The Baker

by Paul Hond

  Ben sat in the chair facing the desk, the chair normally reserved for those whose sluggish job performance required a little pep talk from the boss. Many had ended up in that chair over the years, and Ben could feel, through the seat of his pants, the heat of all the anxiety that had been left there.

  “I didn’t mean to catch you off guard,” said Mickey, sitting casually on the edge of the desk, crushing papers. “In fact, I made the decision at the last second. I had planned to announce that we’d be closing up while I was gone. Then it hit me when I was standing there in front of everyone: why not let Benjie run the show?” He smiled, and Ben had a feeling he was lying, that he had made the decision much earlier.

  Ben scratched his head. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” said Mickey. “First things first.” He stood up, swung around to his chair and lowered himself slowly into it. Each movement, it seemed, was calculated for emotional effect. “Are you feeling up to the task?” he said, clasping his hands behind his head. There were great amoeba-shaped stains of perspiration under his arms.

  “What’s the task?” said Ben, eyeing the sea of papers.

  “Well,” Mickey said, “I’m not going to lie and tell you it’s the easiest job in the world. Your old man didn’t get these gray hairs for nothing.”

  Mickey had never referred to himself as “your old man” before. Ben didn’t like it. “I don’t want gray hair,” he said.

  Mickey laughed. Ben was surprised: Mickey usually didn’t respond well to wisecracks. He seemed nervous.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about gray hairs,” said Mickey, pulling himself up to the desk. He planted his elbows on some complicated forms that Ben imagined would soon be pursuing him in dreams. “Maybe you’ll get a little indigestion,” Mickey conceded, “but that’s all. You shouldn’t have to worry too much with the suppliers, but if you feel we’re running low on anything—flour, yeast, eggs, sugar, margarine—here’s a list of numbers.”

  He went on to explain the whole works, from the inventory chart to the list of hotels, country clubs, nursing homes and restaurants to which Nelson made deliveries. “Keep track of workers’ hours here,” he said, magically pulling up the correct sheet of paper. “Wholesale accounts get billed,” he said, now waving a thick pad with numbers all over it. Ben kept nodding, responding to his father’s bizarre new faith in his ability, thinking it was maybe some kind of extravagant apology for all that had been wrong between them over the years and especially in recent weeks, a reflection of Mickey’s desire to patch things up, lest he be left all alone come the day when Ben would no longer be dependent upon him. Or maybe he was trying to deepen the dependence—or at least prompt enduring filial ties—by drawing Ben further into the business.

  Mickey said, “I’ll leave you with your pay in advance so you can buy groceries, and also the van keys and my car keys.”

  Ben was stunned. The car? Mickey had passed into an exquisitely reckless state, and Ben knew he must not draw attention to it with displays of excitement. Let him think he’s being completely reasonable, Ben told himself, and more gifts might follow. “Well,” said Ben, feigning uncertainty, “I mean, okay.”

  Mickey turned cautious. “It’s not always a picnic,” he said.

  “I know,” said Ben. Then a sobering thought. “What about when you come back?” he said. “What happens then?”

  Mickey smiled, and there was a twinkle in his eye which seemed to indicate that if things went well while he was away, Ben would retain his position, and father and son would rule the empire together. But then the twinkle faded, and Ben was struck with the thought—as perhaps Morris had been struck—that Mickey had no intention of returning.

  “Where are you going?” Ben said. There was the slightest tremor in his voice.

  Mickey looked down at the papers on his desk, began moving them around. “Paris,” he said. A pencil rolled off his desk. “In your mother’s honor.”

  “Paris?”

  “I figure I’ll stay for a week or two,” Mickey said, “give us both some time to clear our minds.” He chuckled. “Maybe we need to get away from each other for a while.” He chuckled more emphatically to make light of that.

  But Ben knew he meant it. And though he himself felt the same way, the words cut him.

  Mickey looked up. “What do you think? Good idea?”

  Ben shrugged. “I guess.” He didn’t feel so well all of a sudden.

  Mickey turned back to his papers. “Good.” He squinted at a pink sheet. “I’d better get over to Overland Farms and straighten out this bill.” Overland Farms supplied the eggs.

