by Morris, Ian;
“I just want new gloves,” Dru said plaintively.
I’d never heard people talk about glovemakers. The conversation struck me, not so much for what they talked about as the way they talked. They talked like people who were used to standing on stages, people who were used to being listened to. Their voices blended like a radio show: Dru’s half-whisper and Crowder’s bellow, Harriette’s bland directness and Bea’s sarcasm, Majors’s cocktail stud rap and Sing’s clicky patter.
Dru tapped on a glass and called out, “We’ve got to toast Harold’s play.”
I stood next to Majors as he put his arms around my shoulder and Grey’s. “How about it you two?” he said. “Don’t you feel lucky to be here?”
I looked at Grey and we both said, “Sure.”
“So what’s it called?” I asked Majors.
“What?”
“Harold’s play.”
“I’m sure I have no idea,” he said. “That’s Harold’s territory.”
Harriette flopped on the couch. Sing found a chair. Crowder walked around the perimeter turning dials on the heaters. Dru sat and curled her stockinged legs to her chest.
From beyond the reach of the lights, I heard a refrigerator door close. Majors appeared in the light with his index finger looped through the handle of a gallon jug of wine. He tossed a stack of paper cups to me. Once everyone had filled their cups, Majors tapped on the side of the jug. “A toast,” he said, “to Dru, to Stovepipe Theater, to a new year, and—”
Crowder took a sip prematurely. “—And to wine,” he said, “that comes in a bottle with a cap that screws on.”
“Here, here.”
The conversation grew louder as the evening went along. Everybody talked at once. Their voices rose and echoed through the lattice of steel support beams forty feet above our heads. Mostly they talked about people they knew, put-downs and rumors, ending with explosions of laughter. My attention wandered to the shadows just beyond the reach of the light. The railing that ran the length of the second floor and the glass windows of the abandoned offices beyond it. As my eyes became accustomed to the dim light I saw stretching across the floor rows of heavy machinery, drill presses and lathes arranged in rows. They reminded me of the dormant menace of the robots of Robot World.
We played games, charades and this one called “In This Scene,” in which each team takes turns picking names of plays out of Harriette’s hat. You decide which scene you want to perform from that play, the other team decides what twist the scene will take. “For instance,” Crowder said, “if the play was Hamlet, and the scene was the play within the play, you’d do it just like it was in the dreary original, only the troupe only speak Lithuanian. Want to give it a try, Bea?”
She uncurled from the chair, walked over to the cap, plucked a slip, and read, “A Doll’s House.”
“Okay,” Crowder said, “in this scene, Nora, who has struggled for independence throughout the entire second act, must tell Thorvald that she crashed the Volvo.”
Majors thought about it for a moment and stifled a laugh, Bea picked up a stained, crocheted shawl that was draped over the back of the couch and put it over her head. Majors straightened his blazer and stood upright until Crowder said, “Go,” at which point Bea, looking worried and preoccupied, began rearranging items on the coffee table.
Majors strode into the light from down stage and said, “Honey, I’m home,” in an accent like Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy, and everyone laughed.
Bea stood up with a start. “Thorvald,” she said, “there is something I must tell you about the car. I was backing out of Thor’s House of Cheese—where Jarlsberg is always on special—when Olaf who drives the cement mixer came down the road much too fast, as people will in such modern times as these.”
With his head turned toward us, Majors stepped toward her and said, “What are you saying, Nora?”
“It was not my fault.” Bea was rolling. I didn’t like her, but I admired the way she could counterfeit such emotions. “How can I respect you as a driver Thorvald, if I cannot respect myself.”
Crowder said, “Curtain.”
“Our turn,” Dru said and plucked a slip of paper from the hat. “Oh, great,” she said, “Sophocles’s Electra.”
Sing, Bea, and Majors huddled and then Bea said, “In this scene Clytemnestra suspects that Electra stole her vibrator.”
