The Baker

by Paul Hond

  Rudin frowned, threw down two cards. Mickey dealt him two. Sam Rudin spoke as he picked up the cards and inserted them in his hand. “I’ve carried a gun for twenty-three years,” he said. “And a dozen times I’ve had to pull it out. Never fired it, but I can tell you right now that I wouldn’t be sitting here with this lousy hand losing my money to you schmucks if I hadn’t made that decision to arm myself. A nigger understands one thing, pardon my language. One thing. Is anyone else playing here?” Rudin’s face had gone red.

  Mickey got rid of his queen and picked up another seven. Full house. He hoped Rudin wasn’t too sore a loser.

  “The point,” said Joe, “is that it doesn’t matter where you go. You’re not safe in your own backyard.”

  Mickey nodded, pleased that Joe hadn’t said “I told you so” with regard to the blacks; Joe was markedly restrained, and now Mickey wondered if he hadn’t brought in Sam Rudin as a kind of mouthpiece—as if Mickey might come around, might be convinced if he heard it from elsewhere. Mickey was almost amused, if not a little insulted, that Joe could ever imagine that he, Mickey, might be impressed by the likes of Sam Rudin; but one thing seemed for sure: Joe cared; he wanted to help. And as Joe’s smoke rose and swirled, enclosing them all in its settling ring, Mickey felt himself letting go, sinking into the foul comfort of the love of these angry, untidy men.

  “I appreciate it,” he said, “but after what happened, I think the less guns in the world, the better.”

  “That sounds fine,” said Rudin, “but it’s not practical. You listen to the liberals talk about gun control, but can they guarantee our safety? Until they can, well, we’ve got to take it into our own hands. A man has a right to defend his life and liberty and property. When the government starts infringing on that right—which is a basic constitutional right—then we’re one step away from the gulag.”

  Mickey scratched his cheek. He wondered if things would be different had he been carrying a gun. Hard to say. Still, Rudin’s words piqued his taste for vengeance: how nice it would be to arm himself and walk the streets and have some punk give him a try.

  “Ya hear that, Mick?” Joe said. “The man knows from what he speaks.” He gestured at Rudin, who nodded. Joe went on: “Frankly, my friend, you’ve got to let go of all this feel-good crap about harmony and unity and everybody get along. I know that Emi—and with all due respect, Mickey, I bring up her name because this is important—but Emi would want you to have the means to defend yourself and your son and your property. Now I know you’re saying to yourself that she would never want you to change because of what happened to her, but believe me, Mick, had she lived, she’d be a different person. A more realistic person. She wouldn’t want to see you have to go through anything like this again, and neither would I. Neither would any of us.”

  Mickey sighed. “That’s fine,” he said. “But what I don’t understand is this big campaign to get me to carry a weapon.”

  “That’s not it,” said Joe. “We’re talking about attitude. Forget a weapon. It’s this Pollyanna attitude. You’ve got to take a harder look at life, Mick. See what’s really there.”

  “You don’t think I have?”

  “I don’t know,” said Joe. “We don’t talk the way we used to. I’d like to think you have. I’d like to think you can look around and see who your friends are, and who your enemies are. That’s all. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I don’t believe I have any enemies,” Mickey said.

  “No?” said Joe. “The bastards who did this thing? They’re not your enemies?”

  “Well, sure. They’re an enemy of society, I guess you could say.”

  “Knock it off, for Christ’s sake,” Joe said. “Why don’t you just go ahead and say it? A goddamned nigger took a gun and blew—”

  “Hey,” said Buddy. “Come on now. The man’s been through enough.”

  “No,” said Mickey. “Joe’s right. A goddamned nigger took a gun and blew away my wife.” His eyes shut, his teeth clenched, his fists slammed down on the table: it was like a blurted confession. There was, inside him, a monstrous, inscrutable hate, a bile, and his need to spit it out, to rid himself of it, seemed to be taking unpredictable forms over which he had little control; he found himself at the mercy of the merest suggestions and proddings, so ready, so eager to hate; it was as if he saw a chance to wield this toxic energy in a direction away from himself. Sure, he hated the kid who killed Emi, but there was something else, something that had been there all along, a strain of disgust that had been excited to manic proportions. What was it? What burned inside its core? Mickey opened his eyes and slammed his fists again: ashtrays jumped, cards flinched, and the drinks he had poured—beer, diet soda—swished in their glasses.