  Ben swallowed hard, determined to talk business in an even tone. “Why not just call them?”

  Mickey folded the pink sheet, tucked it in his shirt pocket. “When you’re talking money”—he looked Ben not quite in the eye, but a little above it—“you want to be face-to-face. I’ve learned that the hard way.” He paused to let a history of sour business deals conducted over the phone settle cloudlike over the desk. “Sometimes you’ve got to sit down with people. You have to be direct. Firm. Understand?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Good,” said Mickey. “And one other thing. Keep your eye out for characters. A suspicious-looking fella comes in the place, and you get a bad feeling, don’t hesitate to trip the alarm under the register. You know what to look out for.”

  The next few days were spent going over the finer points of running the bakery. Father and son spent more time together over this period than they had in what seemed like years. The talk, however, was confined strictly to bakery matters, and all the unsaid things gathered darkly around the edges of their words. Ben wanted desperately to reach out to his father, assure him that he wouldn’t regret his decision, thank him in advance with some small demonstration of competence, but as the man didn’t seem overly concerned (Ben supposed he’d made an impression after all, on the days he’d filled in for Mickey behind the counter), as he betrayed no real reservations about handing over the reins (“If I can do it, you can,” he’d said), Ben was left with a nagging frustration, the only cure for which was to convince himself that Mickey harbored secret doubts, and that he, Ben, must not so much reward the man as prove him wrong. For some reason he could not accept that his father believed in him.

  At points during Mickey’s sermons, be it on the maintenance of machinery or the particulars of the company bank account, Ben fell into a kind of trance of admiration for his father, thrilled to discover at every turn some new complexity of his character, his knowledge; he had, Ben witnessed, created a system—imperfect and antiquated, perhaps, but an elaborate universe nonetheless, and there wasn’t one piece of equipment or one slip of paper that didn’t bear his stamp. The tentacles of this business reached further than Ben had ever imagined, from the granaries of the Midwest to the cane fields of the Caribbean; there was even a bottle of vanilla extract whose beans had come from Madagascar. The whole world, it seemed, was contained in this inconspicuous bakery, and Mickey Lerner was its master. And yet all the stuff of this universe—the machinery, the ingredients, the utensils and inventory and supplies—seemed to create a barrier between them, seemed to encircle Mickey in a protective aura of accomplishment through which something as simple as the reaching out of one’s hand seemed next to impossible.

  Ben was grateful, then, when Mickey asked him for a lift to the airport. Airports were emotional places. Ben tried to imagine the scene at the gate. Would Mickey open his arms? Would his eyes moisten, turn to glass? Ben yearned for an embrace, but as the moment grew closer he began to fill with dread; a display of emotion, he felt, might weaken him in his father’s eyes, might make him seem something less than the tough cookie on whom Mickey was counting. But more than that: an embrace at the airport would be almost premature, as if to seal their contract in advance of the trial period (and that’s what this promotion was, Ben thought—a test) would be to sanction the very worst.

/>   On Wednesday morning they drove to the airport. Ben had spent all of Tuesday at the bakery under Mickey’s eye, and things had gone smoothly.

  The beltway was jammed, but once the traffic picked up Ben still drove slowly. Mickey, slumped in the passenger seat, looked awful; he hadn’t slept the night before, and Ben could only wonder if he was having second thoughts. Though maybe he was just worried about making his way, alone, in a foreign country. He didn’t know anyone in France.

  By the time they arrived at the airport, Mickey’s eyes were closed.

  “Where do I go?” said Ben, looking around in confusion at all the terminals. “Dad?”

  Mickey’s eyes popped open, and he gathered himself up in his seat. “United to New York,” he said. “There it is.”

  “I see it,” said Ben, thinking that he should offer to carry Mickey’s suitcase, which Mickey had spent a long time packing the night before. The sight of the seldom-used suitcase provoked a strange sadness. What dreams had inspired that long-ago purchase? Even filled, the suitcase was a joyless object; the idea of a man reducing himself to what could fit inside, and then struggling with the weight of it, was as sad as it was trampishly comic. Ben tried hard not to feel sorry for his father, who had seemed so strong and invincible while lecturing in the bakery. “Where should I park?” he said.

