by Alan Cheuse
Come on baby,
Light my fire!
And the organ music, the doodle-doodly-dooodly-dooodly-doot-doo!
You know that I
Would be untrue
Stops at a street corner. Gets her bearings. Continues on down toward Bleecker and reaches it, this time, on foot. And sees a parking space! Oh! She’s miffed for a few seconds. Then she shrugs. A husky man in blue gym shorts stops, stares at her.
“Hello,” he says.
She blinks at him. Does she know him? Does he know her?
“Where you headed, baby?”
She turns the corner, hunts for a number. He’s following.
“Do you mind?!”
“Hey, baby, I know where . . .”
The number! It’s nailed above the entrance to a basement stairwell. Two garbage cans guard either side of the descending steps. Down, down, knock.
“Hey, come on!” the man calls down to her. He’s behind her, still talking.
Oh, please be home, she’s worrying to herself. It’s broad daylight, sunlight, no threat, not dark Newark, but still. He’s got a glass in his hand.
“Hello.”
Bair in the doorway, rumpled hair, beard plastered to his face.
“Oh, I’m so glad.” She turns and the man has disappeared.
“Come in,” Bair says.
Oh, this is. What? Dark, small, not what she expected. The famous writer’s . . .
“Sorry for the mess,” he says.
“You just woke up?”
He nods.
“I’ll bet you worked all night.”
Nods again.
“What’s that?”
There’s a red shrine with a candle in the center nailed over the small bed in the rear of the one-room cave.
“Oh,” he laughs. “A friend of mine sells those. He gave me one.”
“A joke?”
“Yeah, a joke. Hey, would you like a drink?”
She shakes her head.
“Just one,” he says. “I can’t talk to you unless you have a glass in your hand.”
“A joke?”
“No joke. No glass, that makes me nervous.”
“Just one then.”
“Just one.”
“You teach without a glass in your hand,” she says, looking around the cave. “Did this used to be . . .”
“A basement. A storage room for the restaurant upstairs. Then they blocked off the stairway—it’s behind that little closet—and made it into an apartment. Nice, huh? There’s a shower in there, and a . . . here.”
“Is this . . . ?”
“All I have? Unless you want some warm beer. I bought some beer last night but forgot to put it away.”
“No, this is all right. But it’s awfully . . .”
“Just one.”
“Just one but a tall one? Coming right up. And I can teach without it because teaching doesn’t make me nervous. Only life. And work.”
“Teaching isn’t work?”
He drinks.
“Not when there’s someone like you in the class.”
“Pardon?”
“Come, sit down.”
They sit, she on a straight-backed chair at the table where he both eats and works, he on the edge of his single bed that takes up almost a third of the room. Outside the sun shines but little light penetrates through the grillwork down into this cave. He’s talking about her piece of writing, a story from her childhood she wrote for the class, she read it, he read it, it’s moving, he says, and daring, for her to tell what she did, very daring, but daring isn’t enough, you know, because you’ve got to have technique to convey it, and the daring part has to be there in the technique as well, to tell a daring story in a plain way makes the story plain, to tell a plain story in a daring way makes the technique stand out, to tell a daring story in a daring way gives the reader a real sense of the life, of the experience.
“Could I have another one of these, please?” she says.
“Sure,” he says. “See what I mean?”
“I think so,” she says.
Is it cold down here or just her imagination? It’s a day in spring, bright sunlight through the bars, but here in the cave she expects moss, it’s so damp, dank, musty. Does he sleep with heavy blankets into summer? And then it must become a steam bath, no real ventilation. She smells musk, whiskey, food, dampness from the shower. So close. She takes the glass from him.
“So when you do that scene on the barge, on the river, you don’t want to muck it up with that stuff about the childhood. You want to make us feel her girlish self, her helplessness, and also her strengths because she’s got strengths, no doubt about it, but the use of light, shadow, the water, the motion of the barge, all that can work to your advantage here, I’ll get you a little more.”
Now there’s no doubt in her mind that he is sincere, he’s telling her the truth, and certainly she is sincere in wanting to hear the truth, because why else would he invite her to his apartment? He could get anyone he wanted in the class and there are girls a lot younger, real girls, not mothers like herself with daughters almost in college, rabbis for husbands, drunks for dead mothers, dead fathers, someone with feelings who can feel and not just try to write about feelings that used to be.
“So do you think it’s good?”
“Oh, hey, don’t ask such an apocalyptic question. Is it any good? And will you be saved and go to heaven? We try, you try, and if we’re lucky some good might come. Maybe you’ve got something, but you just have to keep on trying and see what it is.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Here, let me take care of that drink. Me, oh, sure, I wrote for a long time before anybody took any notice at all. I worked on newspapers, on magazines, I wrote about sports, I wrote about furs. I even wrote about robots once, what do you think about that? A magazine I was working for wanted a piece on robots and I had read all the science fiction stuff when I was a kid. So I did the piece.”
“Do I have to do things like that?”
“You? Naw.”
“Well, what . . . ?”
