The Standard Grand

by Jay Baron Nicorvo

  Scuse me, Nehemiah, he said. I’m going to dance your daughter a turn.

  You watch that first step. Nehemiah raised his seltzer glass. Hear it’s the hardest.

  Milt fumbled his way to the dance floor. Took him a long damn time. He parted Sammy and Ada with two hands and said, Husband has his privileges.

  Thanks, doll. Looking at Ada with his good eye, he said, Milton, baby, she’s all yours. I’ve got to get back to work anyhow. He caught Milt’s glassy eyes with his glass eye. You know as well as me, young blood, Negro’s got to earn his keep.

  When Sammy was gone, Milt said, I don’t trust that Blackstone. When Ada stiffened but didn’t respond, Milt tried to instigate her. How’d your meeting go?

  Fine.

  He gonna get you any auditions?

  He already has two lined up.

  Lined up.

  Both in LA. One sounds like a waste, but one could be good. A Buck Henry show.

  You gonna be gone long again?

  Couple weeks at most. But it’s Buck Henry.

  Who is who?

  I have one word for you.

  Okay.

  Plastics.

  Plastics?

  The Graduate, Milty, Buck Henry wrote The Graduate. Maybe we should see a movie without Jim Brown in it every once in a while.

  I’ve got one word for you.

  Don’t ruin this for me. You know my stance on this.

  Remind me.

  If we can’t have a baby, I’m going to have a career.

  With their resentments leading, they danced to a song Milt knew from Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. When it ended and Sammy strode onstage, the dancers took their seats, all except Milt and Ada, who stood holding each other, she more than him.

  Let me tell you a little story, Sammy said, about my Uncle Morey’s mule named Vanya. Sammy looked over his shoulder at the band. What? This is true now, so try to stay with me. Each time the beast passed gas, he’d flip back his tail. The tail, man, which was long and full for an old gassy mule, would come to rest atop Morey’s bald head. He’d clop down First Avenue with the mule tail obstructing his vision. Sammy splayed his fingers and mimed bangs falling over his forehead. This was some time ago now. The tail, brushing his head like so, made him feel younger, more virile, man. So he shot the mule—pow! Some women in the audience gasped. What? A mercy killing. Vanya was dying. He had terrible gas. Put the poor beast out of everyone’s misery. Shoots Vanya and cuts off the dead beast’s tail. From it, man, he fashioned—

  Milt said into Ada’s ear, Let’s go for a drive.

  You can hardly stand.

  I’m not driving, you are. Get your purse and kiss Chema. Meet you at the car. You’re not there in five minutes, I’m going on without you. He left her standing in the middle of the dance floor. Shoved out the side door, hurting with the question he needed to ask her. By the time he reached the car, a brand new Oldsmobile Toronado with power everything, he felt mostly sober and like he could kill her.

  * * *

  Smith holds the flashlight with one hand and pulls open the door in the passageway floor. She shines the flashlight into Milt’s hole. The underground room, higher than it is wide, with rounded walls, smells like cat piss and pine tar. Then a thicker smell hits her. “Jesus.” It’s like sticking her head into a sewage tunnel under New York City. She holds her breath. There’s a tree stump beside a cot. Milt lies curled up, uncovered.

  “Milt, can you hear me? Milt. Milt, if you can hear me, raise a hand.” She waits. Nothing. She puts her face farther into the hole. “I’m climbing down to you.”

  She descends the rungs, jumps to the floor, landing on an alpaca hide that springs a bit beneath her feet. With two fingers, she touches Milt’s scruffy neck. Pressing lightly, she feels no pulse. Pressing harder, it registers, but barely, and his skin is damp and freezing.

  * * *

  Milt lay on his back on the king-sized hood and watched summer stars over Vietnam until he heard Ada’s heels tocking against asphalt. She was a beautiful, svelte woman who’d taken years of ballet, but she clomped around like a Clydesdale with a clubfoot on cobblestones. It drove him crazy. In the jungle, on patrol, she’d get everyone killed.

  Let’s not drive, Ada said, let’s go to bed.

  Have we ever made it in the Toronado?

  You can hardly stand and you’re talking about screwing in the backseat?

