Corky's Brother

by Jay Neugeboren

  “Of what—?”

  “Forgive me. I do not always put these things well, but I have been thinking. I read your new book on Freud last week—very, very fine, Professor—and it led me to some thoughts of my own. Vague, of course. But here: the relations of pleasure and pain, love and hate, and even, as you point out so magnificently, of pleasure and death—does this not lead one to contemplate the alliance of death with art? Does—”

  Perlman cut him off. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Finkel—I have a great deal of work to do.”

  “Of course, of course. Why you even bother with an old fool like me, I don’t know—a man like yourself!” He went to the door and opened it. “But we are old men and we are Jews. We know. We know, don’t we?” Then he winked and smiled broadly. “Beyond the pleasure principle, eh, Professor Perlman? Beyond the pleasure principle!”

  For about a week after that, Perlman managed to avoid Finkel; then, in the apartment, things suddenly began going wrong—the lock jammed, a fuse blew, a fire started in an electrical outlet. Every day something required Finkel’s service, and Perlman was certain that, while he was teaching, Finkel was going through the apartment, arranging the accidents. Perhaps, he thought, if he could prove that Finkel was plotting, if he could embarrass him with the evidence…Every morning he left a matchstick standing inconspicuously against the door. When he returned home, however, the matchstick was still standing and, invariably, something was awry in the apartment—no hot water, a broken window, a jammed buzzer, another fuse blown, the toilet overflowing. Perlman remembered a movie he’d seen; he plucked a hair from his head and, with saliva, pressed it across the crack separating the door from its jamb. It remained intact. He continued to need Finkel’s service.

  At night he hardly slept, and when he did he dreamed and woke, one dream after the other. He kept a pad on the nighttable and wrote some of the dreams down, hoping, by analyzing them, to obtain the objectivity which would make them cease, but it was useless, and he soon gave it up. In the bathroom, between dreams, he listened to the young lovers, and each day he grew more tired, more tense, more run down. Naomi was with him more and more. He dreamt of her almost every night; in the dreams they were always young and they would kiss endlessly, sweetly, warmly.

  Then, during finals week—he had been living in the apartment for almost two months—he woke up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe, terrified. He was lying on his side and behind him, he was certain, in the bed, was Naomi. He could hear her breathing. Something heavy lay on his chest; pains worked their way up his right arm. Had he been dreaming about her again? He couldn’t remember. Things were confused. He only knew that he felt her in the room with him and that he would not turn to see if she was, in fact, really in the bed. He gagged on something, coughed. A hundred years from now they would be able to freeze him, he thought, to preserve his quarter inch of cortex. He felt that he was falling swiftly into a moonless black, deep in the brain, far back. The rhyme stirred him to a vague consciousness. He concentrated and after a moment placed it—from “Night Crow” by Theodore Roethke—and this seemed to help. He rose and stumbled into the bathroom, drinking hungrily from the faucet. Then he sat on the edge of the bathtub. What time was it? His young lovers were busy. “I really have to go,” she said. “I mean it…oh, stop that…” Laughter, coaxing from the boy. Perlman inhaled deeply. “Naomi, Naomi,” he said. “Oh, Naomi…”

