"Lock pinkies!" shouted Fox.
"Just humor him," Clyde advised me. "He does have his moments. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them."
With that, she disengaged little fingers with both of us, turned and left the table, and headed for the bar like a maestro striding onto the stage.
"She's so damn good," said Fox admiringly. "To see her in action is a beautiful thing."
I merely nodded my head in agreement. I didn't know what Fox was referring to but I thought she was pretty damn good, too. Seeing her in action, apparently, was about all we were going to be able to do. The noise in the place was such that it was virtually impossible to hear individual conversations taking place at the bar. So I stood at the little table next to a crazy man in flowing blue robes who looked like Jesus on a bad-hair day and I waited for something to happen. It didn't take long.
The first thing we observed was Clyde bellying up to the bar and hailing a busy bartender like you would a taxi on Broadway. Moments later the guy came back, setting a drink in front of Clyde and taking a bill out of her hand on the fly. She sipped her drink and the bartender made his way over to the cash register to make change, acknowledging several other drink orders en route. At this point, Fox left the sanctuary of our table and, like a true urban guerrilla, began creeping stealthily closer to the action. Using various clusters of patrons as cover, he moved nearer and nearer the bar, surreptitiously signaling for me to follow suit.
Feeling like an idiot, I crept through Bennigan's from table to table following Fox Harris as if he were the platoon leader of my new life. At last, we reached a position quite close to the perimeter of the crowded bar, just in time to see the harried bartender putting the change down in front of where Clyde was standing with her drink in her hand talking casually with two guys crammed in next to her. The bartender moved farther down the bar in response to the frenzied demands of the patrons while Clyde leisurely picked up her change and began to count it.
"Now," whispered Fox, hissing intently under his breath. "Now."
Clyde counted the money one more time, then turned and said something inaudible to the guys standing next to her. Then she gazed incredulously down the bar in the direction of the now-vanished bartender, engulfed apparently by patrons on the other side of the bar.
"Do it," Fox hissed. "Do it."
Do what, I didn't know, but Fox and I were perilously close to the bar by this time and, following his example, I continued to duck and weave behind other customers so as not to be observed. Fox's appearance being what it was, this, of course, was patently ridiculous. Nevertheless, Fox persisted in this pattern of behavior and, like a baby chick imprinting upon the path of the mother hen, I trailed along behind him.
"Bartender!" shouted Clyde. "Oh, bartender!"
A new bartender came over to see what she wanted. "How can I help you, ma'am?" he said.
"I think there's been a little mix-up," said Clyde. "I gave the bartender a hundred-dollar bill for a drink and I just got six dollars in change."
"Frank!" shouted the new bartender. "This lady says she gave you a hundred and you gave her six dollars change."
"That's because she gave me a ten!" shouted Frank as he continued pouring drinks.
"Kiss my sweet rebel ass!" shouted Clyde. "I gave you a hundred!"
"That's my girl," said Fox proudly.
The guys at the bar were now clearly rallying to Clyde's side. And who could blame them? Fox and I were inching ever closer so as not to miss a word or a gesture. In fact, just then there was a gesture as Clyde, in seeming disgust and irritation, shot the bird down the bar at the bartender called Frank. This displeased Frank just enough for him to come immediately down the bar to confer with his colleague.
"It's usually not that easy to get a bartender's attention," said Fox.
"Is it possible, miss," said the other bartender, "that you've made a mistake?" Frank himself looked too furious to speak.
"Now close it," Fox muttered next to me. "Close it."
"No, it's not possible that I've made a mistake," said Clyde indignantly. "In fact, I mark all of my hundreds with my social security number just to keep a personal record. Why don't you check the register?"
By this time a manager type had drifted into the fray and, after briefly conferring with the combatants, walked briskly over to the register and began sorting through the hundreds. After only a moment, he came back down the bar holding a bill in his hand.
"What's your social security number, miss?" he asked.
Clyde told him. He handed her the bill.
"Sorry about the mix-up," he said. "The drink's on the house."
This brought a light smattering of applause from some of the patrons at the bar and Fox and I, of course, joined in. But Frank the bartender was still not happy.
"I don't know how you did it," he said, leaning in to Clyde, "but I know you did it. There's nothing I can do this time. But don't let it happen again."
"Don't worry, Frankie boy," said Clyde in her sweetest voice. "It will."
Back out on the street, Fox and Clyde were both in a mood of high exhilaration and the feeling seemed to sweep through me as well. The lights of the city shined bright with promise. Anything seemed possible, and at that moment it probably was.
"Not bad for five minutes' work," said Clyde with a beautiful, almost wistful smile on her face.
"It's not the money," said Fox, turning to me as if explaining things to a foreign-exchange student. "It's not even whether you win or lose, Walter. It's how you play the game."
"Yes," I said, a bit uncertainly. "But just what is the game exactly?"
