be all right, too, as long as she gave it some serious thought. He wanted her, and if he didn’t know it the instant he met her, he knew it ten minutes later. Her. The very word made him weak.

  He just wished she’d wear a skirt once in awhile.

  The People Person

  THE BLINDFOLD had been removed. His abductors had left the room. To clear his head and adjust his eyes to the lighting took thirteen minutes. He was effective at this kind of calculation. He was tied, in a sitting position, to a rattan chair, which seemed odd, since he could move himself about – and the chair as well – if he chose to. But there seemed no point to it, so he decided to stay put, at least for the time being. The room was cheaply, but cheerfully, decorated. There were two other rattan chairs that were dime store versions of the furniture he had back at the ranch. There were also twin beds, and an overhead television set with a blank screen, positioned at an odd angle. You would have to twist your head around to watch it. There was a kitchenette and a microwave, but no stove. He guessed the small dining area led to a bathroom that he could not see.

  Irony was not his strong suit, but it struck him as being ironic that the most powerful man in the world was tied helplessly to a chair in what appeared to be a small studio apartment.

  The flat was painted in hot tropical colors as were several tourist-style paintings of parrots that hung on one wall. There was something familiar about the setting. The flowered sheets, he soon realized, reminded him of a bordello that he had visited half a dozen times as a young man. It was situated on the Texas/Mexico border.

  He had tried mightily to keep his youthful transgressions out of the campaign. Still, hints about drugs and wild women kept leaking out. He had told the press that as a young man, he had been somewhat “carefree.” As far as he was concerned, that statement ended the discussion and the press appeared to be satisfied. But the flowered bed sheets brought back the memory of his gaudier days. In his new set of beliefs, he had begun to regard the bordello visits as being “sinful.” But he could not deny that they had been among the most pleasurable days of his youth. There was one cheerful woman in particular. An excellent storyteller and a gifted practitioner, she combined both skills during their hours together. From time to time – when he needed some erotic assistance – he thought of her. He wished her well, and hoped she had ended up in a good place.

  He thought back to the actual abduction and had to concede that it had been pulled off with great precision. He had paid a state visit to a small energy-rich Latin American country, one that he was anxious to “win over” with the loopy charm that even his adversaries conceded wa
s an effective political weapon. The security warnings were clear and emphatic, even ominous. The country, which was benign on the surface, had the potential of turning instantly into a tinderbox. He was instructed not to make contact with the crowds, however adoring they might appear to be. Yet for a moment, at the airport, he could not resist reaching out to embrace several of his more ardent admirers. The phrase “people person” nauseated several of his more sophisticated aides, but he felt it fit him perfectly. And this capability – his complete ease around the masses – had served him well in his swift political rise. Thus, feeling surrounded by love, he had left his protective cordon for what seemed like an instant. And as he did so, an almost mathematically precise seam had opened in the crowd, as if it had been created by a laser. He found himself being drawn through this passage with all the ease of a sword being removed from a scabbard. There were some casualties. He had a hazy recollection of gunfire and bodies on the ground. One was that of a favorite of his – a square-jawed and tow-headed “true believer” who reminded him of his nephew. He got a blurred and tumultuous look at his masked abductors. For all of their efficiency, they were a ragtag bunch. Their uniforms did not match. Some were all in black, others in faded denim. The man who might have been their leader was older than the others. A graying and out-of-date ponytail hung slackly at the back of his neck. There was an expanse of white flesh showing at his less than trim waistline. Was he an old rocker? Though his face was concealed, he had the look of a man who had failed in many professions.

  Unsurprisingly, each of the abductors carried a Kalishnikov rifle. Two, or perhaps three, were women. They were slender and fit, much more so than their male counterparts. He wondered what it would be like to make love to one of them – though he realized that as a Believer, the very thought was not permissible. As he struggled to suppress the sinful fantasy, he was rushed into the back seat of old Cadillac; it had a musty smell and might have belonged to an impoverished grad student. He was blindfolded, forcefully and expertly, by one of the female abductors. Then he felt the sting in his right arm. He heard a voice say “Goodnight, Prexy.” And then he settled into a comatose state that was not unpleasant. He had no idea how far they had traveled and whether they had remained in the vehicle for the trip. He remembered only that he had been in the back seat of the car and that he had awakened in a spotless studio apartment.

  One of the female abductors fed him bites of a burrito which strengthened his feeling that he was in a tropical area. It was surprisingly tasty, though not on the list of acceptable foods that had been prescribed for his acid reflux attacks. When he’d finished the burrito, a Diet Pepsi (also not on his list) was raised to his lips. The gentle manner of his abductor led him to believe that he was not going to be tortured – at least in the conventional manner. Was it possible his abductor was wearing perfume? And if so, did he recognize the scent? She dabbed at his face with a napkin, then said goodbye with a pat on his knee and turned out the lights. He regretted that he was not in a position to appoint her to something.

  He had a difficult time for the next hour. All he could hear was the shuffling of footsteps in the corridor and some grunting, as if crates of some kind were being carried or shoved along. His prominent nose, which had been the butt of editorial jokes, began to itch and of course he had no way of scratching it. Crying out “Please scratch my nose” was not an acceptable option. Abandoned now and facing an unknown fate, he decided to call upon his Maker. Call he did, but there was no discernible response. This disappointed him since he’d been assured that there would always be help of some kind from above.