  From the grating the girl moaned, then yelped. “Don’t bite…damn it, I told you I didn’t like that…Oh, come on, baby…I’m not your baby…Come on, baby…” Was it the same boy, or a new one? He wanted to return to bed but he was desperately afraid he would find Naomi there. The laughter and moaning had been replaced by what sounded like a struggle. “Stop—you’ll tear it…Oh, damn! See!…C’mon, baby, it won’t hurt…I told you to stop…Oh, please don’t, don’t…” Perlman exhaled, put the plastic drinking cup down above the sink, and rubbed his arm. The pain was still there. The girl’s voice was louder. “Don’t…I don’t want to. I mean it!” They thudded against a wall, the floor, the girl was crying. “Please…oh, my Godl Stop!…I mean it…I can’t…Oh, oh…” Perlman lifted himself, stepping onto the toilet seat to get closer to the grating. The girl was crying hysterically. Then she was screaming. “You’re hurting me…stop…please, for God’s sake, please…” He heard something that sounded like slapping, then heavy breathing, then the girl’s tears, and a sudden scream which tore through his skull. He had to do something, but which apartment was the sound coming from—above? below? next door? Finkel would know. “Please…please, please…Oh, God, stop…Stop!” He walked back to the bedroom and, looking at the bed, he felt his heart jump—the cluttered blankets, he realized, looked like the shape of a woman. He switched on the light. The room was empty. He put on his robe and slippers and raced from the room into the hallway. He heard his heart galloping. The elevator was waiting for him and he took it to the basement. He rushed down the corridor, pushing against the wall to support himself. His legs were terribly weak and he realized that he could not see well. He had forgotten his glasses. The floor and walls seemed to pulsate forward and back, forward and back. He turned the corner. Finkel’s apartment was at the end of the corridor, near the garbage cans. He heard a low sound, a growling. He stopped, then continued. A shape rose up from behind the garbage cans. It was Sasha, but he seemed neither old nor friendly nor feeble. Did he think Perlman was a prowler? He snarled viciously—then he streaked toward the professor and, his eyes blazing with fire, leapt for the throat.

  When Perlman opened his eyes, Barbara was sitting on the bed next to him, rubbing her hand gently across his forehead. Finkel stood behind her, his brow wrinkled with worry. Perlman was in his own room. “Naomi was here with me,” he said to Barbara. She told him to lie quietly, to rest. “Not really, of course, but I felt her here, in the room with me—”

  “And who is to say she wasn’t here?” Finkel said. “Why not? Who is—”

  Perlman sat up. “Get out,” he said. “Get out—”

  “But, Daddy, it was Mr. Finkel who found you lying in the basement and telephoned me.”

  “Not me—Sasha. He came for me,” Finkel said. “He is old—but he is a good dog. Who knows how long he licked your face and watched over you?”

  “Get out—!” Perlman repeated.

  “But, Daddy—”

  “Shah!” Finkel said to her. “I will go. He is not himself, but he will be all right. It is nothing. Why, the great Freud himself was subject to periodic fainting spells.”

  “Get out!” Perlman was screaming. “Get out! Get out!”

  Finkel stood at the door, Sasha with him, looking old, mournful. “Still, we must make plans, Professor. We—”

  Perlman started from the bed, but he was weak and Barbara held him back. “Out!” he screamed. “Out, out, out…”

  The door closed. “If not for Mr. Finkel, you might be dead by now,” Barbara said. “Sometimes I don’t understand you, Daddy. Honestly.” She paused. “And the man admires you so much, the least you could do—”

  “All right, all right,” Perlman said, closing his eyes. “Peace, Barbara. Some peace.”

  He stayed in bed the next day. Barbara made his meals and insisted on being with him. She slept in the living room and studied for her examinations. The following day Perlman resumed his activities and, strangely enough, he felt better than he had at any time since Naomi’s illness had begun the year before. He did not try to avoid Finkel, but he did not see him either. Was Finkel avoiding him? Once, when he met him at the mailbox at noon, Finkel merely said hello and asked how he was feeling. He was quiet. He told Perlman that Sasha was very ill. “The end is in sight, Professor.”

  Two afternoons later, returning from a committee meeting, Perlman saw a truck in front of the building. Two men in white carried a stretcher into it. Finkel leaned against the gray concrete. He wore no hat. Perlman watched him from across the street. The men closed the door of the truc
k and drove away. Finkel did not move. Then Perlman saw the children approaching. They seemed to come from everywhere—from up and down the street, from the building, the cellar—there must have been twenty to thirty of them, and they came cautiously. Finkel’s chin was at his chest. He looked at the children and smiled. They moved closer. An instant later, following the lead of the older ones, they had formed a ring around him, and as they skipped in the circle, holding hands, they sang:

  “Firikel’s dog is dead…Finkel’s dog is dead…

  Hi-ho the cherrio…Finkel’s dog is dead…”

  Perlman watched for a few minutes, unable to move. Then he crossed the street, pushed the children aside, and entered the circle. “Mr. Finkel,” he began. “Let—”

  “Ah, Professor—what are words at times like these? Bah! Death is death. They will return the ashes to me tomorrow.”

