A Long Island Story

by Rick Gekoski

  She had an impulse to cross town and treat herself to a dozen oysters and a Bloody Mary at the Oyster Bar. A sentimental journey. When she was a senior at Hunter and going out with Ira, they would sometimes sneak downtown on the 6 train, to initiate a naughty afternoon, sitting at the bar, legs pressed together, with a dozen oysters (both of them from kosher homes!), a couple of Bloody Marys, looking forward to a drunken romp in his bedroom a few blocks east. On the way out of the station they’d stop in the whispering gallery under the four giant columns, stand at opposite corners and send each other suggestive messages, rather hoping to be overheard, proud to be lovers on their way to making love.

  She’d had a certain amount of experience by the time she was twenty, but she was Ira’s first, and he was initially overcome by shyness, but delight and enthusiasm followed soon and naturally enough. He was skinny, his body virtually hairless, his ribs and shoulders showed their bony definition, so slight that he shook and trembled when he made love. She found it curious, an exciting tribute. It took her a time to get him to abandon the sexual euphemism ‘cutting the mustard’, which was hardly flattering to a girl, though to Ira a metaphor that also suggested hotdogs and pastrami sandwiches was an expression of the strength of his appetites, and desire. He’d have adored the phrase ‘hide the salami’, had it been available.

  Ira knew how to have fun, take a break, make a girl feel special. Addie still wore, sometimes, a gold-plated bracelet engraved on the inside ‘Adele from Ira’. He’d hinted that it would be replaced, when the time was right – soon! – with something smaller and rounder, more important and enduring. When she wore the bracelet, even all these years later, she fancied she could feel the engraved letters caressing the skin on the inside of her wrist. Erotic, almost. She would twirl the bracelet round and round, up and down, sensuously.

  Ira was a macher in the city administration now. Lived somewhere on the West Side, his number was in the phone book. Give him a call and say meet me at the Oyster Bar? At the bar, on the stools on the left, where we sat and loved each other when we were just kids? She laughed at the very thought, not an amused laugh. How the time passed. He’d be married, likely enough, with some kids, he’d wanted four, two boys and two girls, as if you could buy them at Macy’s. She had occasional strands of grey in her hair now, plenty of grey in her life. Was about to become a Long Island wife. When she’d seen off the unknown competitor, that was going to be her prize. A booby prize: she was the booby.

  She hummed mournful songs to herself on the morning train as it laboured through Cold Spring Harbor, Syosset, Mineola, the drear wastes of Long Island, ugly, burgeoning and indistinguishable, hunched in a window seat, lighting one cigarette after another, crushing them out after a few draws. The kids had been clingy when she’d left, the little one with tears in her eyes, as if Addie had been going to Siberia and would never be seen again.

  ‘Do you have to go, Addie?’

  She’d tried to reassure her.

  ‘I’ll be back in a couple of days. Don’t you worry.’

  What a mess.

  No stopover for nostalgia and oysters, and she wept all the way into Penn Station.

  The train jolted to a stop in the tunnel of the Long Island Railway, Track 19, waking her for a bewildered moment, during which she stared into the ill-lit platform filled with hurrying people and had no idea where she was, or who. Sat for a moment, closed her eyes to catch her breath and regain her place in the order of things, looked up the aisle of the train, which was emptying quickly. Ah, yes: Addie. On the way to Washington DC, soon to catch the train upstairs at Penn Station.

  She reached up into the luggage rack above the seat, grabbed the handle of her heavy purse, hoiked it down, hurting her shoulder when it took the weight – she didn’t even know she had a sore shoulder, presumably it was an emerging metaphor – and stumbled her way down the aisle, hopped across the divide between the train and the platform, aware of nothing more than an urgent need for coffee. And maybe a muffin? Or a Danish? At last, something to look forward to.

  She had over an hour before the next DC train, so sat comfortably on the station concourse, sipping her coffee, reading the New York Times. Senator Blackbeard was still at it, purging America’s enemies, spurring HUAC into further persecutions of Communists and their sympathisers. Making people frightened. She was going to DC. He was there at the moment. She should have brought a gun, done something to be remembered by, and honoured. Or sharpened another knife?

  She’d sworn to give up reading the papers, listening to the radio, watching the news. All news was bad news, disgusting, degrading, obscene. And she was addicted to it, as people are often drawn by horrors that both repel and fascinate: to fires, car crashes, public executions, places of mass murder.

  The country was being taken over by Fascists who’d invented an imaginary enemy to terrify a gullible public into submission. Communists? What Communists? A few idealistic kids and beardy know-it-alls yearning for what cannot be achieved, and never had been. The only threat to the American way was from those defending it! Americans crave something to fear and a leader to protect them from it.

  The next thing you knew one of them would be in the White House, as good old H.L. Mencken had predicted thirty years ago: a moron.

  Are you now or have you ever been . . .

  ‘Yes, sir, I have, and I am proud of it. Go on, send me to jail. Or worse than that, exile me to Long Island for life . . .’