  “That’s okay,” said Mickey. “Just let me off in front.”

  Ben felt something inside him buckle. “Don’t you want me to—to go in with you?”

  “This’ll do,” said Mickey. He seemed anxious to get away. He unfastened his seat belt and unlocked his door. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  It was all happening too fast; Ben wanted to clasp him, hold him back.

  Mickey pulled up the collar of his overcoat and opened his door. In a moment he was outside the car, peering in. “Could you pop the trunk for me?”

  Ben pulled a lever. The hatch clicked. He wondered if he should get out and help. He hesitated, then opened his door. When he stepped into the cold air the trunk slammed shut. Mickey stood there, ashen, holding his suitcase. Ben took a step as if to walk around to the back of the car, wanting to at least part on a handshake, but Mickey held up his hand, a gesture that said “halt” as much as it said “farewell.” Ben bit his lip. Slowly he raised his own hand. Mickey nodded, then turned and walked to the terminal. Ben stood and watched as Mickey inclined his shoulder toward the weight of the things he’d chosen to take with him.

  12

  Hawk passed the bottle—a malt beverage called Powerhouse that Nelson pretended to enjoy. And really it wasn’t so bad, in fact it got better the more you drank. Nelson tilted his head and guzzled.

  “Yo, Little Man,” Hawk said, laughing. The nickname was a comment not on Nelson’s size (though he was the smallest of all of them), but rather, Nelson assumed, his perceived lack of experience. “I never seen you drink like that.”

  Chuckie Banks gave Nelson a hard look in the rearview. Sharp chin, Chinese eyes. Toothpick twitching.

  Hawk clapped his hands in delight.

  Rob said, “What that nigga doin’?” He was in the passenger seat, too fat to turn his head all the way around.

  Nelson winced; drink dribbled down his chin. Hawk laughed, Chuckie Banks did not. Nelson wiped his mouth, passed the bottle up front to Rob.

  Chuckie said, “Don’t spill that shit on my leather.”

  Hawk laughed, adjusted his dark knit cap. “Nigga,” he said, “this ain’t even your car.”

  They were driving west through a corridor of boarded-up storefronts, disabled cars and hollow-looking row houses, heading toward a world that Nelson knew so much better than the others. The bakery lay a few miles ahead; so did Crumb’s place. Further out, Seven Pines.

  “Yo,” said Rob. “I could drink a whole mo’fuckin’ case of this mo’-fucker.”

  “Just enjoy the ride, Buddha Man,” said Chuckie Banks. He declined the bottle.

  Chuckie and Rob weren’t entirely known to Nelson, but fortunately they both seemed subordinate to Hawk, whom Nelson had known since they were little kids. Kevin Hawkins, the craziest kid on the block. For some strange reason—and Nelson had never rushed to question it—Hawk had remained a fiercely loyal friend, and Nelson sometimes felt he commanded a small moralizing influence over him. All of which argued—he hoped—for a certain immunity from violence at the hands of Rob and Chuckie Banks.

  Hawk reached for the bottle. He closed his eyes and brought the small round mouth to his lips. Nelson watched him, and was struck by a vision of deep religious suffering, as of a solemn libation, ambrosial, deadening. There were fires, Nelson saw, fires that the alcohol would either quench or fuel.

  Hawk lowered the bottle. “We need some grub, y’all.”

  Rob turned his head. “Yo, Little Man. Can you get any more of them pastries?”

  Nelson felt a chill. “Not tonight,” he said, cursing himself. Damn! He should’ve known better than to have ever pilfered sweets from the bakery and given them to Rob.

  Chuckie said, “What pastries?”

  Rob said, “Nigga drive a truck, deliverin’ baked goods.” He said it almost proudly, intimating connections to inner retail circles. “Work for this white man, deliverin’ product all over the metropolitan area.” He turned his head a little more. “Ain’t that right?”

  “Yeah.” Nelson couldn’t tell if Rob was teasing him or what. In truth, he had mixed feelings about his job these days—Bread leaving, Crumb assuming power; he wondered what would happen.

