In the clutch, count on Dutch. Sam walked along Flatbush Avenue. He’d do what he planned to do. It would be nice to sit around Stella’s place and have her talk to him, to eat something with her. If she didn’t have anything ready, they could send out for pizza. He sighed. In truth, he admitted, if he’d had the money he’d have handed it over to Willie. But he couldn’t give what he didn’t have. Maybe he’d go see Stallworth and put the touch on him—a guy who’d been given back his life could afford to be generous to others.
The thing was, he told himself, entering Stella’s building on Clarkson Avenue, he could understand what Tidewater had felt—he could imagine himself in the man’s place, having finished most of his life and missing old friends: guys you’d done things with, guys whom you’d lost, for one reason or another, along the way. Sam could understand the man in that part of him because, like him, he too became angry at the idea that people had, in the course of their lives, to become separated from one another, while at the same time—more like Tidewater than he would ever acknowledge—he wanted most of all to be alone, and to be left alone. That he wanted both things at once had never seemed a contradiction: in his line of work, and living with Ben the way he had, he figured he’d had the best of both. And yet, even while Ben had been there, Sam had known that he’d longed more for each extreme—to be by himself, and to be with someone else—and he’d wondered about himself sometimes.
He pressed the bell to Stella’s apartment. The intercom clicked on. “Hello?”
“It’s Sam the Gambler,” he said.
“Hey, Sam the Gambler—come on up—”
The door buzzed, allowing Sam to enter the lobby. He heard his heart thump, under his mackinaw. His skin was dry. He didn’t think about it much—his desire to be with others. Mostly, he took things as they came, as he always had. But with all the stuff they’d been throwing at him lately—Tidewater and Sabatini and Flo and Dutch—it was, he knew, normal to want to get rid of a lot of it, to want some peace. That was why, he told himself as the elevator rose, he’d done the smart thing in coming to Stella’s. He felt comfortable when he was there, and that was enough. Let the cards fall…
“Come on in—” she called, after he had knocked. “It’s open. I was expecting company.”
Sam entered, walked down the corridor. “Who?” he asked.
“You, Sam.”
“Sure,” he said, and took his coat off, hung it in the hallway closet, then walked into the living room.
Stella was out of her wheelchair, sitting in one corner of her couch, her feet tucked under her. “How’s tricks, Ace?” she asked, and smiled at him.
His head bobbed up and down. “I can’t kick,” he said. “It’s cold. I’ve been out walking.”
“To get here,” Stella said. She swung her neck slightly, so that her hair flipped back, away from her eyes. She was, Sam told himself, as pretty a girl as he had thought on the first night he’d seen her; her smile made him smile. Her hands were in her lap, and he wondered if she’d put them there for his benefit—so that she’d look more…normal was the word, he supposed. She wore a soft sweater—a pale violet color—and a black skirt. Sam smelled something sweet. “You can sit next to me,” she said. “Take a load off your mind.”
“You’re sharp,” he said. “You must’ve eaten already.” Sam laughed and sat.
“No. I was waiting for you. I told you.” She lowered her voice. “You’re my company.”
“Come on,” he said. “Leave off.” He let his head fall back against the couch, and closed his eyes. “I’ve had a rough day—I’m not up to riddles and things.”
“I didn’t eat yet,” she said. “You can eat with me, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. “Or we could send out for pizza.”
“No,” she said. “I’ve got something in the works.”
Sam blinked. “Sure,” he said again, then realized that she’d been mimicking him, and he laughed.
“You can sit closer to me,” Stella said. “Don’t be afraid. I mean, let’s face it, with a girl like me a guy is safe, right?” Sam slid closer to her, along the couch. “Put your feet up,” she said. “You’ll feel better. On the chair.”
Sam lifted his feet and rested them on the seat of Stella’s wheelchair. He knew the wheels were locked so that it wouldn’t roll away. The room was smaller than his own, but slightly larger, he noted, than Tidewater’s. Stella worked in the other room, where she slept. “I went to see Tidewater, in his place,” Sam stated. He felt Stella’s shoulder against his own. Her hands stayed in her lap.
