#
“Pssst!” Through the peephole mandated by law, minus the little metal latch, sibilance reached Alex Dobrin with a chill. “Pssst! Open the door.”
“Not yet,” Alex murmured, turning over. I’m not ready, Reaper.”
“Pop, it’s me. Open up.”
Alex sat up. “Ralph?” His son hadn’t been here in months. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Let me in. My car’s gone.”
Alex peered through the peephole. Seeing eye to eye with Ralph for the first time. He hesitated, waiting for the floodgates of fatherly love to open and admit his son.
“Come on, Pop. The next train’s not for hours. I got nowhere else to go.”
Nowhere else to go. A cry of help. Am I a sadist? Alex opened the door and let Ralph in.
“What a night!” Ralph threw himself into a chair. “Let me just stay till it’s light. If you want to go back to sleep, be my guest. My brand-new car,” he moaned.
Why was it so hard to look at him? Maybe it was those idiotic sideburns. The Beau Brummel of Bay Shore. And he wanted to lure Alex out there. No thank you. Alex preferred to spend his declining years in Manhattan, in a transient hotel if necessary, composing and continuing his search for a friendly socialist cafeteria.
“The one time I park on the street. Couldn’t they just take the tape deck? Believe me, you’ll be better off once you’re out of here. How’s your fever?”
“I don’t like to bother you with my complaints.” That was the wrong thing to say but Alex couldn’t stop himself. Someone should teach a course on how to talk to your children. Before his retirement, Alex had offered Ralph the music store. But Ralph had wanted to follow his own star, he said. Some star. Beasts’ entrails. Whatever happened to truth and beauty, the father handing on the torch?
“Listen, about this demonstration at City Hall next month. I want you to stay out of trouble, Pop. You have some very radical people in this building. Your superintendent told me.”
“No doubt,” Alex said. “I told him that the white bread I buy has sodium nitrite in it. He thinks I’m going to blow up City Hall.”
Ralph laughed uneasily. “Come on, act your age. By the way, I ran into your friend Mrs. Price a little while ago.”
“A little while ago? Where?” Alex demanded, agitated.
“Heading for the police station,” Ralph said. “She was looking for her son. “I was on my way to the car—those bastards. It’s probably in Mexico by now. Anyway, I wish I had such a charming neighbor.” He winked at his father. “Believe me, I understand.”
“Just what do you understand?” Alex asked frostily.
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Pop.”
“Ralph, I don’t know what kind of mentality you have out there where they swap wives every weekend—”
“Hold on, now—”
“—But Mrs. Price happens to be a very kind neighbor who looked after me when I was sick and took a load off your mind.” Alex could feel himself shaking with rage.
“Easy easy, I didn’t mean anything. Don’t get upset. It’s bad for the pressure. Go back to bed. I can make you some hot milk.”
Alex wasn’t listening. Amalie should not be wandering around at night. “You should have accompanied her. That’s what a gentleman does.”
“Your friend doesn’t like me. Sometimes I think I repel women.” He fetched a bottle of cognac from the kitchen. “Is this the bottle I got you when you retired? It hasn’t been opened. You missed some fishing trip last month. You would have enjoyed it. I can’t understand why you never leave the city.”
“I like the people.”
“Sure, I know.”
“No, you don’t,” Alex said sullenly. Ralph would never understand. Alex belonged here, between Central Park and the Hudson River, Scylla and Charybdis. With the homeless, the demented, the mink coats on the Sabbath and the numbers tattooed on elderly arms; with the Asians, the blacks, and Hispanics that made him a citizen of the world in one square block.
“Listen, go back to sleep,” Ralph said. He plumped his father’s pillow and straightened out the blanket. “I’ll slip out soon.” He turned off his father’s lamp and loosened his shoelaces. “I saw something really funny the other day. It really got to me. This black dog was crossing against the light—you know how dumb some dogs are—he wasn’t on a leash. Cars were speeding down the street and one hit him when he was halfway across. The dog ran the rest of the way on three legs, his head to one side and yowling blue murder. When he got to the curb, he lay down with his legs in the air, all twisted, still howling. He didn’t sound like a dog any more. A police car drives up, the cops take a look at the dog and then they drive away. I was watching from the store.