  Even Mama had thought it a crazy thing. “Mickey Lerner went where?” she’d said, and then got into a strange mood—lost her appetite and everything. “For two weeks?” she’d said. She seemed angry, confused, as if she couldn’t believe it either—the idea of Crumb in charge!

  “Yo,” said Chuckie, glaring at Nelson in the rearview. “Can you hook me up with a job?”

  “Me too,” said Rob. “Can you hook us up, Little Man?”

  “Naw,” said Nelson. “Ain’t no openings.”

  “Not yet,” said Chuckie.

  Rob laughed.

  Nelson sank further into his seat. Shit. These punks didn’t know what he had in his pocket—a .22 he’d bought off Phil Withers, this fifty-year-old crackhead from down the street who’d come up to him near the bus stop peddling a whole box of cologne and some new shoelaces and hinting that since he was sick with the virus he was putting a lesser emphasis these days on self-defense and was willing to sell off his belongings to buy a few more days’ worth of “medicine” from the dealers down on North Avenue. “Now I know you’ll play me straight,” he’d said as the furtive transaction was made right there on the corner, Nelson having just gotten paid. “You a good man, your mama a good woman, I wouldn’t make this offer to none of these murderin’ fools ‘round here.”

  Even Hawk didn’t know about the gun, and now Nelson considered what it would be like to take both Chuckie and Rob from behind, right now, execution style.

  “Fuck the pastry,” said Chuckie. “Wish we had some weed.”

  “Yo,” said Hawk, turning to Nelson. “You got any more of that weed I gave you?”

  Nelson had to think for a moment. Hawk was always giving him weed, some of which he smoked but most of which he got rid of for fear it would damage him genetically; he’d read an article about that in Time. The seeds, however, he saved. “Naw,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Smoked it all.”

  “All of it?” said Hawk. He made a face. “Didn’t even save none for your boy?”

  “Sorry,” said Nelson, frightened. Hawk was drunk.

  Rob said, “Hawk, man, you gonna stand for that?”

  “Why you didn’t save none?” said Hawk.

  “I forgot,” said Nelson.

  Rob shook his head. “Nigga play me like that? Shit.”

  Nelson’s throat dried up.

  Hawk laughed. “Little Man so drunk, he don’t know what he sayin’. Ain’t that right, Little Man?”

 
Nelson remained silent. He understood that Hawk was rescuing him.

  Rob said, “When Little Man get home his mother gonna sniff his breath and whup his ass. Ain’t she a Jehovah’s Witness?”

  “What?” said Hawk.

  “You said she a Jehovah somethin’—mistress, mattress—”

  “Naw, man,” said Hawk, “She a Japanese masseuse. Why you gotta act so stupid?”

  “Little Man’s mother Japanese?” said Rob.

  Nelson giggled.

  “She can cure people’s disease with her fingertips,” Hawk announced, glancing at Nelson for verification. “It’s all about pressure points.”

  “Yo yo, Little Man,” Rob said. “I got a disease on my dick. Can your moms touch it and make it better?”

  Nelson stopped giggling.

  “Yo,” said Hawk.

  “She do the Japanese thing, I’m the Buddha,” Rob said matter-of-factly. “Whassup? Huh, Little Man?”

  “Yo, nigga,” said Hawk. “I’ll put a slug right in your fat mother-fuckin head.”

  “Not on my leather,” said Chuckie.

  “Think I’m lyin’?” said Hawk. He pressed his finger into the back of Rob’s head. “Do you?”

  Rob sniffed like a hurt child. “Shit, Hawk. My mother go to church. Prayin’ for me. You know wha’m sayin’?” He turned his head as far as he could. “Yo, Nelson. Respect.” He offered a giant hand. Nelson took it.

  They were on the edge of town. Crumb’s house wasn’t far. Nelson, still trembling from a confrontation in which he had failed, as usual, to stand up for himself, said, “Make a left at the next red light.” He noticed the bottle in his own hand.

  Rob lit a cigarette.

  “Where we goin’?” said Chuckie.

  “I know this white boy,” Nelson said. “Might have some weed.”

  There was a silence, in which Nelson sensed the impact of his words: none of these punks knew any white boys. For the moment, Nelson was head scout on the frontier.