  Though occasionally short-tempered, he was basically optimistic. Yet he began to feel that there would be no happy resolution to his predicament. He was, at heart, a trader and a businessman. In his current state, he had nothing to exchange for his freedom.

  The lights came on with a sudden and almost painful intensity. Each of his abductors carried in a cardboard carton, struggling with the weight of it. They set down the cartons, then paused to take a breath. The cartons were then unpacked. Each contained books. The handsomely embossed bindings suggested that they were classics. He had noticed such volumes in the Executive Library. Once, in an idle moment, he had even taken one down from the shelves, thinking it might contain salacious passages. When he found little along this line, he replaced the book and paid no further attention to the shelves.

  Squatting, the lead abductor with the awful ponytail selected one of the volumes, opened it and pointed to the opening paragraph.

  The captive looked out at the piles of books that were set out before him. By rough count, there must have been five hundred volumes. He felt a rising sense of panic.

  “All of them?” he asked, in a strangled voice.

  “Every bloody one,” said the leader.

  For the first time, guns were pointed seriously in his direction. Though his throat was dry, his eyes watered. Once they had focused, he began to read.

  “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

  The Great Beau LeVyne

  A NOVELLA

  YEARS BACK, and just before I met Beau, I thought my life had come to an end. I’d found out from a friend that my wife – who had been my college sweetheart – was having an affair with a musician. There are marriages that can survive an affair – or even flourish in the teeth of one if you believe the popular magazines – but ours was not one of them. The friend – acting out of either malice or good intentions – told me about my wife and her lover during a performance of The Doors at a club on Manhattan’s West 46th Street. I knew that what she told me was true. Though technically it dragged on for a bit, the marriage ended effectively with the delivery of this news. I had written a first play that was running in the Village at the time, but the triumph had no savour and I felt useless and without hope. And then, suddenly and thrillingly, I found myself flying along the Long Island Expressway in a sky blue convertible with two new friends at my side – Beau LeVyne and Jane Sandler – and the feeling that there were fresh new possibilities ahead.

  Beau had seen and admired the play and called to arrange for me to meet a group of producers and agents with the idea of my doing a screenplay for a film version. I had no special interest in film at the time, but since I had nothing better to do, I agreed to meet Beau and his group at the Italian Pavilion in mid-town Manhattan. When I arrived at the restaurant, my attention was drawn to a powerfully built man who seemed barely able to have crowded himself into his well-cut pinstriped suit. He had a rich suntan, a fairly prominent nose and kept his sparse sandy-colored hair plastered back unashamedly in the matador style. I can’t say that he was handsome, but he carried himself with assurance and behaved as if he were. He circled the room, greeting people at the table and at the bar. I thought at first he might be the maître d’. He turned out to be Beau LeVyne.

  For whatever reason, he recognized me and introduced himself. I found him immediately to be open-mannered and to have a boyish sweetness about him. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet me; on the spot, we entered seamlessly into a friendship that was to last twenty-five years. Actually, it felt more as if we were resuming a friendship rather than starting one.

  “I can’t tell you how much these people love you, Cliff,” he said, as he led me to the table he had reserved.

  The luncheon meeting passed quickly. There was some give and take on the approach to the proposed film. But when the subject was broached as to who would actually pay for the work, there was a general clearing of throats, some uneasy shuffling and the meeting dribbled away into nothing. When the other participants had filed out, Beau shook his head sadly and said: “Can you believe these people, Cliff?” as if he’d had nothing to do with assembling them.

  Despite this unpromising start, we saw each other several times over the course of the next few weeks. He was on good and familiar terms with a great many artists, sports figures and writers in particular, but it was difficult
to pin down what Beau himself actually did. It wasn’t that he was unemployed. At the moment, he was working as the personal assistant to a prominent figure in the recording industry, but his responsibilities were vague. Since he was available to meet me, no matter what the time of day or night, I had to wonder if he ever showed up at his office. He had attended Princeton – for one semester as it turned out – and had a background as an athlete, although here, too, the details were murky. An injury had supposedly cut short his career. Indeed, he shuffled along rather than walked; when he stood still, his toes pointed inward as if he were forever standing at a free throw line. The second time we met, he presented me with a photograph of himself, dressed as a matador and fighting a bull in Spain. The inscription read:

  “To Cliff . . . My new best friend . . . With admiration . . . Beau.”

  The photograph was impressive, although, as I pointed out uncharitably, when I showed it to others, the bull was no bigger than my Labrador Retriever.

  Beau asked me to read a short story of his. I thought it was polished and professional, though it remained a puzzle, since it was the only story he was ever known to have written. It was published in an obscure literary quarterly. He was tremendously comfortable to be with and would ride along agreeably in any conversational direction, registering a slight demurral now and then (“How can you say that, Cliff?”) but then falling quickly back into line, no matter what the thrust of the argument. (“That’s always been my feeling, Cliff. Surely you know that.”) On only one occasion do I recall him taking a stiff position and refusing to budge from it. The novelist Irwin Shaw, in an interview, had said that his stories were a form of letter home, a means of telling friends where he was, what he was thinking and what he was up to. I said this made sense to me. But the whole idea of it outraged Beau.