The Music of Chance

by Paul Auster

  “You had to invent something. It’s not possible to leave it blank. The mind won’t let you.”

  “Maybe. But I sure spun myself a ton of crap. I was up to my neck in it.”

  “What happened when he finally turned up again?”

  “He called first this time and spoke to my mother. I remember that I was already in bed upstairs, and she came into my room and told me about it. ‘He wants to spend the weekend with you in New York,’ she said, and it wasn’t hard to see that she was burned. ‘The son of a bitch has got his nerve, doesn’t he?’ she kept saying. ‘That son of a bitch has got his nerve.’ So Friday afternoon he pulls up in front of the house in another Cadillac. This one was black, and I remember that he was wearing one of those snappy camel-hair coats and smoking a big cigar. It had nothing to do with James Bond. He looked like some guy who’d stepped out of an Al Capone movie.”

  “It was winter this time.”

  “The dead of winter, and it was freezing out. We drove through the Lincoln Tunnel, checked into the Plaza, and then went out to Gallagher’s on Fifty-second Street. I still remember the place. It was like walking into a slaughterhouse. Hundreds of raw steaks hanging in the window, it’s enough to turn you into a vegetarian. But the dining room is okay. The walls are covered with photos of politicians and sports guys and movie stars, and I admit that I was pretty impressed. That was the whole idea of the weekend, I think. My father wanted to impress me, and he wound up doing a good job of it. After dinner, we went to the fights at the Garden. The next day, we went back there for a college basketball doubleheader, and on Sunday we drove up to the Stadium to see the Giants play the Redskins. And don’t think we sat in the rafters either. Fifty-yard line, friend, the best seats in the house. Yeah, I was impressed, I was fucking bowled over by it. And everywhere we went, there’s my old man peeling off bills from this fat roll he carried in his pocket. Tens, twenties, fifties—he didn’t even bother to look. He gave out tips like it was nothing, you know what I mean? Ushers, headwaiters, bellboys. They all had their hands out, and he just flicked off the bucks like there was no tomorrow.”

  “You were impressed. But did you have a good time?”

  “Not really. I mean, if this was the way people lived, then where had I been all these years? Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.”

  “It was hard to talk to him, and most of the time I felt embarrassed, all tied up in knots. He kind of bragged to me the whole weekend—telling me about his business deals, trying to make me think what a great guy he was, but I really didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. He also gave me a lot of advice. ‘Promise me you’ll finish high school’—he said that two or three times— ‘promise me you’ll finish high school so you don’t turn out to be a bum.’ I’m this little runt in the sixth grade, and what do I know about high school and shit like that? But he made me promise, and so I gave him my word that I would. It got to be a little creepy. But the worst thing was when I told him about the hundred dollars he’d given me the last time. I thought he’d like to hear how I hadn’t spent it, but it really kind of shocked him, I could see it in his face, he acted like I’d insulted him or something. ‘Holding on to money is for saps,’ he said. ‘It’s just a lousy piece of paper, kid, and it won’t do a goddamn thing for you sitting in a box.’ ”

  “Tough guy talk.”

  “Yeah, he wanted to show me what a tough guy he was. But maybe it didn’t work out like he thought it would. When I got back home on Sunday night, I remember feeling pretty shook up. He gave me another hundred-dollar bill, and the next day I went out and spent it after school—just like that. He said spend it, and so that’s what I did. But the funny thing was, I didn’t feel like using the money on myself. I went to this jewelry store in town and bought a pearl necklace for my mother. I still remember what it cost. A hundred and eighty-nine dollars, counting the tax.”

  “And what did you do with the other eleven dollars?”

  “I bought her a big box of chocolates. One of those fancy red boxes shaped like a heart.”

  “She must have been happy.”

  “Yeah, she broke down and cried when I gave the stuff to her. I was glad I did it. It made me feel good.”

  “And what about high school? Did you stick to your promise?”

  “What do you think I am, a dumbbell or something? Of course I finished high school. I did okay, too. Had a B-minus average and played on the basketball team. I was a regular Mr. Hot Shot.”