  I need to lay down.

  You are lying down, Milty. Let’s go home and lie down in bed. No driving tonight.

  I’m fine, sobered straight up. Nothing like a little rejection to kill a good buzz. He sat upright, stars swirling overhead. He found his feet and made way uneasily to the driver-side door, where he fumbled with the keys to the unlocked car. When he dropped them in the grass, Ada said, Where you planning on driving?

  Around. Maybe swing on by the reservoir. Nice night, and we’re not gonna have many more like this before the cold’s on the ground.

  A short drive, then bed.

  I’ll be back before you know it. He retrieved the keys, got the door open and plunked himself into the seat.

  She waited to see if he might pass out as soon as he settled into a comfy chair. When he got the keys in the ignition and turned the car over, she went around to the open driver-side door and said, Slide your drunk stubborn ass over.

  * * *

  “How in hell are we gonna get you out of here?” Smith could recruit a couple more hands and fashion an A-frame, find an old pulley. With the Standard vets, a shared task like that might take a week. She sees the electric lantern and turns it on. “That’s better.”

  She regards the mess that is Milt. Couple days worth of fouling himself. Wan and ashy, cheeks sunken. Flakes in his shaggy goatee with no clean lines. Hair all natty and matted. “You’re not gonna be much help are you?” She stands, moves to pull the alpaca hide out from under him but sees how soiled it is. To cover him, she pulls the other alpaca hide off the floor. Beneath it, a cast-iron grate. She lays the hide over him, stands over the grate. Air draws down it. She steps off the grate, squats, grabs hold, and lifts using the strength of her legs. The grate comes up and she slides it aside.

  She shines the flashlight down the hole in Milt’s hole. A drop of about four feet to a slab floor that gleams with wetness. She pokes down her head. The ammonia of aged urine stings her eyes. She aims the light along a passage that’s maybe three feet by three feet.

  She goes back to Milt’s bedside and tells him she’ll be right back. She drops into the tunnel to see where it leads.

  * * *

  Ada’s doing 25 in a 45 mph zone. Milt tells her to turn his way—she can’t tell left from right. Tonight, this charming quirk of hers is ridiculous. His fury has him blurt the lead-up to the question he can’t bring himself to form in his mind, never mind in his mouth: I’m hearing talk about Blackstone.

  Talk’s what people do best up here.

  Milt reaches over, grabs the wheel, and tugs. The tires squeal.

  Milton! What are you doing! Ada guides the car back into the lane.

  Just a little simulated live-action. Now don’t jerk me around, Ada. I’m not as drunk as I seem. I want to know what’s going on.

  Why don’t you tell me. Tell me why it is you’ve lured me out here.

  Because you’re my wife and I don’t like what I’m hearing about you and Sy.

  Milton, Sy’s my agent and a family friend. We go way back. Told you a thousand times, he was my first boyfriend. You know how it is up here with impressionable girls. That was me, fifteen years ago. Sy and I have a history. You’re my present and my future.

  Don’t play me, Ada. I’m not one of your auditions.

  She narrows her lined eyes and drives.

  One of the busboys has a cousin trying to make it as scriptwriter in LA.

  And?

  This cousin got invited to a party.

  People go to parties in LA, a lot of them, all the time.

  At thi
s party, they didn’t have a coat check. They had a clothes check. Milt knows he’s got her attention because she glances away from the road at him. Do I need to continue or can I leave it to you to pick up where I just left off?

  She grits her teeth but doesn’t answer.

  Milt reaches out and takes hold of the wheel. If you think I won’t yank us off this road and straight to our deaths, Ada, then you better buckle your fucking safety belt.

  Milton.

  You have regrets about marrying you a nigger?

  Oh, Milty baby, no, God no. Don’t ever say that.

  What then? He slides over on the plush seat, part bucket, part bench, and kicks her foot off the accelerator. The car slows for a moment and then he steps on it. The big car pulls forward on the straightaway.

  It’s too terrible.

  He pushes the wheel and veers into the empty oncoming lane. He takes his hand off the steering wheel and steps on the accelerator. You press the brake, I’ll gun the gas. We’ll wind up upside-down in a ditch.