  Before boarding the train she tossed the paper into a wastepaper bin. It meant she would have nothing to read for the next three and a half hours, but reading on trains made her feel nauseous, and the sway and noise affected her like a lullaby. She had slept badly since Ben left and had a long fraught night ahead of her. By the time the train had made its way out of the city, she was fast asleep.

  You didn’t have to be goddamn Sherlock Holmes to find the evidence. No need of a magnifying glass, tweezers, collection bags, sniffer dogs, traces of dirt or obscure footprints. Any amateur could have read this evidence and drawn the inevitable conclusion. Bed unmade, with pillows on both sides bearing the impressions of heads, one of them with long dark hair, the other with Ben’s curly grey. A distinct smell of perfume on her (!) side. Chanel? Who could tell?

  In the air a cigarette mustiness that was unfamiliar, powerful and peculiarly disgusting. In the wastepaper basket were a large number of butts, some of which were from Ben’s Camels, the others – as an empty packet proclaimed – were a brand called Fatima, with a veiled Oriental femme fatale on the cover, which proclaimed Turkish cigarettes. Turkish delights. The real thing, presumably, or closer to the real thing than Ben’s Camels. So, his lover was a pseudo-sophisticate, a show-off, leaving her traces of lurid red lipstick on her butts. Addie shrugged. And on his, likely enough.

  No clothes on the floor, no make-up in the bathroom, no further traces, but what more did she need? Photos? She pulled off the bedspread, examined the sheets with the forensic intensity of a pathologist. There were bits of mucky stuff left through overuse and inattention, though whose effluvia was unknowable without recourse to a laboratory. Perhaps she could send his corpse there as well.

  Who’s been sleeping in my bed?

  And in the kitchen: an empty bottle of red wine – she looked at it, Italian, who knew from Italian wine? – and two glasses with black dregs, no sign of food consumption, presumably they went out to eat, came home to drink some more and to make love. Make love? To fuck! It was what she had feared, and expected, but it was a God almighty shock nonetheless, taking her from conjecture to certainty. She stood still by the front door, stood and waited as if something were about to happen, and it didn’t. Stood some more, still, as if waiting.

  Waiting? That was what she had to do now. He would be home in an hour or so, she would wait. By the front door, so that the first thing he would see on entering the apartment was her, sitting there. She moved an armchair from the living room into the hallway, pulled the side table next to
it, placed it just so, set down her cigarettes, ashtray and lighter, and went to the kitchen to fix herself a drink, Rye, bit of ginger ale, on the rocks. Why not bring the whole bottle, no need to get up and return to the kitchen? She didn’t want him to come in and not see her, encounter her, hear her. It would scare the shit out of him; there was that to look forward to.

  She sat, no need of anything to read, or to listen to, or even to think about. Stared at the door with an intensity that might have incinerated it, if it had any decency. Concentrated, distilled into a purity of rage that was new to her and by no means disagreeable. Nothing overblown, or childishly reprehensible. No throwing a tantrum. No, it was righteous, it felt right, a feeling for which she had been waiting for a lifetime: the moment at which her sense of not having been given enough, of being abused, taken for granted, stepped on and over was at last true, not the neurotic petulance of a spoiled child who can never be given enough, or in the right way. Hah! This was not anger, it was fury, this was the real thing. If it didn’t feel so overwhelmingly dreadful, it would have felt terrific.

  The drink took the edge off, a second helped even more, one cigarette followed another. She felt a drowsy luxuriousness, sank into the soft upholstery, plumped her cushion, closed her eyes, opened them again to look at her watch. It was past seven, he was late. Important not to fall asleep, what sort of surprise would that be when he walked in, to find her collapsed in a drunken heap on a chair in the hallway? No moral high ground there. Brisk middle-aged lawyer finds dribbling drunken sot wife . . .

  She refilled her glass, drank deeply, wishing it were a cocktail with orange slices and maraschino cherries, and was soon asleep once again. After some time – how could she know how long? – she woke abruptly, hearing voices in the hall, and the turning of a key in a lock. Two of them! She hadn’t counted on that, planned for it, or composed the right speeches in her head. What a disaster, what a humiliation . . . But thank God it was only the neighbours across the hall. She looked at her watch. It was past nine. What if he didn’t come home at all? Two hours later she abandoned her perch, and the half empty bottle of rye, moved the chair and table back into the living room, emptied the ashtray and went to sleep on the couch. She was never going to sleep in that bed again, the marital bed, never, the Salvation Army could have it. A besmirched bed, an adulterous bed, a bed of shame, her shame. And with such righteous thoughts she went back to sleep and did not wake till dawn. There was no sign of Ben.

  Perhaps it was better this way? Unambiguous, leaving him no place to hide, no defence against the plunging of the knife. It was a thought that had sustained her, but the metaphor was getting out of control, she could now imagine said knife in her pocket book and plunging it into said adulterous husband’s heart! She consoled herself with the thought that if the knife was not real the outrage certainly was, and by the time he’d felt the full force of it, he might be begging for a quick execution. Which would be too good for him, the rat. Better he should suffer and suffer some more, and come back to Long Island with what used to be his tail between what used to pass for his legs, begging for forgiveness, unforgiven.