  Perlman felt his stomach turn, but he did not move away. The children continued around the two men, chanting. “FirikeTs dog is dead…FirikeTs dog is dead…” A crowd was gathering—students, mothers with baby carriages, people from the building.

  “Now that school is over,” Perlman said, “I’ll be leaving for the summer. To Italy—Florence, Venice…Barbara is coming with me.” Finkel nodded. The voices of the children grew louder, entering Perlman’s brain and resting there. Perlman considered, but it did not matter. Finkel was right. “I’ll send the rent checks by mail.” Finkel looked at him from his old face, puzzled. “And I’ll see you again in the fall, I hope.”

  Finkel gazed at him intensely, his eyes screwed up, searching the professor’s face; Perlman could not bear it, he realized, and he moved away quickly. Finkel followed him from the circle, pushing the children aside roughly. “I will look forward to it,” he called. His voice was strong. “Have a pleasant trip, Professor Perlman!—Have a pleasant trip!”

  A Family Trip

  IF PA HADN’T of been such a stickler on money, we might of got away with the whole thing and I wouldn’t of got my picture in the papers so that all the kids teased the life out of me in the schoolyard for two weeks afterwards. But maybe it didn’t matter about the money, because Pa said if that was what his mother wanted, that was what he was gonna do and there wasn’t any man could stop him. I agreed. When Pa set his mind to doin’ something, nobody could stop him. And if he promised you he’d do something for you, he did it.

  Ma always tells how that’s how they got married, on account of Pa’s promise. When he was almost thirty and she wasn’t even as old as I am now and she was Tom Wilkins’ kid sister (Tom’s my Pa’s oldest and best friend), Pa used to bounce her up and down on his knee and she used to make him promise not to get married till she grew up. So he waited. Ma thinks it’s real funny he did and she always tells the story in front of Pa but he don’t laugh much. Sometimes he’ll smile a bit, but most of the time he just sort of grunts. He’s never once broken a promise he made to me either, and that includes get-tin’ strapped.

  So I guess it wasn’t really the money but the principle of the thing. Pa’s a big one on principles. He’s got lots. I don’t understand most of them that have to do with politics and religion, but I knew that his principle this time was a good one. I would of told him that too if he’d asked me, but Pa, he don’t need no encouragement.

  Ma, she didn’t say anything either. When the time come she just packed up a lunch for the three of us, put on her Sunday clothes, and told me to wash and comb my hair. I didn’t feel like arguin’, so I did.

  “Now go help your Pa.”

  So I did that, too—I was meaning to the first thing when it happened. Grandma wasn’t a very big lady—not even as tall as I am now. I’m twelve and Grandma was eighty something. I’m not sure how much. I didn’t like to kiss her. Her skin sort of hung from her face so that I was always afraid it was just all gonna fall off sometime, or stick to my lips. She lived in the room in back of the kitchen. Nobody ever went in there until she died, and she just used to show up three times a day for meals, once a day after school so I could give her her kiss and she could ask me if I knew my multiplication tables (I couldn’t understand that too well, ’cause I’d known my tables ever since third grade, and she always asked for the same ones—seven and nine—and she always stopped me before I finished anyway), and once every night she’d come into the living room and talk with my Ma while they watched TV together.

  They got along real well, laughing and stuff, but Pa never did say much to her, except to ask what he could do for her. It didn’t even seem like she needed much done for her, really. She hardly ate a peck and always wore the same dress and I guess that was why Pa figured the least he could do for her was to do the one thing she’d asked him to do.

  Me, I didn’t argue. When she died that morning, Pa just said, “Let’s go,” and he didn’t have to say any more. Ma’s butting in about washing and stuff just wasted time from getting things done quick and proper, the way Pa always does things. “Quick and proper,” he always says, “that’s the only way to get things done.”

  “You get the feet.”

  Pa carried her under the shoulders and it hardly felt like she weighed anything. Getting her into the back seat, I had to let go of one of her legs to open the door, and it bumped on the ground. I knew how careful and respectful you’re supposed to be to dead people, and I looked up quick at Pa.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “Nothin’,” I said.