  They tandem drive in silence for a mile, the darkness around them dense as water.

  We all do terrible things, Ada. I know that a hell of a lot better than most. Only thing makes it less terrible is if we can tell it. You taught me that.

  It was just one thing led to another. A collapse of inhibition. With a little help. Something Sy said was safe. I, he—

  Goddamn it, Ada. I knew it. Did Blackstone drug you?

  I knew what I was getting into, Milty, more or less. They were handing them out at the door. It wasn’t Sy’s fault.

  Whose then?

  Milty, don’t make me say it. Just know that I did it and that I promise, on all that is good and just in this world, I’ll never do it again. Ever. It was a one-time thing.

  This about that movie you made me watch on TV?

  What movie?

  One where Quincy Jones did the score. Bob & Bill & Alice & Somebody?

  I forgot about that. Oh, Milton, who am I kidding? I’m never gonna catch a break. Sy’s just humoring me for the Standard contract, but booking the hotel isn’t what it used to be. Once the money dries up he’s not gonna bother trying to find me silly sci-fi roles passed up by the likes of Ms. Van Dyke.

  What are we talking about now?

  We’re talking about how we, you and I, slept, together, through the sexual revolution.

  You want to swing, that it?

  No I do not want to swing.

  Cause if you want to swing, I can swing, baby. You know how many JAPs come practically begging for me to drip some honey in they honeycombs?

  Milton, you’ll never forgive me so just try to forget it.

  He stomped the accelerator and they leaned back in their seats. No such thing as forgetting.

  Milton!

  He yanked the steering wheel and the two passenger-side tires skipped onto the grassy shoulder. Start talking, Ada. How many men?

  At some point, I lost count.

  I’m gonna be sick.

  There were people making love everywhere.

  That’s what you were doing, making love?

  It was a sex party. An orgy. Sex not love. Anonymous. Everyone wore sheer hoods. It was creepy. You could see out but not in. We all looked like naked executioners. That was the point. Part of the theme. The invitation welcomed guests to Execute Inhibition.

  Sounds like my draft card.

  Everything doesn’t have to come back to Vietnam, Milton.

  Hooded hooker at the receiving end of a gang bang? Sounds like My Lai fucking foreplay to me. He rolled down the window. Now I’m picturing the mess they must’ve made of you.

  Don’t, Milton.

  Cunt overflowing with come. Were you getting two pricks at once? We know you take it up the ass like a pro.

  If you really want all the gruesome details, I’ll fucking oblige you.

  Just tell me one thing. Did Sy get in line?

  Sy was Sy.

  What’s that mean?

  Means he watched and, afterward, lectured.

  On what?

  Some pet theory of his.

  And how can you be sure Sy wasn’t in line if everyone was in hoods?

  When she didn’t respond, he stepped on the gas.

  Cause he and I used to be lovers, Milton. You know that. Besides, he’s got the body of a parsnip. I’d have known if Sy Blackstone was fucking me up the ass.

  You know, you’re typecast for a reason. And you get no leads because you’re shallow. Deepest thing about you’s your twat. Which you’ll sell on the cheap for some shitty bit-part in some sci-fi sitcom. But don’t worry, Ada, cause if you don’t get that one, I’m sure Sy’s got some smut lined up for you behind the green door opposite Johnnie Keyes.

  Johnnie who?

  When Milt didn’t answer, she said, He the black fellow giving it to Marilyn Chambers in that porno? He still didn’t respond, and when she said, Careful of that deer, he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  * * *

  Smith climbs back out of the tunnel and pulls Milt sitting upright. “Can you stand for me?”

  He leans on an elbow. His eyes meet hers but he’s not seeing her.

  “I’m gonna have to get you out of here through your latrine.”

  He mumbles something, and she tells him to speak up.

  “Careful of that deer.”

  “Careful of what, darling, your latrine?”

  His look focuses on her for the first time. “Don’t let me go back there. To Ada. I’m ready to be done.” He nods. With tears in his eyes, he reaches and cups her breast.

  “Come now, Milt, now’s not the time to get frisky on me.”

  “Please.”

  “Stop, Milt.”

  “I promise, I’ll never touch another drink.” He fumbles with the button on her pants.