“So?”
“That’s all,” Sam said. “I was just making conversation.”
“Listen,” Stella said. “You be careful around him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “His eyes, I suppose. I don’t like the guy’s eyes, if you want the truth.”
“I’m hungry,” Sam said. “I don’t want to rush you, I mean—but maybe I could do something, since you’re sitting here already—”
“Don’t rush me then,” Stella said. She moved her head so that it rested on Sam’s shoulder. Her voice became soft. “Please?” Sam tensed momentarily, glanced at her, then felt things ease. He nodded, and watched her lips part, as she smiled. “I mean, you’ll feel better if you just sit for a while. Take my word for it, okay? You move around too much, if you ask me. You need to take it slow.”
“I saw Willie the Lump, on the way here.”
“No wonder,” Stella said, and closed her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I just say it? Tidewater and Willie and me, all in the same day—you move around too much. You want your life to go slower, Sam. Please? I mean, where’s it all get you in the end, right? That’s what I want to know.”
Sam laughed, and—as if it were the most natural thing in the world—he put his right arm around her shoulder and pressed her to himself, affectionately. It was the line she used that always made him laugh—loosen up—and they both knew it. “You left out Flo—I saw her too,” he said.
“See what I mean?” she said. “I’ll tell you something—you did the right thing, coming here.” She blew through her lips, as if exhausted. “Willie the Lump—Christ! Why don’t you lay off?”
“I suppose,” Sam said. “Where’s it get me in the end, right?”
One hand fell from her lap, against his thigh. “I think I need some help,” she said, glancing at her hand. Sam took her hand in his, held it briefly, then placed it back in her lap.
“At least my old man lays off—he hasn’t called yet. I give him credit there.”
“And—?”
“Nothing. He knows there’s nothing to say.”
“You have nice eyes, did I tell you that?”
“The first time we met,” Sam said, and he laughed again. “But Dutch, my buddy, is better-looking. He has those deep eyes—maybe an inch into his face—”
“But he’s not here, is he?”
“No.”
“So—?”
“You’re okay, Stella,” Sam said. “I mean—two things you said to me already, in just a few minutes—to be careful, and not to be afraid—the same jazz everybody else is giving me these days, but—” He stopped.
“But what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll tell you the truth, I feel better already, just sitting here, away from things, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure,” Stella said. “You take things too hard, is your trouble. You just close your eyes and relax. Dream about something nice while I fix supper.” She sat up, straight. Sam watched her breasts move under her sweater. If you had just come into the room, he realized, and the wheelchair hadn’t been there, you never would have thought anything. He liked that: the fact that, in all ways, when she was sitting still, she appeared to be normal, so that he didn’t have to think much—when he was with her—about what it would be like to have had her life. “Don’t take things so hard, okay, Ace? Listen to yourself—hang l
oose a little. Let the bastards sweat.”
Sam nodded. “You need some help?” he asked.
“I told you before,” she said. “Don’t be polite around me, okay?” Sam got up, moved the wheelchair to the side, and did as she had taught him to do: he moved her legs so that they hung down, just above the silver footholds at the bottom of the wheelchair; then he squatted and crossed his arms in front of him, his forearms toward her, as if he were going to throw a block in football. She put her hands on his forearms and found her strength there, lifting herself from the couch by pressing down on Sam’s arms and, at the same time—she’d done it a thousand and one times before, she’d told him—she stepped onto the metal footholds, shifted, and let her body down into the seat. “See you later,” she said, and wheeled away, around the couch to where the kitchenette was. “You take it easy. Put your feet up on the couch, or pull over the hassock. We want you to feel at home here, right?”