I laughed, a little too loudly, and there was an awkward silence before Harriette laughed too. “How many do we need,” Harriette asked, “two?”
“No three,” Crowder said. “A chorus.”
Dru leaned toward me, “You want to do that?”
“I’ll watch this one,” I said, not knowing the play and having no idea what to do.
They walked giggling to the center of the room like two high school girls who had been caught passing notes in math class.
Crowder stepped from the shadows behind them, carrying a push broom, bristles up, which he rapped on the concrete floor, “Behold Clytemnestra, queen of the house of Atreus”—with a wave of his hand he indicated Harriette, who curtsied—“wife of Agamemnon grown bitter at the absence of her warrior husband, who toils with sword and shield to return his brother’s wife—and collect a deposit. He nightly breaching the nubile battlements of fair, unheeded Cassandra with his Trojan horse, while his wife remains behind, attended only by Electra, her daughter, in nature if not in name, or by any other available standard.” Dru bowed quickly.
“Electra,” Harriette called, “Electra come here this instant.”
Dru stepped forward, her hand behind her back. “Yes mother—whore.”
“Electra, where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Do I? Then perhaps you are talking about the truth. In which case I do. It lies behind the mask of your sluttish lies.”
There was laughter from the others sitting around. I thought to myself that this is a role, the spiteful teenage daughter, that Dru had played before. Harriette on the other hand seemed incapable of conjuring any feelings of spite or anger, her voice as it got higher only seemed less menacing, like that of a cartoon mouse.
She turned to Dru and said. “There may be truth in part of what you speak. And it may be also true that Aegisthus, in his fear of our master’s return, has grown as limp as yesterday’s olive salad. And still it would be well for you, who closes her eyes at night and dreams of her brother Orestes.”
“I do not dream of my brother’s Orestes. I dream of the day when your ears are deaf forever to the baleful hum of this artifice.” At that Dru pointed toward Crowder, who made a low mechanical buzzing sound and held the broom at arm’s length, hands shaking, like the broom was fighting to get away.
“For pity it comes,” Dru shouted, “and so I fear shall I.”
“Then it is done. You will impale thine mother.” She shrieked and threw herself to the floor. Dru snatched the broom and raised it over her head like a spear.
“Curtain,” Crowder yelled. Majors wolf-whistled and the rest of us applauded. Dru dropped the broom and curtsied, lifting the hem of her skirt with her fingertips, while Harriette fought her way out of the folds of her dress to get to her feet, her black hair streaking the powder on her face.
Harold Sing shifted in his chair with his hands clasped on his knee until he was facing Grey and me and said, “Now you.”
He caught Grey gulping the last of a cup of wine. “What?” he choked.
“Yes, you,” said Harriette. “We haven’t seen you guys do anything.”
A chill went up my back at the thought of picking a piece of paper out of the hat with the name of a play that nine chances out of ten I’d never heard of.
“Or maybe we’ve seen everything,” Crowder said.
Grey wiped his mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know,” Dru said loudly and waited until she saw that everyone was looking, “I’m bored.”
Bea
looked at her and then at Grey and then at Crowder and Sing. “Dru’s right,” she said. “This is lame. I’m going. I’m your ride Harriette.”
Harriette followed her to the door but with her head turned over her shoulder in case the show hadn’t ended yet. Grey waited until the others were looking at the girls and nodded at the door. I hadn’t thought to leave, but he was right. This was the time for it, if we were going to get out before we wrecked any chance I had with these people.
We pulled on our coats and fell in behind the girls, saying our goodbyes all around. Dru sat sunken in an oversized arm chair, watching us through narrowed eyes. No one seemed particularly overjoyed or sorry to see us go. Though as we reached the top of the stairs, Majors grabbed my arm as Grey continued down and said in a low voice, “You should come back tomorrow.”
“Maybe,” I said, “I’m not sure he’s going to want to.”
“No,” he said, “You should come back tomorrow. Leave your friend at home, huh?”
