the Bar Studs)

by Levinson, Len

  Donald cackled uncontrollably, the stubs of his legs kicking inside his pants. Beer spilled from his can onto his lap and the already splotched rug. “Oh Jesus! And then they still wouldn’t move so Johnson started hittin’ the big one over the head with his cartridge belt!”

  “That did it!” Manowski said, tears of glee rolling down his cheeks. “Then they ran off like jackrabbits!”

  The young men laughed some more, sipped beer, and gradually became solemn. “That Johnson was a motherfucker, wasn’t he?” Manowski asked, after several minutes had passed.

  “I was just thinkin’ about him myself. He was a good man.”

  “One of the best.”

  “They was gonna make him a sergeant.”

  “Shit, he woulda been an officer in another year.”

  “Crazy bastard.”

  “Crazy as hell.”

  The two became still and turned their faces to the television set, on which half-time festivities were underway. John watched the backs of their heads and wondered if the Johnson fellow had come back wounded like Donald, or was buried somewhere, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

  “Looka that!” Donald pointed to a cheerleader jumping into the air.

  “She can put her pom-pom on my bed anytime.”

  Just then the phone rang. The living room extension was on a small wooden table between Donald and Manowski. Donald picked it up. “Yeah?” He listened for a few seconds. “Just a minute.” He held the phone out to John. “It’s for you, Pop.”

  “I’ll take it in my bedroom.” He wondered who it could be as he arose and walked to his room, closing the door behind him. He sat on his bed and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

  “John Houlihan?”

  “Yes.” The voice sounded drunk and familiar.

  “This is Doug Wilson.”

  “I’m hangin’ up, Pop,” Donald said. The phone clicked.

  John was astounded. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wilson,” he managed to say.

  “I found your number in the phone book,” Mr. Wilson said sloppily. “What’re you doing?”

  “I was reading the New York Times.”

  “Sounds like a pretty boring way to spend Sunday afternoon.”

  “I like to know what’s going on in the world, as I’m sure you do.”

  “The world depresses me, and guess what just happened? My wife left me two hours ago. Went to live with my daughter—our daughter in Great Neck. I’m zonkered, which I guess you can tell.”

  “Your wife left you! What happened?”

  “She says I drink too much. She’s always been a damn puritan. About everything.”

  Mr. Wilson had once showed John a picture of his wife, who was gray-haired, slender, and very elegant. “I’m sure she’ll be back, sir.”

  “I hope not!”

  “You don’t want her back?”

  “If she shows up here again I’ll throw a chair at her!”

  “You’ll feel differently about this tomorrow.”

  “Like hell I will!”

  Both men breathed into their phones for a few moments. John felt embarrassed and couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Are you working tonight, John?” Wilson asked at last.

  “I’m off Sundays and Mondays, sir.”

  “Why don’t you stop calling me ‘sir’? We’re not in the goddamn army, are we?”

  “No.” He almost added sir but stopped himself.

  “Why don’t you come over and keep me company? We can have a few drinks, and my freezer is full of steaks.”

  John was flabbergasted. “Are you sure you want me to come over there?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t mean it. I was just sitting here thinking I’d like somebody congenial to visit and have a few drinks with me, and you immediately came to mind. You’ve presided over my alcoholism until now and you might as well continue. Do you have a car?”

  “No, but the subway’s very fast.”

  “Take a cab and I’ll pay for it. I’d come up and get you myself but I’m so schnockered I might drive off the Triborough Bridge.”

  “The subway’s faster than a cab, actually. Where do you live, exactly?”

  John wrote Mr. Wilson’s Fifth Avenue address on a corner of the Times, asked if he should pick up anything on the way, and upon being told that nothing was required except the pleasure of his company, said goodbye, and hung up the telephone.

  John dressed quickly in gray slacks, yellow sport shirt, blue blazer, and tweed topcoat, all purchased at considerable cost at Abercrombie and Fitch. When finished he looked at himself in his dresser mirror and saw a well-dressed conservative gentleman, possibly a stockbroker or lawyer like Mr. Wilson, gazing back at him.