  “What did you do, play on stilts?”

  “I was the point guard, man, and I did all right out there, let me tell you. They called me the Mouse. I was so quick, I could pass the ball between guys’ legs. One game, I set a school record with fifteen assists. I was one tough little hombre out there.”

  “But you didn’t get any college scholarship offers.”

  “I got a few nibbles, but nothing that really interested me. Besides, I figured I could do better for myself playing poker than taking some business administration course at Bullshit Tech.”

  “So you found a job in a department store.”

  “Temporarily. But then my old man came through with a graduation present. He sent me a check for five thousand dollars. How do you like that? I don’t see the fucker for six or seven years, and then he remembers my high school graduation. Talk about mixed reactions. I could have died I was so happy. But I also felt like kicking the son of a bitch in the balls.”

  “Did you send him a thank-you note?”

  “Sure I did. It’s sort of required, isn’t it? But the guy never answered me. I haven’t heard a peep from him since.”

  “Worse things have happened, I suppose.”

  “Shit, I don’t care anymore. It’s probably all for the best.”

  “And that was the beginning of your career.”

  “You got it, pal. That was the beginning of my glorious career, my uninterrupted march to the heights of fame and fortune.”

  After that conversation, Nashe noticed a shift in his feelings toward Pozzi. A certain softening set in, a gradual if reluctant admission that there was something inherently likable about the kid. That did not mean that Nashe was prepared to trust him, but for all his wariness, he sensed a new and growing impulse to watch out for him, to take on the role of Pozzi’s guide and protector. Perhaps it had something to do with his size, the undernourished, almost stunted body—as if his smallness suggested something not yet completed—but it also might have come from the story he had told about his father. All during Pozzi’s reminiscences, Nashe had inevitably thought about his own boyhood, and the curious correspondence he found between their two lives had struck a chord in him: the early abandonment, the unexpected gift of money, the abiding anger. Once a man begins to recognize himself in another, he can no longer look on that person as a stranger. Like it or not, a bond is formed. Nashe understood the potential trap of such thinking, but at that point there was little he could do to prevent himself from feeling drawn to this lost and emaciated creature. The distance between them had suddenly narrowed.

  Nashe decided to put off the card test for the moment and attend to Pozzi’s wardrobe. The stores would be closing in a few hours, and there was no point in making the kid walk around in his baggy clown costume for the rest of the day. Nashe realized that he probably should have been more hard-nosed about it, but Pozzi was clearly exhausted, and he did not have the heart to force him into an immediate showdown. That was a mistake, of course. If poker was a game of endurance, of quick thinking under pressure, what better moment to test someone’s abilities than when his mind was clouded over with exhaustion? In all probability, Pozzi would flunk the test, and the money Nashe was about to shell out on clothes for him would be wasted. Given that impending disappointment, however, Nashe was in no rush to get down to business. He wanted to savor his anticipation a bit longer, to delude himself into believing there was still some cause for hope. Besides, he was looking forward to the little shopping
excursion he had planned. A few hundred dollars wouldn’t make much difference in the long run, and the thought of watching Pozzi stroll through Saks Fifth Avenue was a pleasure he didn’t want to deny himself. It was a situation ripe with comic possibilities, and if nothing else, he might come out of it with the memory of a few laughs. When it came right down to it, even that was more than he had expected to accomplish when he woke up that morning in Saratoga.

  Pozzi started bitching the moment they entered the store. The men’s department was filled with faggot clothes, he said, and he’d rather walk around in his bath towels than be caught in any of this preppie vomit. It might be all right if your name was Dudley L. Dipshit the Third and you lived on Park Avenue, but he was Jack Pozzi from Irvington, New Jersey, and he was damned if he was going to wear one of those pink alligator shirts. Back where he came from, they’d kick your ass if you showed up in a thing like that. They’d tear you apart, and they’d flush the pieces down the toilet. As he rattled on with his abuse, Pozzi kept looking at the women who walked by, and if any of them happened to be young or attractive, he would stop talking and make a stab at eye contact, or twist his head around on his neck to watch the sway of their buttocks as they disappeared down the aisle. He winked at a couple of them, and another one who inadvertently brushed his arm he even managed to address. “Hey, babe,” he said. “Got any plans tonight?”