I looked down the stairway to see if Grey caught any of that, but he didn’t even seem to notice I wasn’t behind him.
Snow had started to fall and we walked through the still-dark morning with the streetlights reflecting off wet sidewalks. Grey wasn’t talking and that made me wonder if he’d heard what Majors said or if I’d done anything wrong by not telling Majors to fuck off. “What’d you think?” I asked.
Grey made a face. “Little faggoty, the guys were, didn’t you think?”
He disappointed me. “It’s college people,” I said. “You get used to it.”
He looked at me like he wanted to be sure I was on the level. We were both freezing and still had a long walk ahead. “I suppose I could—if I ever believed a word that they said.”
“You didn’t?”
“You did?”
“What did they say that you didn’t believe?”
“That’s just it,” he said, “I mean, Jesus, it’s gloves and plays and what the fuck. It was nothing that made any sense.”
I said, “So you wouldn’t care if you went back.”
“Why would I ever go back?”
“You wouldn’t,” I said, “Just asking,” as the snow fell harder.
18
IN WHICH GREY PERFORMS ACTS OF PARI N6 ON A CAFETERIA TRAY
By morning snow clung to the branches outside the window. Grey lay on the rug in the middle of the room in his clothes, like a homicide victim lacking only the chalk outline. Ship was gone and his bed was made, leaving me to suspect that it had been him slamming the door that had jolted me awake.
Maybe a half foot of snow had fallen on the grass and fields. It didn’t stick on the pavement because of the warm temperatures, making for a picture-book landscape of white fields and wet slate sidewalks cutting through at straight angles. Grey and I pulled on gloves and scarves and trudged up to the observatory. I’d told him about Elise and wanted her to meet him, though truth be told I don’t think either of them had cared much about what they heard about the other. A sign on the door said it was closed until the next semester.
Some kids were making a racket at the top of the hill that sloped toward the woods and the lake. We walked to the crest to see tracks fanning out in all directions and saw bundled figures scooting toward the bottom, then jumping off and rolling in a cloud of snow before they reached the trees.
“What’re they sliding on?” Grey asked.
“Looks like trays,” I said, “from the cafeteria.”
His eyes glittered. “We have to try that. Do you think they’d let me try that?”
I saw Ship standing with a crowd of kids I didn’t know. “Hey, Ship,” I yelled. He didn’t turn. “Hey Dennis, over here.”
He nodded just slightly, enough to show he knew I was yelling at him. We went to him, high-stepping through the snow.
“Can Grey slide on your tray?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Come on,” Grey said.
Ship reluctantly agreed—not so much handing him his tray as letting Grey snatch it from him.
He pointed at the trees just beyond the base of the hill. “The trick,” he said, “is to make yourself wipe out before you get to the trees.”
Grey looked. “Screw that,” he said. “If I can get through there”—he made a knifing gesture with his hands to show where he would cut through the one narrow path between the trees to a second hill beyond that ended at the water’s edge—“I can make it all the way to the second hill.”
“Not a chance,” Ship said.
“Do you dare me?” Grey said, wiping snot off his nose.
“No,” Ship said. “You’ll bust my tray.”
“Watch me,” he said and jumped onto the tray so that the force of landing on it sent it and him sailing down the hill.
He paddled with his hands, until he was going faster than any of the others who had gone before him. As he neared the trees at the bottom, he seemed bound to crash into a thick oak and yet did nothing to change his course. I wondered if he intended to will the tree out of his way or hit it trying, but at the last second, he rolled off as the others had and the tray skidded harmlessly to a stop.
“There,” Ship said, “now give it back,” once Grey had grappled his way back to the top of the hill.
“No way. Almost had it,” Grey said, huffing hard, and before Ship could lay a hand on him was on his way down the hill again. This time he seemed to have found the angle that would take him through the trees, until the tray drifted of its own accord, taking him toward the same oak that had caused him to abort the previous try. Instead of falling off though, Grey stayed on, leaning to the left, trying to coax the tray onto the right course, until he struck the tree, not quite center but glanced off, upending him and sending the sound of plastic striking wood echoing through the bare forest.