  “Where ya goin’, Pop?” Donald asked when John emerged from the bedroom.

  “I’m going to visit a friend of mine,” John replied, pride in his voice.

  “Willya bring us a couple more beers before you go?”

  “Sure.”

  John marched to the refrigerator, took out the beers, opened them, and placed them on the table beside the two young men, who stared with glassy eyes at a player who ran to catch a pass but ultimately missed it.

  “That dumb fuckin’ nigger!” Donald slapped the arm of his wheelchair.

  “I’ll see you boys later,” John said as he headed toward the door.

  They didn’t answer him.

  Chapter Five

  After finishing their late breakfast, Adrian, Julie Bauman, and Cindy Johnson made telephone calls to tell friends about the wonderful marijuana they were selling for only fifty dollars an ounce. Throughout the rest of the day friends and friends of friends visited the apartment, sampled marijuana, purchased some, and unable to move, hung around. The stereo played loudly and the customers, who were young and not-so-young, male and female, representing all races and various social strata, melted together into a smoky trance. The world outside was a nightmare from which they’d just awakened.

  Cindy called the big-time marijuana dealer Perce Washington and he showed up shortly after eight o’clock in the evening, wearing his belted camel hair coat and looking handsome as an Abyssinian prince.

  “Hi, baby,” he said out the left side of his mouth to Cindy as he stood in the doorway.

  She stood hesitantly before him, her hands behind her back. “Hi Perce.”

  He held out his arms and smiled. “Gimme some sugar.”

  She fell into his arms and he kissed her, picked her up, and carried her into the bedroom where two bearded men were lying side by side on the waterbed discussing the similarities between Buddhism and Edmund Husserl. Perce let Cindy down gently on a vacant length of the waterbed and then removed his magnificent coat.

  “You guys mind talkin’ someplace else?” he asked.

  Without protest they arose from the bed and stumbled into the living room, where they sat beside the unlit fireplace and continued their discussion.

  Only a few feet away, on huge red cushions in the corner, sprawled Adrian with his arm around Julie, who lay next to him. He had already taken in over one thousand dollars and he still had a half-pound of marijuana left for his own use. When Perce came out of the bedroom he’d ask him about a few more pounds.

  “How’re you feeling?” Julie asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Like the party?”

  “It’s okay.”

  But it really wasn’t. Adrian looked around the crowded noisy smoky room and wanted to be alone with his regrets, but there was no place to go. He missed Sandra increasingly. He would have enjoyed driving out to Oyster Bay with her today as they’d planned. Julie was just a toy.

  He pulled his arm from underneath her. “I’m going out.”

  She yawned and stretched one fist in the air. “I feel like staying here.”

  He didn’t want her to come anyway.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just for a walk.”

  “Don’t go east of Avenue A. It�
��s dangerous over there.”

  He knew the city better than she but thought it best not to tell her so. “I’ll get my coat out of the bedroom.”

  “What should I do if more people show up and want to buy grass?”

  “Tell them we’re all out and to call back tomorrow.”

  “We’re out already?”

  “I saved some for us—don’t worry. It’s in my suitcase. See you later.” He pecked her cheek and then arose and walked in long strides to the bedroom door, which he found locked. He knocked.

  “Who’s there?” asked Cindy breathlessly. She sounded like she was undergoing considerable physical exertion.

  “It’s Adrian and I have to get my coat.”

  “Just a second.”

  He waited, heard Perce groan and Cindy laugh. The lock in the door clicked.

  “Don’t come in until I say so,” Cindy said.

  Adrian heard bare feet on the bedroom floor, then a muffled splash from the waterbed.

  “Okay!” Cindy called out.

  Adrian opened the door and entered the bedroom. A red candle shaped like half a grapefruit burned on the small table beside the waterbed. Cindy lay on her back and Perce was on top of her. Although the sheet covered them Adrian could see her legs spread and Perce lying between them.