  “Mick.”

  Mickey felt Joe’s hand on his back; in a moment he was calm. Sam and Buddy watched him with a mix of sympathy and concern and an odd sort of patience, like priests of some dark order observing a rite of conversion, preparing to welcome him into their fold; and Mickey, florid, exhausted, felt himself yield to the promise of their brotherhood. He blinked his eyes like a downed fighter surfacing through the ether to find a circle of familiar, soothing, vaguely threatening faces. He felt strangely resurrected.

  “Any of you gentlemen care to wager?” said Sam Rudin.

  The table came alive: money was tossed carelessly into a pile. Wedding bands glinted in the light. Mickey knew he held the winning hand. He tossed in a ten-dollar bill—that was high stakes. The other men snickered at this move, as though it were too transparent, and Mickey, knowing that they thought he was bluffing, felt a warmth of acceptance such as he’d never known. How easy it would be, he felt, to live his life out in this way, to submit to the small, shadowed existence that had been assigned him by Nature and learn to be thankful for having glimpsed the light at all.

  Buddy Grossman dropped out of the wagering, sat back with his drink. “A fella opens up a new barbershop,” he said. “First customer is a priest, got the collar on, the cross. Comes time to pay, barber says, ‘Father. You’re a man of the cloth. You’re my first customer. The haircut is free.’ Priest thanks him, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ walks out. Next morning, the barber arrives at the shop. A beautiful bouquet of flowers by the door, with a card signed by the priest.”

  “I’ll see your ten,” said Joe, “and raise you five.”

  “Into the shop walks a minister. Gets a haircut. Comes time to pay, the barber says, ‘Reverend. You’re a good man, a man of the word. The haircut is on the house.’ Minister thanks him, goes home. Next morning, the barber finds a box of candy by the door, and a card signed by the minister.”

  “Same for me,” said Rudin. “Raise you five.”

  “Next customer to walk in the place is a rabbi. ‘Can I get a haircut?’ the rabbi says. ‘Of course,’ says the barber. Barber gives him a haircut. Comes time to pay, the barber says, ‘Rabbi, you’re a man of God, you’re a good man; this haircut is free. No charge.’ Rabbi thanks him, leaves. Next morning, the barber goes to open his shop, and in front of the door”—Buddy folded his hands on his rising belly—“is another rabbi.”

  Sam Rudin laughed, and Joe laughed too. Mickey joined them: it was like jumping into deep water, crashing into a coldness that switched almost instantly to a massaging warmth. He laughed for the first time since the murder, laughed until he coughed and had to duck down for a gulp of soda.

  “Another rabbi,” Buddy repeated, quaking with laughter. “Man, I love that.”

  There was a sound at the back door: Mickey looked up. A slight sound, no more than a mouselike scratching, heard only by the one who knew the house. The door opened.

  It was Ben. He stood there, clearly surprised by the sight of such revelry. Mickey’s first instinct was to stand up and explain everything—the cards, the laughter, the frivolous snack foods—but before he could think of a way to justify a rollicking card game spread out on the very table over which father and son had so recently eaten a
n almost religious meal together, glancing at each other between bites of bread and meat while Emi’s violin whined like a victim below—before he could defend his right to assemble in his own house, for Christ’s sakes, there emerged, slowly, from the darkness, a second figure, stepping out from behind Ben and into the white glare of the kitchen: it was Nelson, startlingly black, flagrant as a roach on a plate. He froze in the light.

  The men looked up. The laughter died.