“After a long while this sanitation truck drives up and these guys in green uniforms get out. The truck had its machinery running. They got one of those big shovels they use and scoop up the dog. I couldn’t tell any more if it was still yelping, the noise from the garbage truck was so loud. The back, the disposal unit opened and you could see things going around and around in it. They shoveled the dog in and the door of the unit slid shut. And that was it. I can’t get it out of my head. Pop…?”
Ralph tiptoed to the bed. He reached out hesitantly and touched his father’s forehead with his fingertips then quickly withdrew them. His father had a very keen sense of smell and the odor of blood was hard to wash off.
#
Carved into the walls of the Criminal Court Building were slogans of a bygone age, like JUSTICE IS THE EMBODIMENT OF PROGRESS, HUMANITY AND FORBEARANCE. When Amalie served as a juror, she believed it. But now, she didn’t even know what was meant by justice. It depended on who you were. Justice now meant being able to take Charlie home and making him hot cocoa.
A paddy wagon was pulling into the driveway and she ran to it. “Charlie,” she called through the mesh windows, “are you in there?” A grey metal door suddenly clattered down from above, forcing her to step back and hiding the van from view.
Where to now? The lobby of the Court building was full of people leaning against the Rorschach marbleized walls or sitting on the ground (there were no benches). Signs pointed to various amenities, all closed now: restaurant, psychiatric clinic, lost and found. Amalie half expected a souvenir shop. She entered an elevator with a patrolman escorting a handcuffed teenage boy. She figured she’d start with the second floor and work her way up.
Outside a courtroom people were milling around, whispering urgently. “He’s out…” “not out…” “…won’t post bail…” “…Riker’s Island…” Inside the room the female judge was visible behind the desk only from the nose up like a Kilroy drawing from World War II. There was an American flag encased in plastic. A distinguished looking middle-aged man was addressing the judge. “All I did was take a dose of my prescription medicine. And I’m being held like a common criminal.”
“Sir,” the judge said, “the ordinance prohibits drinking alcohol in a public thoroughfare unless it is discreetly enclosed in a paper bag. Especially Jack Daniels bourbon.”
“But, your Honor, my doctor says that drinking in moderation is good for the heart.”
Wrong room. Another courtroom. Male judge to festively-dressed woman: “What’s a cute chick like you doing in a place like this?”
Defense attorney: “Your Honor, my client says a hotel has no right to keep her from renting a room by the hour, especially if men do it all the time.” Behind him, a chorus of women begin to declaim the Equal Rights Amendment.
Down the hall, another room. “…charged with obstructing pedestrian traffic in front of the Dow Chemical Building.” This was it. Amalie scanned the immense, badly lit area. She didn’t see Charlie but wasn’t that one of his friends, the kid who went down to Nicaragua to try and help the Sandinistas? He began to recite, “When a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design—”
“—Design!” exclaimed the judge. “Young man, you have clearly never visited Monticello,
that shrine dear to all Americans.”
“—It’s the people’s right to throw off such government.”
“Sir, you are contumacious! Guard! Where’s the rest of the lot?”
A door opened to admit a group of teenagers accompanied by an officer. Strangely, they were all dressed alike. Amalie saw him, Charlie. There he was. Not bloodied, not limping, but resplendent in his colors as they all were. She caught his eye, waved, tears blurring her sight. He didn’t wave back. It would have embarrassed him. She blew him a kiss. His group moved forward, joined by a florid and wildly disheveled man, probably their lawyer.
The judge addressed the group but it was impossible to catch all his words. The acoustics were frightful, the air was stagnant. Echoes bounced off the walls. “In view of…prima facie…if a priori…ipso facto…”
Amalie was so tired. Latin began to swim around in her head. “Cui bono…mons veneris…agnus dei…” She bolted up and rubbed her eyes. The burly lawyer was giving everyone the V for Victory sign and Charlie was charging up the aisle “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Amalie and dragged her outside. It was almost two in the morning.