  “Milt, don’t.”

  “Please, Ada. It’s been so long, and I’m so sorry.”

  She leans in, not shutting her eyes, and, this close, Milt’s eyes merge, forming a third. His goatee tickles her lips, his breath so bad his head seems yellow. He needs her help, she needs his. She kisses him, then comes up for a breath of air. “Come on, you old dog.” She heaves him to his boots.

  After a moment, he regains some of himself. He helps her help him into the drain tunnel. They make awkward way with the electric lantern. To distract him, and herself, she tells him she’s solved the mystery of the missing alpaca. When he responds by saying what mystery? She says: “I found out who took E. Prince.”

  “Ray.”

  “That’s right, Ray. How’d you—”

  “While back,” he says, “told him he could take some extra hides for a shelter he wanted to make. Told him he could have E. Prince to keep him company. Said he’d take him to keep from starving. Said if someone was going to kill E. Prince, he wanted to be the one.”

  They come into the old coal powerhouse. Outside, the snow has stopped.

  * * *

  When Vessey returned from the hospital with the van, he was forced to climb out and salt the first two switchbacks. He couldn’t get up the third. He waded through snow the rest of the way, found Smith waiting for him with Milt in front of Standard Tower, which seemed to be leaning a few degrees farther.

  They were both filthy and stinking. “You two look—”

  Smith shook her head. “That woman die?”

  “Not yet.” Vessey touched Milt’s cheek, Milt’s white whiskers rasping under Vessey’s rough thumb. “Oh, Milt, my brother from another mother.” Vessey looked at Smith through full eyes. “To the ER again? This another emergency?”

  “He’s sort of in and out. Responsive one minute, delirious the next. Confused. Keeps saying, No sir, Mr. Davis.”

  Milt mumbled, nodded.

  “Hate to go right back. Feel like I barely got out of there. Closest VA Medical Center’s in Castle Point. Another one down in Montrose.” He checked Milt over, pushing on a few internal organs. “We should get him cleaned up. Cha
nge of clothes. Both of you. Man, you stink. What’ve you been doing?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Both VAs are a little over an hour drive,” Vessey told her.

  “The van?”

  “On one of the switchbacks. Not stuck just won’t climb. We’ll sled her down. It’ll be fun. Come on. I’m thinking Castle Point. They do a good job treating our Lyme disease. Defoliate us with antibiotics. Milt’s oncologist’s there.”

  “To a VA? Vess, they’ll arrest me.”

  “I’m beat, Smith.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “They’re very discreet there with our guys,” he told her.

  She, too, touched Milt’s scruffy cheek, and when he didn’t respond to the touch, she said, “Okay.”

  “That’a girl. How’ve things been here otherwise?”

  “Stone and Luce bolted. Said it’d rained bats in the Alpine village. Don’t think they’ll be back. Both said their goodbyes to Milt. He didn’t even blink.”

  “Everyone else?”

  “The four fucking corners.”

  * * *

  Once they were on the interstate, Vessey said, “Had a hard time explaining to the cops how it was I had tampons on me to stanch the blood.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “First cop I talked to wasn’t interested. Little later, a lady detective showed up and lit into me. Told her they’re wonderful fire-starters. Showed her the place in my sardine tin where I kept them. She bought it, even though she was suspicious about the mountain lion.”

  “Wasn’t a Florida panther?”

  “Detective made a call to someone at the DEP. When she got off the phone, she wasn’t gonna let me go. Think I was a suspect for about an hour there. Nurse came out after the first surgery, before they airlifted her to Vassar Brothers. Detective giving me heat backed off, a bit. Said they found a broken piece of tooth near her collarbone, piece of claw caught in her watchband, what looked like antler lodged in her pelvis. They were gonna run tests to make sure. Asked me if she might’ve been gored first by a buck. Told her hell if I know, and they let me go. Lady detective even called me a hero. Said it looked like she was gonna live if she survived all the surgeries. I said, You got the wrong guy. All I did was some field nursing. She said they’d be coming by some time in the next few days to question everybody. Love to make you anxious with anticipation. Now this?” He unclipped his seatbelt, climbed into the back.