“Shit,” someone said, but then Grey was standing and swatting the snow off his coveralls. He bent over the tray beside him and picked up two pieces of plastic cleaved in half.
“Man,” Ship whined, “he broke it.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry about that.”
“Sorry about that,” Grey echoed, once he’d climbed back up the hill and laid the pieces of the tray at Ship’s feet. He’d scuffed his chin and a trickle of blood ran down his neck.
Ship looked morose. “Why don’t you go back in the cafeteria and get another one?” I asked him.
“They won’t let us take them anymore since they figured out what we’re using them for.”
“Sucks, I almost made it,” Grey said.
By this time maybe a couple of dozen kids were standing around. “You can take mine,” one of them said. “I want to see this.”
Grey’s face lit up at this act of generosity. I wasn’t as enthusiastic, as it seemed from their expressions that they looked at Grey as a kind of sideshow act, and were willing to see him kill himself for their amusement. But Grey, not noticing or not caring, gave them all the thumbs up, said, “See you at the funeral,” and was gone again. There was something miraculous about this run from the start. We could see right away as he sped down the hill that he was aimed straight at the opening he’d pointed out and this time the tray stayed on course. Looking from the distance like a perfectly struck ball in bumper pool, he sailed among the trees, getting close but never so much as brushing their trunks, cleared the woods, and disappeared over the dip at the far end. Seconds later he reappeared, far down the hill, gliding at an ever-slower pace until the tray came to a stop just short of the rocks at the edge of the lake.
“Wow,” said the guy who lent him his tray, “that was amazing.”
“Jeeps,” Ship said, before he caught himself and went back to looking sad again. I nodded, looking down the hill to the water’s edge where Grey stood and raised his fist in the air.
“Never thought the thing would break, Dennis,” Grey said to Ship as we walked down the path to Rosewalter.
Ship chewed on his mitten, not t
alking.
Grey tried to look him in the eye, but Ship turned away.
“You’re crying,” Grey said.
“I am not.”
“You are, too. You’re crying over a tray.”
“Shut up. It’s cold. My nose is running.”
After what Grey had done I should’ve stuck up for Ship. Instead I said, “It was a fine tray,” and felt bad about it the second I did because the last thing he needed was me adding to his misery.
When we got back to our room, Grey went to the bathroom to check out the cut on his chin and Ship took the opportunity to go down to the TV lounge.
“Where’s Dennis?” Grey asked when he came back with a wad of toilet paper stuck to his chin.
I told him. I also told him the only reason Ship went was to get away from him.
“You think?”
“You do give him a hard time.”
“I do?”
We played a few hands of gin. Grey turned the cards over and over, performing one-handed cuts and a shuffling technique he called the California Fan. I could tell he was in a good mood because I won as many hands as I lost. When he was mad enough to cheat, he shot the moon every time.
“We should head out around 7:00, if we want to get to the bus station on time.”
“Whatever,” Grey said.
“Can I ask you a question straight up?”
He knew that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was and shrugged.
“Do you think you’ll be able to get by on the level?”
He fanned the cards on the floor and flipped them over by turning the last in line and letting the others domino onto their faces. “What do you mean?”
“I mean how much of the money you got coming in comes from selling boats and how much comes from selling dope for Natch?”
Grey stopped shuffling. I thought he might go nuts. Instead he shrugged, said, “Screw Natch,” and spread the cards with his fingers so that all of them were visible. “Pick a card, but don’t tell me what it is.” I drew the ten of spades. He gathered up the cards, patted them back into an even deck and tapped them on the floor. “Natch lacks all the necessary resources, except one. I have all the necessary resources, except one. It’s a match of convenience. Once I’m fixed, I can tell him to get lost.”