#
“Stop feeling me up,” Charlie said as they walked into the apartment. “I’m all right.” Amalie hadn’t even realized what she was doing, patting his back, running her hand up his arm, looking for fractures, trying to detect bruises. “It was great.”
His exhilaration was familiar. Like Stewart’s during the big anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. While she preferred to remain on the fringes of the crowds, he always pressed ahead, into the thick of it.
“I once took you to Dow Chemical,” she said, trying to keep the pride out of her voice. “You were a baby. I took the stroller and all these mothers walked around the building. The same building. Because of the napalm they were making. Dad didn’t even know about it until I came home and told him.”
“No way!” he said admiringly. “You never said. Did you ever get arrested?”
“Never had the privilege. And I hope it stays that way. I was half crazy with worry about you, Charlie.” She wondered how she could be both furious and proud at the same time.
“I did call you, as soon as I could, but you weren’t home. You’re never out so late. I was the one who was worried. Where were you?”
“At a neighborhood concert,” Amalie said. “Alex was there.”
“Oh, so you had a date,” he said accusingly.
“It wasn’t a date, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well at least you weren’t out with that guy, Evan.”
“What’s the matter with you, Charlie? Evan is a friend. He’s helped me a lot. Look, it’s late. We’re both tired.”
“I don’t like him. He’s too smooth.”
“You’d find fault with any man I was in the same room with.”
She was surprised to see his eyes fill with tears.
“Don’t you care about Dad? It’s hardly more than a year…”
“How dare you!” What did he know about her grief, the erosion of her life because of Stewart’s death?
“I can’t believe you’re already going out with men.”
I wish, she almost said. If she was going out she would have had to do it clandestinely so Charlie wouldn’t find out. He was such a child. “Charlie,” she said, trying to maintain some control, “first you complain endlessly that I never tell you anything and now I tell you something and get kicked in the teeth for it.”
“You don’t understand.” He threw himself down on his bed.
She hovered in the doorway. “Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you called. So, did you have to pay a fine, or what? Were you trespassing?”
“Obstructing pedestrian traffic, supposedly,” he said grudgingly. “It’s just a misdemeanor. The lawyer, Skip Fowler, posted bail and got us out after a few hours. We were released on our own recognizance.”
It sounded like Gilbert and Sullivan but she wasn’t about to make a joke.
“There’s a court date scheduled in a couple of weeks. We’ll probably get off with a fine—but who knows. Maybe there’ll be a trial and we’ll be sentenced to jail.”
“I doubt it,” she said dryly. He loved pushing her to the limit but she wasn’t going to react. This was his revenge for her night out.
“Some of my friends forgot to take ID’s. They had a rough time.” He sat up excitedly. “You know who was there? Spock!”
“From Star Trek?”
“No, dummy, Doctor Spock. He came by to wish us luck. Isn’t that great?”
Of course it was great. How fitting that the great man should have appeared, in a sense following up how his charges had developed. The guru of child-rearing who always ended his chapters by reassuring you that your judgment was the one that counted in the end.
“You wouldn’t be where you are today, sweetie, if not for him.” Amalie wasn’t quite sure what she meant but it sounded right and Charlie beamed. Whoever was responsible, Charlie had turned out to be goodness incarnate, a boy who gave away a year’s allowance to a needy friend; who slept on the floor for a week so a girlfriend in distress could have the bed. A youth who believed in the harmony of the universe and the healing power of good thoughts.
“A couple of people screwed up,” Charlie said, obviously eager to tell her everything. “The chanting was messed up and some people forgot to wear headbands.” The whole idea was for everyone to look like everyone else to make identification of individuals difficult.
Charlie was distressed because his aesthetic sense had been violated. He wants a perfect demonstration, Amalie thought, a work of art. Oh Charlie, you will never be satisfied. I bleed for your unflinching standards of perfection. “At least you’re all right and that’s the most important thing.”