  We propped her up in the back seat and Ma locked the front door and walked down the steps past the garden.

  “Grandma always loved my roses,” Ma said, picking one. She fixed it between Grandma’s hands.

  Pa nodded. “Get in,” he said.

  Ma got in the front seat and I got in the back next to Grandma and leaned up against the front seat and watched Pa drive. He’s the best driver I ever seen. When the speed limit’s sixty-five he keeps the car at a steady seventy the whole time. It never goes more’n a mile over or under. Ma doesn’t like him to drive fast, but she didn’t say anything this time. She knew better. I kept my eyes on Pa’s foot to watch how he regulates it to keep the speed so even. I bet if you put a feather on Pa’s foot it’d stay there for a thousand miles. Except sometimes when he really lets her rip—that’s when we go for rides together, just the two of us. Boy, do we have fun then. Sometimes when we’re on a straightaway he keeps his foot on the gas and even lets me turn the wheel. You ought to read the speedometer then—Ma’d have fits if she ever saw how fast we go.

  He’s never even got one ticket in his whole life. You ought to hear him talk to a cop—it’s like with the argument over the money. He’s like that over everything. Around our way he’s known as Loghead Harris. Not to his face, of course, but I never seen a man could beat him in an argument.

  He’s almost always right about who’s gonna win the football and baseball games, and even though he belongs to the Electrical Workers Union and always talks about how the Depression wouldn’t of come if Al Smith had been President, he’s got some Republican friends, and he always predicts who’s gonna win for President and things. Even when Truman won, he knew it. And nobody’s more loyal to his friends than my Pa. He coached our baseball team last spring and helped Jim Evans’ father put on his new roof and last winter during the big snowstorm when nobody knew what to do he delivered Mary Burns’ baby right in her bedroom with everybody yelling and screaming. I don’t think anybody even realized he’d done it all till him and me (I helped bring him hot water and blankets and stuff) were back in our own house. He didn’t say anything then either but just flicked on the TV and told the weatherman off. That was when the phone rang and they thanked him. He was right then, too—I mean about the weather, ’cause the weatherman said it would stop by the morning and my Pa told him he was full of it, that it would go until the next night and then some.

  I like Pa. Even though he don’t talk to me much the way he used to. I think that’s ’cause he wishes he were younger (he married my Ma when he
was past forty) and he thinks about what he’s gonna do when he retires from working in a few years. There’s lots to do around the house, but I know there’s not really enough and even a good argument with Tom Wilkins every day won’t really keep him busy and I’m kind of scared, ’cause he has some temper and I’m afraid if he’s around all the time he’ll find out about my smoking and even if he don’t he’ll find something to get after me for.

  Anyway, after a while Ma give me a sandwich and a plum. The sandwich was peanut butter without much jelly. It was real dry and I wanted a Coke but Pa didn’t want to stop. He said he wanted to get to the funeral parlor before five o’clock. So we just kept driving on down toward Kentucky. The car radio was busted and I was getting bored so I counted the number of silos I could see going by and then I asked some questions about Grandma when she was young and with my Grandpa and Ma answered me. I was only leading up to the big question, though, and when I asked that one, Pa answered.

  “Because she wanted to be buried in Kentucky next to Grandpa on the same day she died.”

  He said it so gruff-like that I just shut up and counted silos again. He wasn’t angry, though. I could tell that. Just doing what he felt he had to do. Which I guess I can understand, since some day when my Ma dies I’d like to do something nice for her, too—not nice only, but something special that she’d like and be proud of me for. I’ll have a lot of money by then and make her a real good funeral, maybe like the one they gave Bill Rooney’s dad last year, with all these black Cadillac limousines. Unless she wants it in our own house. I’d even do it there, if that’s what she wants.

  I could tell when we were getting near Louisville because I’d gone there once two years ago when Pa went to a union convention, and I remembered especially the bridge going across the state line, because I thought it would be all modern, only it was more like a wood bridge made out of old gray steel girders and I remembered how it was metal underneath too and I was scared the trucks coming the other way would slide into our lane. I should of been scared of other things, ’cause that was when Pa began to stick up for his principles.