“Right,” he said, and sat down. He took off his shoes, then put his feet up, over one arm of the couch, his head on two embroidered throw pillows. He didn’t have to watch her work around the kitchen—everything was arranged for her. She could, in her own words, really wheel and deal there. Sam closed his eyes, heard Stella humming, and tried to think of nothing. He felt good.
There was no mystery to it really—to why he should feel so good when he was in Stella’s place, to why he felt so peaceful when she bantered with him and teased him. It had to do with what he’d been thinking about on the way to her place. There was no point in denying the truth about his feelings: since she was who she was, he supposed that in one part of him he agreed with the rest of the world—he allowed himself to believe that she didn’t count some how as a real person. Sure. That was why he could feel as if he had it both ways when he was with her: he was with somebody, and he wasn’t. It clicked into place and his eyes snapped open, seeing what he’d been thinking.
“I think I’m taking you for a ride,” he said.
“You don’t have a car.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Forget it,” Stella said. “I figure your intentions are as honorable as the next guy’s. At least. The odds are pretty good on you, if you want the truth. I’ve been around.”
“Sure,” Sam said. “I’m an ace.”
“Lie down and rest. I told you—you take things too hard. Don’t be so serious your whole life.” She appeared in front of him, in her wheelchair. “I mean—come on—look at me—you’ve got to enjoy yourself, Sam, right? Come on—look at me, damn it.”
Sam looked up. “Maybe I should leave you alone,” he said.
“You do what you want,” Stella said. “But mostly, if you come, don’t mope, okay? Enjoy yourself. Christ! Don’t they allow us that anymore? If you know what I mean.”
“Okay,” Sam said.
“Believe me, I don’t give away any more than I get.” Stella leaned forward in her chair. Her hands were on the armrests. “I’ve learned that much. You want me to put it in black and white? With me, Sam the Gambler, your account is even up, right? Oh Christ—” She was angry. “If I could, I’d shake your goddamned shoulders—” She breathed out, relaxed. “I would if I could, so consider yourself shaken. You burn me sometimes. It’s really crazy, you wanting words all of a sudden.” She pushed off, her hands on the chrome rims inside the wheels. “What for, Sam?”
Sam lay back down and closed his eyes. He did not, he knew, feel as if he were both there and not there. He knew where he was—but the other fact remained true. He felt that both extremes met: he had, somehow, as much privacy as he wanted—and he had as much…companionship was the word he found. Stella was right, he knew, though he followed her instructions and said nothing. He was pushing too hard, not listening to himself when he should, listening too closely when he had no reason to. If it was true that he did, in one part of him, think of her as being apart from other people—from girls—it was also true that, when he was with her and when he thought about her, she seemed more real than other people. He’d been too quick before, trying to pigeonhole things, trying to find a theory that would tie things together. Since when had Sam Berman ever believed in theories? To want to put an end to it all by saying that he felt as if he were with her and not with her, that she was there and not there, more real and less real… Sam shook his head, his eyes closed, seeing nothing: there was, he concluded, more to it than that.
They ate together at the kitchen table—Stella had made steak, french fries, and green beans—and Sam was still as hungry as he had been in Garfield’s. Cold weather did that to his appetite. He did his exercises, though, morning and evening: he stayed in shape. Stella didn’t press him about any of the things he’d thrown out: not about Tidewater or Willie or Ben or Flo. She talked about her own mother, who’d been trying to visit her more frequently, who’d been after her to get out more. “She wants me to meet other young people,” Stella said. “How old are you, Sam?” Sam cleared the table when they’d finished the main dish, and he got dessert for them—ice cream—from the freezer. Stella wheeled away and turned on her hi-fi, then returned. Sam served the ice cream and knew that they were both remembering—listening to the music—what she’d said to him on the first night they’d met, about dancing. He thought of telling her that he didn’t like to dance, which was true, but he knew how she would have treated a comment like that, so he said nothing. She said something about the work her mother was doing for the muscular dystrophy organization—and then, getting no response, she apologized for talking so much about her mother. “I think she likes me the way I am,” Stella said. “But that’s okay. It makes people think she’s noble, having a daughter like me. The hours she puts in, carrying around a damned canister—I mean, she doesn’t actually carry it all the time, but it’s as if she does, as if it’s a permanent part of her hand. You want to see a picture I did of her? It’s in the other room, on the desk. Forget it.” She spoke without pausing.