"It's a game of dignity and deceit," said Fox. "It's a game of love and death and dreams. I call it the strip poker of life. Got a smoke?"
five
If you are a writer who currently is not writing, you know what a nightmare of emptiness life can be. If you are fortunate enough to be a writer of the nonfiction variety, all you have to do to get cracking is to focus a bit more narrowly upon your chosen field of study or possibly dig more deeply into your research materials. If fate, however, has cruelly cast you as a writer of fiction, you have myriad madnesses to contend with, for you must cast your net wide enough to capture the stars and you must dig ever deeper into your subject matter, which is, inevitably, the human spirit.
All this being as it may, by this time I was still not writing. Oh, I'd start a page or two, crumple it up, and miss the trash can. But something new was definitely happening in my head. I no longer felt intimidated by the dreaded sight of the blank white page. I no longer blamed my nonlife or the recalcitrant toaster for the fact that I wasn't writing. I wasn't writing simply because I wasn't writing. But that didn't mean I wasn't inspired. And it didn't mean that I wasn't taking notes.
The art of fiction has very much to do with the art of life as you live it. I recall asking Clyde Potts and Fox Harris more than once why they did the crazy things they did. Clyde would only smile knowingly, stunningly, inscrutably, and with that wink. From Fox at least I was able to extract an answer in so many words, though at those times I believed he had answered only the How and not the Why. I realize now that he responded to both the How and the Why when he said to me: "Everything we do, we do with all our hearts." When you're able to live that way, you'll never experience such a thing as writer's block. I believe I'm getting there, but I'm not there yet.
I wasn't even close to that spiritual destination on that morning four days after Bennigan's when Fox and Clyde came by my place for the first time. It was cold and rainy outside, and when you live in a basement apartment, you can watch just about every raindrop hit the pavement. I suspect that was probably what I was doing that morning when the phone rang and Clyde told me I was about to receive a visit from the two of them.
"We liked your work at Bennigan's the other night," she said.
"I didn't do anything at Bennigan's," I said, suddenly overcome by a sense of misplaced modesty. "You were the one who did all
the work."
"Fox and I both agree," continued Clyde, "that you did a beautiful job with phase one. Without the phase-one people, this world would be a pretty uneventful place."
"Well, thanks," I said, taking it as a compliment.
"But that whole Bennigan's thing was small potatoes actually. Fox even said it was just a Zen exercise. This morning we thought we might bring you in on something that could be really fun. A real adventure. Are you up for this, Sunshine?"
I looked around my small apartment. There was an unmade bed. There was a broken toaster. There was a bathroom big enough for a midget without any dreams.
"I'm up for anything," I said.
"You are my sunshine," she said. "Be careful what you say to a girl who wants everything. We'll be by in about an hour. So make the bed and put on some coffee."
"That's what I was planning to do," I said. "It's amazing you said that."
"Those aren't exactly unnatural acts, Walter. Besides, I can read you like a book. Speaking of which, when are you going to start the book?"
"Soon."
"Do you know what you're going to write about?"
"No. That's why I always say 'soon.'"
"Don't worry, Walter. I've never written one, but I can tell you this: Writing a book is like falling in love or getting to sleep or finding a taxi in the rain. It'll come to you, but first you have to let it."
After I hung up the phone, I put on some coffee and made the bed, just like Clyde had suggested. She was probably right, of course. There were no doubt millions of people in the city at that very moment who were putting on coffee and making their beds. Yet it had been strange how Clyde had said what I'd been thinking almost precisely at the moment I was thinking it. It was as if she were standing at the window in the rain sifting through the ashes of my jumbled mind.
And what of Clyde's rather simplistic advice about writing a novel? It'll come to you, but first you have to let it. Anybody could have given me that advice. So why did it sound so wise and full of meaning when Clyde said it? Because it came from the heart? Because, as Fox had averred, Clyde was a "veteran soul"? Or was it because I had let myself become a little more attached to Clyde than I'd perhaps realized?
I poured a cup of coffee. Then I lit a cigarette. Then I stood at the window and watched the rain. And what would I write when I started to write? I wondered. Clyde would definitely make a great character. As, of course, would Fox. But how well did I really know these people? Where did Fox and Clyde end and my imagination begin? I stood at the window and watched the rain. In a basement apartment, you can't really see where the rain is coming from. You can only see the raindrops as they splatter on the sidewalk.
Two hours later, I was still watching the rain. Clyde and Fox had not yet arrived. For a punctual person like myself, this was moderately irritating. I had another cup of coffee and another cigarette and I thought about the two of them some more, which was not unusual because I'd been thinking inordinately about the two of them since the two of them had come into my life.
The two of them. Were they a couple in the conventional sense? I did not know. I realized it was a stupid question to be asking myself since nothing at all was conventional about them. They seemed to have absolutely no concept of time or money or the law and they bummed cigarettes from me shamelessly. So what was it about them that I found so interesting, even fascinating, and, dare I say it, inspiring? I didn't know. Or perhaps I really did know and I was simply holding out on myself.
A few moments later, the buzzer sounded. I buzzed them in, and a few seconds later, Clyde came in and we embraced with an intensity that I think surprised both of us. Her face and her hair and her clothes were wet with rain, and by the time we let go of each other, so was I. It felt strangely exhilarating, as if her warmth and her wetness were now a part of me, cleansing my spirit, washing away my worldliness. I could see where the raindrops came from before they fell on my sidewalk.