  “Stay calm, Jack,” Nashe warned him once or twice. “Just stay calm. They’ll throw you out of here if you keep it up.”

  “I’m calm,” Pozzi said. “Can’t a guy check out the local talent?”

  At bottom, it was almost as if Pozzi were carrying on because he knew that Nashe expected it of him. It was a self-conscious performance, a whirlwind of predictable antics that he was offering up as an expression of thanks to his new friend and benefactor, and if he had sensed that Nashe wanted him to stop, he would have stopped without another word. At least that was what Nashe concluded later, for once they began studying the clothes in earnest, the kid showed a surprising lack of resistance to his arguments. The implication was that Pozzi somehow understood that he was being given the opportunity to learn something, and that in turn implied that Nashe had already won his respect.

  “It’s like this, Jack,” Nashe said. “Two days from now, you’re going up against a couple of millionaires. And you won’t be playing in some ratty pool hall, you’ll be in their house as an invited guest. They’re probably planning to feed you and put you up for the night. You don’t want to make a bad impression, do you? You don’t want to walk in there looking like some ignorant hood. I saw the kinds of clothes you like to wear. They’re a tip-off, Jack, they give you away as a cheap know-nothing. You see a man in threads like that and you say to yourself, there’s a walking advertisement for Losers Anonymous. They’ve got no style, no class. When we were in the car, you told me you have to be an actor in your line of work. Well, an actor needs a costume. You might not like these clothes, but rich people wear them, and you want to show the world you’ve got some taste, that you’re a man of discretion. It’s time to grow up, Jack. It’s time to start taking yourself seriously.”

  Little by little, Nashe wore him down, and in the end they walked out of the store with five hundred dollars’ worth of bourgeois sobriety and restraint, an outfit of such conventionality as to make its wearer invisible in any crowd: navy blue blazer, light gray slacks, penny loafers, and a white cotton shirt. Since the weather was still warm, Nashe said, they could dispense with a tie, and Pozzi went along with that omission, saying that enough was enough. “I already feel like a creep,” he said. “There’s no point in trying to strangle me, too.”

  It was close to five o’clock when they returned to the Plaza. After depositing the packages on the seventh floor, they went back downstairs for a drink in the Oyster Bar. After one beer, Pozzi suddenly seemed crushed with fatigue, as if he were fighting to keep his eyes open. Nashe sensed that he was also in pain, and rather than force him to hold out any longer, he called for the check.

  “You’re fading fast,” he said. “It’s probably time you went upstairs and took a nap.”

  “I feel like shit,” Pozzi said, not bothering to protest. “Saturday night in New York, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to make it.”

  “It’s dreamland for you, friend. If you wake up in time, you can have a late supper, but it might be a good idea just to sleep on through till morning. There’s no question you’ll feel a whole lot better then.”

  “Gotta stay in shape for the big fight. No fucking around with the broads. Keep your pecker in your pants and steer clear of the greasy food. Road work at five, sparring at ten. Think mean. Think mean and lean.”

  “I’m glad you catch on so quickly.”

  “We’re talking championship bout here, Jimbo, and the Kid needs his rest. When you’re in training, you’ve got to be ready to make every sacrifice.”

  So they went upstairs again, and Pozzi crawled into bed. Before he switched off the light, Nashe made him swallow three aspirins and then left a glass of water and the aspirin bottle on the night table. “If you happen to wake up,” he said, “take a few more of these. They’ll help dull the pain.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Pozzi said. “I hope you don’t mind if I skip my prayers tonight. Just tell God I was too sleepy, okay?”