  “Hi, my man,” Perce said with a tired but friendly smile. He held up his hand, and Adrian shook it. “I hear your old lady closed you down.”

  “That’s right. You think you can get a few more pounds of that good stuff for me?” He walked to the closet and put on his pea coat.

  “That’s all gone but I got somethin’ better now. Columbian.”

  “How much?”

  “Three hundred a pound.”

  Adrian exhaled through rounded lips. “Every time I talk to you a pound is fifty dollars more.”

  “That’s the economics of the business, baby.”

  “Can you bring them around tomorrow?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Call first, to make sure I’m here.”

  “Okay.”

  Adrian slapped Perce lightly on the ass. “That’s all—you can go back to work now.”

  Perce laughed easily. “Okay, man.”

  Throughout the conversation Cindy lay with her eyes closed and a faint smile on her lips.

  Adrian left the bedroom, closed the door behind him, and walked to the front door of the apartment. In a corner of the living room he saw Julie talking with a young blond man in new jeans and old cowboy boots. Adrian waved to her, opened the door, and departed.

  The street was dark and deserted, and streetlamps shone on overflowing garbage cans and parked cars. The cold winter wind bit into Adrian’s face as he walked toward First Avenue, his right hand closed around his switchblade. He looked up at the sky but could see no stars between the roofs of tenements that lined the street. Ahead he saw four Puerto Rican teenagers turn the corner and head straight for him. As they approached he moved to the side to let them pass, his thumb on the button of his switchblade. They jabbered in Spanish and acted like they didn’t see him as they walked by.

  In the middle of the next block he saw a tavern under a red neon sign that read THE UKRAINIAN CLUB. The entrance was four steps down from the sidewalk and through the big window he could see a snooker pool table not far from the door. He descended the steps and walked inside.

  Toward his left was the bar where five old men sat and watched Dean Martin singing on the color television set. Behind the bar was a coarse-looking man with a shaved head and small round ears. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled over his substantial biceps, and looked suspiciously at Adrian as he approached.

  “Give me a double shot of dark rum with a little soda,” Adrian said, leaning against the bar and resting his left foot on the bottom slat of a barstool. He knew this was a neighborhood bar and the bartender was wary of strangers, so to show good intentions he took out a five-dollar bill and laid it on the bar.

  The bartender saw it and without hesitation filled an old-fashioned glass with ice, squirted some soda into it from a nozzle on the bar, and set it down before Adrian. Then he pulled a double-shot glass from under the bar, dropped it beside the old-fashioned glass, and filled it to the brim with brown rum.

  “Buck and a quarter,” the bartender said, pulling the bottle away.

  Adrian moved the five toward the bartender who took it, rang it up, and returned with the change. Adrian put the three bills in his pocket and pushed the coins toward the bartender. “Where’s your phone?” he asked.

  “Over there.” The bartender pointed toward the back of the room.

  Adrian poured the rum over the ice, stirred with his finger, and took two gulps. Then he picked up the glass and carried it back past the empty wooden booths to the telephone, which hung on the wall behind a cigarette machine. There was a shelf near the phone and he placed the glass on it after taking another gulp. The bartender and his five customers were watching him. He lifted the receiver off the hook and slipped a dime into the slot. Before dialing he took another drink of rum. The earpiece buzzed four times before it was answered.

  “Hello,” said Sandra Goldstein.

  “Hello, Sandra. This is me.”

  There was a long pause. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk with you.”

  There was another long pause. “Talk.”

  Adrian closed his eyes. “You’re not making this easy for me.”

  “Talk.” Her voice was cold and officious.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  She laughed falsely. “Miss your bar already?”

  “I miss you more than the bar.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “You wouldn’t know the truth if it fell on you.”

  “I want to see you.”

  “I don’t want to see you ever again.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes I do. I don’t want anybody I can’t trust.”