“You don’t need the money. You’ve got a husband. You’re a lucky woman. It’s like having a Medici patron. I would have liked to have had a husband. Instead I had wives, opposite of patrons.”
“You had more than one?”
“Three.”
“Where are they now?”
“Around.”
“Children?”
“Around, and around. That’s why I’m going up to Alaska.”
“You’re going to Alaska?”
“Yeah, I just heard from my agent. I’m going to do a book on Alaska.”
“When are you going?”
“Right after the semester ends. In fact, one of my ex-wives will come up for a while and do some photography for me.”
“Your ex-wife?”
“One of them. She’s a photographer. She needs the money so I’m going to let her do the pictures.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s smart of me. I pay the money to her one way or another.”
“Is that why you teach the class? For the money?”
“No, for the love of the students. Sure, for the money. You think I meet somebody like you in those classes every time?”
“What’s somebody like me?”
“Smart, beautiful, talented maybe. It’s usually kids in camouflage and combat boots, the girls too these days, and they all want to write about parachute jumps without ever having been up in an airplane.”
“What do you mean?”
“They want to write without experience.”
“I . . . don’t have much experience.”
“You have your life. And you recognize it as such. They’re all too young to recognize it as such. As such.”
I’m trying to help you picture this, Rose, like we’re standing right in the corner of the room, in that shrine, maybe, where instead of the Virgin—remember, a Jewish mother—yo
u and me we’re standing there looking down on this scene. And, oi, if we could have the powers the Virgin is supposed to have, we could have helped her, we could have helped! Though, now that I think about it, maybe she didn’t need so much assistance.
“My life? It’s a shambles.”
“Shambles make for good lifelike stories. Neat lives lead to dull neat stories. Look, it’s like a room without corners, it doesn’t collect dust. The patterns in the dust, that’s the interesting part, the shape, the designs. Neatness, hah! Here, let me . . .”
“No, that’s okay. I don’t think I’d . . .”
“Can’t do it, lady. You sit here with me, you got to drink here with me.”
“It’s lunchtime. We could . . .”
“That’ll just get in the way.”
Rose, if I was up there, in the shrine, now I’d be whispering to her, daughter, I’d whisper, watch out, watch out!
“I better not,” she says.
“One more. And with the next drink comes . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t look so serious. And nervous. This is supposed to relax you. With it, comes comments on your prose.”
“You wrote some on the pages.”
“These will be firsthand, direct observations.”
“Tell me now.”
“After another.”
“I think I’d really better . . .”
“Please.”
“All right. But, please.”
“Please?”
“Please don’t say I’m a room full of dust like the rest.”
“Shit, I’m a room full”—I know, Rose, but I didn’t say it, I just heard it—“of empty bottles. That’s why I’m going up to Alaska. To let in some fresh air. Like an arctic blast of wind. Full force. Room full of empty bottles. Let in some fresh air. What a bunch of metaphors! I’m supposed to be an artist and look what I serve up? Good thing I can revise my work, huh? I can revise my work but I can’t revise my life. What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re disgusted. You’re leaving.”
“I don’t know what.”
“Here.”
“I don’t want another.”
“One more. And then we’ll go out to lunch. There’s a nice Italian place around the corner. Or there used to be, several hundred years ago.”
“I can hardly stand . . .”
“Then don’t. Just sit.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“We all shouldn’t. None of us should. It should all be smooth, airless, free of dust, without corners, pssssshhhh! Sliding down the floor toward eternity, there we go!”
“Let’s try the Italian place, please.”
“Right now? Okay, let me finish this. That’s okay? You eat Italian?”
“Of course. Oh, you think . . . ?”
“What do I know? You’re married to a rabbi. Which is the closest you can get to being married to a priest as far as I can see.”
“As far as eye can see.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. But no, it’s not like that. He gave up his congregation. He doesn’t have one anymore. He’s in a partnership here in the city with my brother. And he’s thinking of doing that full time.”
“Oh, so one of those worldly priests.”
“Worldly? I don’t know if I’d call him worldly. But he’s probably one of the strangest rabbis you’ve ever heard of. Though he’s not a strange man. I don’t mean to call him that.”
“Tell me about him. Why did he give it up, his pulpit?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think he ever liked what he was doing. I don’t. He. His father died when he was young. And. It’s like. He went into it as a kind of memorial to his father. Except that his father never believed. But he says that his father. Spoke to him. Visited him. Told him. I’m not sure.”
“The father’s still alive? How old is he?”
“He’s not alive. But somehow . . .”
“He’s alive, he’s not alive? You don’t sound sure. But who’s sure? I’m not sure. I’m not sure I understand. I’m not sure I want Italian food. Do you? Don’t tell me. But I’m sure of one thing. I’m sure. Alaska. Frigging cold Alaska. That I’m sure of. With my frigging cold ex-wife. Shooting pictures. Maybe she’ll shoot me. That would do it, wouldn’t it? End it all. No more dust in the rooms. One nice clean package shipped over to the morgue.”
“That’s so gruesome. Don’t talk like that. You shouldn’t feel like that. Look at what you have. You . . .”