  Nashe left through the bathroom, shut both doors, and sat down on his bed. He suddenly felt at a loss, not knowing what to do with himself for the rest of the evening. He considered going out and having dinner somewhere, but in the end he decided against it. He didn’t want to stray too far from Pozzi. Nothing was going to happen (he was more or less certain of that), but at the same time he felt it would be wrong to take anything for granted.

  At seven o’clock, he ordered a sandwich and a beer from room service and turned on the television. The Mets were playing in Cincinnati that night, and he followed the game through to the ninth inning, shuffling and reshuffling the new cards as he sat on the bed, playing one hand of solitaire after another. At ten thirty, he switched off the television and climbed into bed with a paperback copy of Rousseau’s Confessions, which he had started reading during his stay in Saratoga. Just before he fell asleep, he came to the passage in which the author is standing in a forest and throwing stones at trees. If I hit that tree with this stone, Rousseau says to himself, then all will go well with my life from now on. He throws the stone and misses. That one didn’t count, he says, and so he picks up another stone and moves several yards closer to the tree. He misses again. That one didn’t count either, he says, and then he moves still closer to the tree and finds another stone. Again he misses. That was just the final warm-up toss, he says, it’s the next one that really counts. But just to make sure, he walks right up to the tree this time, positioning himself directly in front of the target. He is no more than a foot away from it by now, close enough to touch it with his hand. Then he lobs the stone squarely against the trunk. Success, he says to himself, I’ve done it. From this moment on, life will be better for me than ever before.

  Nashe found the passage amusing, but at the same time he was too embarrassed by it to want to laugh. There was something terrible about such candor, finally, and he wondered where Rousseau had found the courage to reveal such a thing about himself, to admit to such naked self-deception. Nashe turned off the lamp, closed his eyes, and listened to the hum of the air conditioner until he couldn’t hear it anymore. At some point during the night, he dreamt of a forest in which the wind passed through the trees with the sound of shuffling cards.

  The next morning, Nashe continued to delay the test. It had almost become a point of honor by then, as if the real test were with himself and not with Pozzi’s ability at cards. The point was to see how long he could live in a state of uncertainty: to act as though he had forgotten about it and in that way use the power of silence to force Pozzi into making the first move. If Pozzi said nothing, then that would mean the kid was nothing but talk. Nashe liked t
he symmetry of that conundrum. No words would mean it was all words, and all words would mean it was only air and bluff and deception. If Pozzi was serious, he would have to bring up the subject sooner or later, and as time went on, Nashe found himself more and more willing to wait. It was a bit like trying to breathe and hold your breath at the same time, he decided, but now that he had started the experiment, he knew that he was going to carry on with it to the very end.

  Pozzi seemed considerably revived from his long night’s sleep. Nashe heard him turn on the shower just before nine o’clock, and twenty minutes later he was standing in his room, once again wearing the outfit of white towels.

  “How’s the senator feeling this morning?” Nashe said.

  “Better,” Pozzi said. “The bones still ache, but Jackus Pozzius is back in business.”

  “Which means that a little breakfast is probably in order.”

  “Make it a big breakfast. The old pit is crying out for sustenance.”

  “Sunday brunch, then.”

  “Brunch, lunch, I don’t care what you call it. I’m famished.”

  Nashe ordered breakfast to be sent up to the room, and another hour went by with no mention of the test. Nashe began to wonder if Pozzi wasn’t playing the same game that he was: refusing to be the first to talk about it, digging in for a war of nerves. But no sooner did he begin to think this than he discovered that he was wrong. After they had eaten, Pozzi went back to his room to dress. When he returned (wearing the white shirt, the gray slacks, and the loafers—which made him look quite presentable, Nashe thought) he wasted no time in getting down to it. “I thought you wanted to see what kind of poker player I was,” he said. “Maybe we should buy a deck of cards somewhere and get started.”

  “I have the cards,” Nashe said. “I was just waiting until you were ready.”

  “I’m ready. I’ve been ready from the word go.”

  “Good. Then it looks like we’ve come to the moment of truth. Sit down, Jack, and show me your stuff.”