  There followed a thick silence in which Mickey felt his authority—as a father, as the master of his house—crumble; the men were drawing, Mickey was sure, all sorts of conclusions, and though he couldn’t say what those conclusions were, he knew that they were somehow unfavorable, to Ben as well as to himself. That hurt him. He then recalled admonishing Benjie several weeks ago to bring Nelson here, to the house, instead of his going “down there,” where it was dangerous, but he hadn’t really thought it would happen; and as he looked at his son, who seemed to glare back at him in defiance, he understood that the plan had been to take Nelson upstairs—a plan now threatened by what must have seemed to the boys a veritable wall of disapproval: four middle-aged men studying them through cobwebs of smoke, their laughter gone, money on the table; Benjie turned and whispered something to Nelson, who stepped back and, catching Mickey’s eye, said, “Goodnight, Mr. Lerner,” before disappearing behind the door.

  Mickey felt exposed, betrayed; he wanted to upend the table, turn everyone out of his house. Ben lingered in the doorway, speaking to Nelson in a coded language, then closed the door and walked past the table without so much as a nod, as if he knew he’d scored a triumph in having disgraced his father in front of his friends.

  But why disgrace? Mickey stewed: he was aware of the men watching him; he resented their assumptions. But what did they assume?

  “That was Nelson,” he said, feeling a need to explain. “My driver. Must’ve walked Benjie home from the bakery.”

  “Fella that does deliveries,” Joe said to Sam Rudin.

  Mickey thought he detected an exchange of glances. His neck heated up. Did the men expect him to now denounce Nelson, make some bigoted remark?

  “You wanna finish this hand?” Buddy Grossman said.

  “It’s Mickey’s call,” said Joe. “Mick?”

  Mickey was confused; he looked at his cards.

  “Whore walks into a laundromat,” said Buddy.

  “You gonna wager?” said Sam Rudin.

  Mickey quickly tossed another five into the pot.

  Joe smirked. “The man’s throwing his money away. Keep an eye on him.”

  Mickey raised the cards to his eyes. Had he imagined it all—the doubts, the judgments? His anger grew; he’d been tricked, he felt, he was being tested somehow, manipulated. Buddy finished his joke, the men laughed. They seemed to have forgotten about Nelson; it was as if they’d barely given him a thought. Yet Mickey was sure he’d been driven to this anger, driven to this new hostility that seemed to be aimed toward blacks in general and Nelson in particular. Yes: he’d been baited, lured. Hadn’t he? He looked at his friends: they were absorbed in the game. Was he alone, then? Had they brought him to this place only to leave him here to find his way out? Would they rejoin him?

  Mickey threw down his cards. “I’m out,” he said. He tried hard to control himself, making fists under the table. This confusion was too much; he needed to be alone.

  “You okay?” said Joe.

  Joe’s innocence was even more maddening. These men were poison. What had he been thinking? They’d already pulled him halfway into the mire; he couldn’t allow himself to go under completely. He had to get away. But get away from them! And yet, even as he feigned a headache and claimed that he had to speak with Ben about something or other and herded the men to the door and thanked them and told them he’d talk to them later, he knew that, rather than obliterating their racism from his consciousness, he was doing very nearly the opposite: for with the men suddenly gone from his kitchen, Mickey found himself appallingly alone, left to confront the possibility that the disease, the hatred, had not been caught, but had somehow originated inside him.

  He felt a little better the next day; mornings were always better. He opened the bakery early, having left the house while Ben was still asleep. Morris arrived at ten.

  Mickey spared his uncle the details of last night’s aborted poker game—his outbursts, his erratic thoughts. Not that he was worried. How could he be expected to think straight, after all he’d been through?

  A man in a black hat and long black coat entered the bakery. “I’ll take a loaf of pumpernickel,” he said. His beard came to three points. Mickey didn’t recognize him as a regular.

  “Coming up,” said Mickey. He retrieved the bread and gave it to Morris to slice. “One pumpernickel.”

  Morris placed the bread in the slicer, then licked a finger and swiped a plastic bag. He said:

  “I’ll take a dime’s worth of pumpernick

  And a nickel’s worth of rye;

  A dollar’s worth from the nickel pump

  So I can get to my honey pie.”

  He tied the bag in a knot and rang up the sale. The customer did not appear amused; he took the bread and walked out.

  “They all used to laugh at that one,” Morris said.

  An elderly couple came in. Instead of greeting them Mickey turned his gaze to the window. The sky was mottled blue and gray. The traffic passed in both directions in volleys, salvos. Somewhere out there, Benjie was riding in the van with Nelson.