  “I won’t lie to you anymore,” Adrian said. “There won’t be any more funny business.”

  “Even that’s a lie.”

  “No it’s not, Sandra.”

  “Now listen to me, you,” she said sharply. “I never told you how to live and I never put much pressure on you. All I expected was a certain minimum degree of honesty and decency, which evidently was too much for you. If you like to play with little hippie girls that’s your business, but you insult me and humiliate me when you lie to me. I’ll never be able to trust you again.”

  “Give me another chance, will you, for Christ’s sake? Don’t be such a hard-ass. We’ve known each other for a long time.”

  “Too long.”

  “You’ve never heard me talk like this before. I’m telling you I’ll never pull anything with you again.”

  Her voice became distant. “I’m selling the bar anyway.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I spoke to somebody today about it.”

  “Good.”

  “I hate you.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “I’m sitting on my sofa eating. I think I gained ten pounds today.”

  “Let me come over.”

  She sighed. “I want to forget you.”

  “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

  She didn’t reply for what seemed a long time. “I’m selling the bar no matter what,” she said at last.

  “Sell the fucking thing, I don’t care.”

  “I wish I never met you. I’m so weak with you.”

  “I’m weak with you, too. I never made a phone call like this in my life.”

  “Oh, come on up,” she said, utter defeat in her voice. He felt beaten too. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone before she could change her mind.

  * * *

  Johnny Mash carried under his arm the manila envelope containing the Colt .45 and twenty-five hundred dol
lars in cash as he walked into the lobby of the Barrington Hotel on University Place in Greenwich Village. The old desk clerk Max, a hippopotamus with a moustache, beckoned to him with an index finger.

  Johnny Mash walked toward him. “What’s up?”

  “Your rent—it’s due for two weeks,” Max croaked. “And you gotta message.” He reached back into one of the tiny boxes behind him and pulled out a scrap of paper.

  Johnny Mash read: Call Adrian at 695-5077. Then he looked up at Max. “How much I owe?”

  “Sevenny bucks.”

  “I’ll pay you later on tonight.”

  Max wrinkled his nose. “Later on is like tomorrow—it never comes.”

  “Fuck off—willya, Max?” Johnny Mash reached into his pocket and took out a quarter, which he dropped on the counter. “Gimme some change for the phone.”

  Max opened a drawer, threw down two dimes and a nickel, and scooped up the quarter.

  Johnny Mash took the change and crossed the small lobby, in which several people in worn ill-fitting clothes sat on lumpy furniture and watched an ancient black and white television set. He entered the phone booth, closed the door, inserted a dime, and dialed. It was busy on the other end so he hung up and climbed the stairs to his room.

  His room was in the back of the hotel on the third floor and faced the stark brick wall of a warehouse only twenty feet away. His bed was unmade and in the air was the smell of unwashed clothes bunched up in piles on the rug, chairs, and dresser. There was no maid service in the Barrington but residents could exchange dirty sheets for clean ones on Tuesdays.

  He threw his leather jacket over a chair, sat on the bed, opened the manila envelope, and pulled out the Colt .45. It was heavy and its shiny deadly shape looked beautiful to him. He gripped its handle and his finger curled naturally around the trigger. Closing one eye, he took aim at the lock on the window. The gun made him feel strong and cruel.

  He pressed the button on the side and the clip sprang out of the handle. He picked it up and looked at the fat bullet on top. When he hit Tino Fernandez that would blow his head apart. He lay the Colt on the bed and picked the top bullet out of the clip. He twirled the bullet in his fingers and on an impulse touched its blunt lead point to his tongue.

  He pushed the bullet back into the clip and lay the clip on the bed. Then he picked up the Colt, clicked off its safety switch, and jammed it into his belt. After standing up he walked slowly and grimly to the center of the room, crouched, spun around, and aimed at his head in the mirror. He stood motionless in that position for a few seconds, then pulled the trigger. There was a loud metallic snap. He grinned at himself. It was fun to fool around with guns.