“Puh-lease. Lady. None of that. Here. Give me that. I’ll get another. Don’t get up. There. Hey. See. Now. No speeches about what I have, what I don’t have. I have. What I had. When I was a kid I had a bicycle. Brand-new Schwinn my father bought me with his last goddamned paycheck after he got laid off at the plant. I left it out in the rain. Brand-new bike. It got all rusted after a summer. Nearly broke his heart. Look what I got you, he told me, and look what you did to it. That’s what I say to myself—here, hold out the—there—that’s what I say to myself. You had this talent and you left it out in the rain over the summer. And it got rusted.”
“I . . . love your books. You shouldn’t talk like . . .”
“You love my books? You love them? And do they love you? Have you asked?”
“What?”
“Italian food or what?”
“I . . . I’m really not hungry. I th-think I’d better . . .”
“Not yet. Puh-lease. Not yet. Wait. I don’t leave for Alaska for a few weeks. Stay until then.”
“Stay? I . . .”
“Stay a few weeks. We’ll talk. My books will like you.”
“I’ve got . . .”
“Don’t get up. It’s not polite. Wait.”
“But you can’t leave in a few weeks, can you? The class runs . . .”
“The class runs down. I’m going. I’m taking off before the end. Got to. Got to get up to the North before it all freezes over. Got to see it before the freeze. Here. Wait a minute. Sit back down. I’ll get . . .”
“No, don’t.”
“Don’t say don’t. For Christ’s sake. Aw, shucks, can I say that to the rabbi’s wife? Don’t get insulted now.”
“You can say anything. But he’s not a rabbi anymore, not with a congregation. But what’s . . . ?”
“The ex-rabbi’s wife. The ex-rabbi’s ex-wife. The rabbi’s X-rated ex-wife. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
“I have to go. I’m sorry . . . if I disturbed you.”
“No, no, you didn’t disturb, you didn’t disturb. This pesthole, hellhole here, little light from my shrine, few books, needs company. Whyn’t you stay a little longer? Did I give you an impression? I didn’t mean to give you an impression. Honestly, so, now, we’re going to talk about your stories. Which stories are they? Yours is the lyrical one with the doctor, right? I thought so . . .”
“Please, I’ll . . . see you after class next week. We can talk then. I’ve got to go now.”
“Talk about the hospital. And did you put a nurse in? I can’t remember. Where’s the manuscript? Nurse is what I need, before the freeze. Nurse is muse. Up there, no nurses, just ice and snow. And the aurora borealis. Seen that? Not me. But want to. Like a vision. Every writer. Needs a vision. Yours, you got the nurse. Right? Me, I have this. This glass. But need something outside. Maybe the ice. The snow. Alaska. What the . . .”
“I have to go.”
His hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off. Ice in her belly. Up the stairs into the sunlight. Blinds her. She had thought. Hoped. What had she thought? What had she hoped? Poor dear, she was looking for a friend. And could this man be the one? Not in a million years! And so she felt as though she was out in the Alaska cold. She had invested her feelings in this, in this visit, in the writer, teacher, and now it had all fallen through. So in the middle of the beautiful day, hot late sun of morning—and it was heating up the trash in the gutters and the trash in the cans, lending an ancient rotting odor to the street, somethin
g like our old street, long ago, which, remember, was only a short walk away on the other side of the Village, think of that, only blocks away, but how far in time? how far? think of that—she could feel her disappointment boiling, cooking in her like it was fresh and now it was garbage and it lay there in the gutter, baking in the street.
She had counted on it, you see. She had counted on the writer telling her how good the writing was. She had counted on him saying to her, you should publish this in magazines. You should publish this in a book. She had counted on this to pull herself out of the hole she felt she lived in. She felt she lived at the bottom of a pit. This was the feeling she had, the feeling she complained about, lamented sometimes, sometimes screamed about to her doctor at Owl Valley. And she felt as she wrote her little stories that she was climbing her way out, that she was escaping from the pit. Never before had she seen so clearly what a trap she lived in, and never before had she felt so good about how she was going to get out. And she wrote these things, and she thought she was climbing, and he read them in the class and, I suppose, encouraged her, invited her, and she arrived, and what happened? He couldn’t talk about them or didn’t want to talk about them, he didn’t even try to touch her, that was worrying her, too, he didn’t want to talk about the stories but not because he wanted her, he didn’t want anything except to sit there and feel sorry for himself and drink, and she was nothing to him, absolutely nothing, she could tell, she could feel it, she was a prop in his life, and that understanding helped something to snap in her head. She concluded that she was a prop in my Manny’s life, not a person, just something he needed to keep around, not a person but a thing. She felt that it was the same with Sarah as well, and if to me too she never said but she probably felt it, but she just couldn’t say it when she was telling me all the other things—and it all fits together now that I’ve heard some of her little stories, the feeling that she was not a person but a thing, a prop, as she called it, something to be moved around in the lives of others—and to this she said,
“NO!”
That’s right, she stood out there on the street and cried out,