“You’re okay,” Sam said.
“Sure. That’s what she says. But listen: it’s a picture of her, see, holding out a canister, and on the canister is a picture of a girl in a wheelchair—that’s guess who—and if you look closely—I’m an ace too, see—you see that the girl in the wheelchair, she’s holding her own canister, and on her canister is a picture of my mother in a wheelchair holding a canister. And on the canister—got it?”
“You’re an ace,” Sam said, taking their ice cream dishes from the table. “I don’t know how you get the patience for all the details.”
“Help me out,” she said, as she wheeled to the couch. Sam let her lean on him. She pushed up, shifted, fell into the corner of the couch, then jerked herself backward. One hand was on the arm of the couch, the other flopped at her side. Sam saw her grit her teeth angrily—strain—and lift the hand to her lap. “That’s about two hundred bucks of therapy there, lifting that arm. The guy beats up on me, Sam—he pounds hell out of my muscles.”
“He must work for Sabatini.”
Stella laughed, but Sam didn’t like the hardness in her laugh. He put his arm around her and she let her head drop to his shoulder. “How was supper?”
“Real good,” he said. “I like simple meals like that. Ben used to try to make fancy stuff—him and his specials.”
“I like that,” Stella said. “Too bad he didn’t hang around—stealing from the supermarket to keep up with inflation, I liked that.” She laughed to herself, more softly. “Listen, Sam the Gambler, how about teaming up with me now that he’s gone—I mean, if they wouldn’t suspect an old man, think of what we could get away with having me wheeling through the aisles.” She paused. “But, since I am who I am, you’d have to do the handy work, right?”
“Forget it,” Sam said. “I just wanted to tell you the meal was good, that was all. Lay off on my old man.”
Her hand was against his side. Her fingers moved. “Please?” she said. “I’m not so tough, Sam. Please?”
“Sure,” he said. He
liked the feel of her fingers against him. They were on his rib cage, at the right. He imagined her working at her desk, designing the cards. She’d let him watch her at work one day—he’d been amazed that anyone could draw things so small. “Ben’s okay.”
“I mean,” Stella said. “Can you imagine what she’d feel like—what my life would be like, for that matter—if I wasn’t pretty?”
Sam moved away, and Stella’s hand fell on the couch, between them. “I don’t get you—”
She sighed. “Sorry to lay this stuff on you, but it’s okay if I talk some, isn’t it?” Her voice was intense. “Christ, Sam, I’ve got to talk to somebody sometime. Flo’s okay—she listens, she loves me, she got me to come that night to meet you, right?—but it’s not the same thing. She sees me as one of her kids, one who made it—it’s all mixed up with things her life didn’t give her. I am, I mean. But I think about it—what I said: I get by, sure—I cope—but if I hadn’t been given some talent, and if I was, say, a homely tub of lard, then would you be here? Answer me that—”
“No,” Sam said, and repeated himself: “No. I like the way you look. You’re a goodlooking girl, Stella.”
“Come back,” she said. He lifted her hand, moved close to her again. “Sure. You’re right. I take what I can get in this life. I’m glad you said the truth, but it’s something I think about: it makes things easy that I look the way I do—for my mother too, I suppose. She doesn’t want me the way I am—my legs—she’d like me to be like others, and yet she thrives on my sickness, doesn’t she? I gave her a purpose for living, didn’t I?” Stella waited. Her fingers moved against Sam’s side again, nervously. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to say anything. I mean, don’t think I think this way about myself twenty-four hours a day—I don’t know why it came over me.” She stopped. “You do like the way I look?”
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