“It’s not the most important thing. Dad would have seen the point. He knew what counted.”
“Yes,” Amalie agreed, playing second fiddle once again. But, she swore, this would be the last time.
Chapter 5
Late Sunday morning light seeps through the windows, bypassing the white X’s on the panes of the vacant apartments. Amalie is sleeping, exhausted from the night before. It was daylight when she got to bed. While she sleeps the elevator in her building suddenly halts between floors. There’s new movement in the trash piles downstairs in the building.
The phone rings. “You get it, darling,” Amalie murmurs, not yet fully awake. But then as it continues to ring she sits up and realizes that she’s alone in the bed. A hoarse voice on the other end says, “Don’t hang up. I just want to listen to you talk.” She slams down the receiver. It sounds like Ralph Dobrin. Maybe he’s pissed at her for not helping him out at the police station last night. Or it could be that being in this neighborhood has made him a little crazy. Amalie has heard Ralph tell his customers that voodoo is rampant on the West Side. Hadn’t they found chickens with their necks wrung at the 96th Street transverse in Central Park? Of course Ralph has a vested interest in poultry.
She turns on a faucet and brown water spews out, then stops altogether. “Time runneth out,” she says aloud. “Am I fighting a losing battle, trying to save this building?”
She smiles. Prior to Stewart’s death she never talked to herself except in her head.
Trying the water again—a thin grudging trickle—she reflects somberly that the landlord and the developer seem to have reached an agreement, despite the landlord’s blatant violations of the law. It will be harder than ever to convince her neighbors to participate in a citywide rally if they believe their own building is doomed. It’s for principle, for solidarity with tenants everywhere, she said in the reminder she slipped under their doors. All her work will have been for nothing if they don’t at least take a stand in public.
If the building goes, everyone will have to move. Rents in the area are skyrocketing. She and Charlie will have to leave the neighborhood. Another upheaval for Amalie, another new beginning on top of adjusting to widowhood and a new n
ine-to-five job.
Her neighbor Mrs. Konarski, and her Pekinese, will have to go elsewhere to drop names. Elisha will no longer have the pleasure of noting suspicious return addresses like OXFAM and Grey Panthers. And Alex Dobrin, that sweet man, what will happen to him?
Amalie puts on an old robe of Stewart’s which, despite many washings, retains something of Stewart. Or maybe it’s her own skin that retains his imprint. She goes into Charlie’s room. She needs to check his breathing as she used to when he was an infant. His black shades are pulled down as far as they can go but she can discern Charlie in his clothes, snuggled into a sleeping bag on the floor, even though the normal complement of sheets and blankets is on his bed. There’s something odd about the room: small movements as though the paint is flaking rapidly. As far as she can tell in the dim light, the activity seems to be concentrated on Charlie’s windowsill and dresser where the coffee cans with the cocoons are lined up. Cocoons, of course, contain something. But perhaps no longer.
Amalie slides a flashlight out of Charlie’s backpack and shines the light on a twig. She jumps back. Jesus, they’ve hatched! There are hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny creatures crawling around, some still emerging from the cocoons. They are about half an inch long, but with proper feeding…Amalie resists the impulse to smack the creatures with a rolled up Village Voice or spray them with bug killer. Her son is mad. These things are crawling all over his dresser, finding no food, except for thought, in his leaflets.
“Charlie.” She shakes him. “Wake up.”
He sits up, eyes closed.
“They hatched. Do something.”
“Que ora es?”
“Those things—they’re alive.”
Eyes wide open. “The praying mantises hatched? Far fucking out.”
“Do something.”
“I have to feed them.” Charlie jumps out of bed. “Look at them—look at this guy. Oh God, they’re beautiful. They grow real fast. Is there chopped meat in the house?”
Through gritted teeth, Amalie says, “May I remind you that this happens to be a vegetarian household, thanks to you. Now, I do not—repeat, do not wish to see a single one of those insects anywhere in this house.”
Amalie in Orbit Page 6