These thoughts were all in a jumble, of course. As practical and as methodical a person as I was back then, I would never have let myself believe that I could be falling in love with Clyde. For his part, Fox wasn't buying it either. He did not bother to even shake hands but went right for the coffeemaker and took the liberty of pouring himself a cup. When he came over to me, his first words were the same as his last words had been the other night.
"Got a smoke?" he asked.
I gave him a cigarette. Then I lit it for him.
"Hate to be a chain bummer," said Clyde cheerfully, "but whatever Fox gets, I want, too."
I gave her a cigarette and I lit it for her. She cupped her hand comfortably around mine as I held the match, and when the cigarette was lit she tapped my hand gently with her finger, as she had done before.
"And whatever Clyde gets," said Fox, "I want, too."
We both looked over at him then, but he was standing with his back to us at the window, just watching the rain.
"Don't pay any attention to Fox," said Clyde. "He just gets moody sometimes. He's basically just like all the rest of us in this stinking world. He only wants what he can't have."
"Right now I want another cigarette," Fox shouted petulantly.
"That's an easy one," said Clyde, casting a doubtful look at Fox, who still hadn't moved from the window. "Hit him again, Walter."
I went over to the window and gave him a cigarette. He took it without looking at me.
"Thanks," he said. "Got a light?"
As I struck a match to light his cigarette, he grabbed my wrist to steady the flame in the same manner Clyde had done, only much tighter, his hand resembling the talon of an eagle clutching its prey.
"The only things you ever really keep in this life," he said, "are the things you let slip through your fingers."
When he let go, there was a small red circle around my wrist, but it soon disappeared.
six
Sometime later, as we walked through the Village, light rain was falling and it seemed to bring the three of us close together again. Clyde was aiming us toward an Internet cafe that she thought was on a certain street and Fox was ranting that he'd never been in an Internet cafe and didn't want to go in one now because he believed the Internet was "the work of Satan." I was just happy to see us all cheerfully embarking upon a new adventure again. It was almost like old times. Old times, of course, being maybe two weeks ago.
"So what's our next project?" I asked Clyde. "The one you mentioned on the phone."
"'Project'!" Clyde said, laughing rather derisively. "So that's what they're calling it these days."
"I think it's a perfect word for what we do," said Fox, rallying to my defense. "Everybody in this city has a project of some sort or other. In fact, they say when you die in New York, you're not really dead. You're just not currently working on a project. I think it's the quintessential definition of our endeavors on this planet."
"I think you're just trying to suck up to Walter for being an ass earlier, at his apartment," said Clyde.
"Clyde can see into a man's mind like a window," Fox said. "She can bust a guy's chops with the best of them."
"I still think 'project' is the wrong word," Clyde insisted stubbornly. "We're not doing what everybody else is doing. They're all just treading water, marking time from cradle to grave without knowing why or having any fun. What we do is more important."
"It's also less important," said Fox.
"Good point," said Clyde. "Sometimes I think what we do is almost an addiction, but really I think it's just our hobby."
"How would you describe today's hobby?" I asked innocently enough.
"Damn you writers," said Clyde. "You're always trying to describe something. Don't you realize that when you capture something in words, you make it disappear?"
"Or someone," said Fox.
"There's not much danger of me describing too much," I said. "I haven't really written anything in years."
"You will," said Clyde. "Soon."
"Windows," said Fox.<
br />
The rain had stopped now and the sun was tentatively poking spokes of light between the buildings and walls of the city. Clyde remembered that the Internet cafe was on Bank Street, so that was where we headed. I had a strong urge to take out my little spiral notepad and scribble down a few notes about the previous conversation, but I resisted the impulse. I didn't want to make anything disappear.
"Can I ask a stupid question?" I said.
"There are no stupid questions," said Fox. "There's just a stupid world."
"Okay," I said. "Why are we going to the Internet cafe?"
"That is a stupid question," said Clyde, taking my hand and giving it a quick little squeeze. This simple, private, reassuring gesture had a surprisingly visceral effect upon me. It was one of the little wordless things I came to love most about Clyde. It was one of the things, I think I knew even then, that I would miss very much someday.
"We're going there to try to rescue a friend of Fox's," she said. "I'll let Fox tell you about him."
"His name is Teddy M. He's over six feet tall and black as the ace of spades and he looks just like a big, friendly teddy bear. Loves people, loves animals, wouldn't harm a soul. But he's a street preacher, you see. Kind of a wandering park orator who you sometimes see in Washington Square Park or Tompkins Square Park and he's a good one, too.
"I met him some years back. Teddy was in and out of the homeless shelters and we became friends back then because I was in and out of the homeless shelters, too. Of course, that was before I met Clyde, the patron saint of the people of the street."
"And?" said Clyde.
"And so Teddy's got this vision that he lives by, I think he got the idea from the spiritual outlook of Masai warriors or something. It's an African tribal thing, I know. Anyway, Teddy has come to believe that he lives only in the present. To Teddy, there is no past, there is no future. I've come to believe that Teddy may be on to something."
"And I've come to believe," said Clyde, "that Fox may be on to something."
Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned Page 4