  “You okay?” said Morris. Behind the thick lenses his eyes were like olives at the bottom of the glass. “You need a vacation, Mick.”

  “I’m fine.” Mickey wasn’t sure how long he’d been drifting.

  The door opened. Mickey looked up. He recognized her instantly: his heart jumped. Donna. Why was she here? Had Nelson said something to her—complained that he’d been treated rudely, been turned out of Mickey’s house the night before? But that was a lie! Or maybe she was here to buy something—she didn’t look angry, Mickey saw—or else offer her condolences. She’d never set foot in this store in her life.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Well. Hello.” Mickey felt a panic. Why couldn’t she have come in while he was taking inventory, clipboard in hand, or better yet, while the place was busy, and him answering questions and directing traffic? In fact she had come at the worst possible moment: Mickey gazing out the window, Morris reading the paper, an elderly couple fondling rolls; never had the place appeared so small and irrelevant.

  Mickey grabbed a pencil from atop the register and put it behind his ear. Donna approached the counter. She looked lovely, the hair done up in those braids, the smooth skin, the tan cotton dress and long black coat; it was hard to connect her to her son.

  “What brings you here?” Mickey said. “Oh, this is Morris, my uncle. Morris, Donna Childs. Nelson’s mother.”

  “Good to meet you,” said Morris. His eyes fixed immediately on Donna’s ample bosom.

  Mickey was horrified. “So,” he said loudly, and clapped his hands together. This failed attempt to create a diversion was in the next moment rewarded by the cry of the phone in the back office.

  “Could you get that, Morris?” Mickey said, and Morris, recalled to his usefulness—he could still answer a phone, by gad—turned and shuffled purposefully to the back, hoping, Mickey was sure, for some minor crisis of business that could be solved right then and there with some old trick of his experience.

  “So this is it,” said Donna, her eyes running along the glass counter, as if sampling each pastry in the showcase. “It’s almost the same as the old bakery.”

  “This one’s a lot bigger,” said Mickey. “You ought to see the back.”

  “I guess I’m just bigger,” said Donna. “The other place seemed so big because I was so little.” She breathed in. “Still smells wonderful. That hasn’t changed.”

  “You ought to smell it at night, when they’re bak
ing,” said Mickey, hinting that she should judge his worth not by this empty storefront, but by the sweetness that lay in the pit of those remote hours. He spotted a tray of éclairs in the display case, and wondered if he should pull one out and give it to her. There she was, on the other side of the counter, still looking up at him with those big brown eyes; it was hard to believe she was a grown woman of forty. She’d caught up to him, it seemed. He felt twenty years younger.

  “You must be wondering why I stopped by,” Donna said.

  “Éclairs?”

  Donna laughed. “Oh, no,” she said, waving her hand. “If I looked like you, maybe I’d sneak one.”

  “Nonsense. You look great.”

  Donna lowered her eyelids. “No, no.”

  “Yes,” said Mickey. “You do.”

  “You look good. Let’s get it straight.”

  “I’m dead serious,” said Mickey. “You could be twenty-five.”

  “All right then,” said Donna. She glanced upward, feigning impatience. “You just keep on talkin’. Come on.”

  Mickey found himself tongue-tied. What did she want him to say? He laughed to cover his lapse. Most times he talked like this to a woman, complimented her, she’d just blush and become tongue-tied herself, like Shirley Finkle. Donna Childs wanted more music.

  “That’s all right,” said Donna. “I’ll let you off the hook.”

  Mickey knew he couldn’t speak without saying too much; truth be told, she was just what the doctor ordered. Her smile, her laugh. She didn’t even know it. She was alive.

  “Anyway,” she said, her tone becoming businesslike. “The reason I’m here.” She reached into her bag and came up with a set of house keys. “Nelson forgot to take these this morning. You’ll see him later, won’t you? When he comes back?”

  “Yes,” said Mickey, wondering if Nelson had mentioned to her that there’d hardly been any contact between them at all since the reopening. Was Donna trying to bring them together somehow?