  She both loathed him and wanted him back, and how he might negotiate between these poles of rejection and acceptance (on her terms) was unclear. Who gave a damn? She didn’t know either, how to balance her need to banish him from her sight and her heart, and her competing understanding that she needed him, still, as a father to her – and his – children. And goddamn it, as a husband to her. Nobody ever claimed husbands could be counted on, like dogs they strayed, even Ben the little dog, but she could whistle and he would return, longing for home and hearth.

  Ugh. She was thinking like the dopey heroine of a dime-store novel, increasingly aware that the received ideas and categories available to her simply did not work. Romance, the end of romance. Love, the tribulations of love. Marriage, the challenges of marriage. Let’s Not Pretend. I’m a Dope. What utter rot.

  No, all that didn’t matter. She didn’t have the right words, and her rage was not going to produce them. What she had to do, simply, was to face him, and to make something happen. Quickly. On her terms.

  She arrived at his office building just after nine-thirty, and if he was going to come in to work – he’d said he had no appointments outside the office – then he would already be there. He was always on time, usually early. She took the elevator to the fifth floor and walked down the empty corridor; it was always empty, as if they only unlocked the doors to the cages at set times. For lunch, perhaps, or to go home. How did they get out to go to the bathroom?

  Room 520 was indistinguishable from all the others, none had bells or buzzers, nor even nameplates, you just had to knock. She didn’t. Just opened the door, stepped inside, closed it behind her. He was sitting at the desk going through some papers and didn’t look up immediately, as if used to the entry of someone who didn’t need immediate acknowledgement. When he did look up, a few seconds later, an initial smile transformed into a rictus of astonishment and anxiety.

  ‘Addie! What’s wrong? What are you doing here?’

  She didn’t respond, just looked at him steadily and almost neutrally, as if unwilling to give something away, or perhaps in shock.

  ‘Oh my God! What’s happened?’

  She could see the thought, his worst fear, cross his mind and register in his eyes and mouth: Becca was dead. The worst, the crippling, disabling catastrophe. And Addie had come to tell him in person; it would have been wrong to call on the phone.

  She just stood there, locked eye to eye with him, unwilling to offer any reason for her presence. Just looked, and saw him gradually move through a process of thought: even if a disaster had occurred, how did she get to his office so early? She must have arrived last night.

  Last night! Arrived at the apartment to tell him the terrible news – perhaps Mo had a heart attack? Or the boy had drowned? And Addie had waited in the apartment and he hadn’t come home.

  The apartment! With its dishevelled bedclothes potent testimony to another’s presence, she would have seen that, smelled and interrogated it. For a moment he almost wished that there had been some sort of mishap on the Island, something bad but not catastrophic, not as catastrophic as this. Mo dying, or Perle.

  He lowered his head in thought. Did he have two disasters to cope with or only one?

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he begged. ‘Talk to me! What’s happened? Why are you here?’ He pushed back his chair, ready to stand up.

  It was better that he stay seated. If he stood he would soon tower over her, or make for the door. Better to trap him behind the desk.

  Addie put her hand up, as if to restrain him, never losing his eye.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’ Her tone surprised her, the line delivered as neutrally as a pizza. It rather surprised her, and made her feel as if she were indisputably on the high ground.

  ‘How long has what . . .’ He trailed off. She wasn’t going to do his thinking for him, fill in the blanks, lay it out. She was too collected, too calm.

  ‘Do you want to sit down?’ There was a simple wooden chair on the other side of his desk. Sit down! What was she, some sort of associate, a student, someone anxious for counsel? She stayed where she was, refusing to drop her gaze, increasingly aware that it was too melodramatic, all this staring-down-I-won’t-blink-first stuff, but unsure when to release him.

  He lowered his eyes.

  ‘Hold on, please,’ he said, ‘give me a minute to think, this is such a terrible surprise. I don’t think . . .’

  ‘You sure don’t,’ she said. ‘Not one little bit.’

  He was looking down at his desk, and his head seemed to bob in acknowledgement and contrition.

  Not so fast, buddy boy, she thought. This is going to go on for some time. Why the hell should I make it easy for you?

  He looked at her with his best tried-and-true beseeching look.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You’ll think of some
thing,’ Addie said, ‘we’ve got all day.’

  If she hadn’t been standing by the door, it would have opened easily and naturally. As it was, Rhoda had to give it a push, causing Addie to falter forward, while Rhoda, the pressure so suddenly released, stumbled into the room, almost knocking Addie over, like the slapstick choreography of a metaphor. The two women gathered themselves and looked at each other. It only took Addie a moment: the jet black hair, the smell, the familiarity of the entrance. The Turkish delight! It had to be, and one look at her face proved it. The dark-haired woman did not look frightened, chagrined even, merely surprised, and after that, quickly, quite composed.

  ‘I’ve been hoping this might happen,’ she said. ‘I presume you are Addie?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Addie. ‘And now it’s time for you to get the hell out of here!’

  ‘No,’ said Rhoda. ‘That’s not going to happen. It won’t solve anything. Now we are all here, we need to talk.’

  ‘Like hell we do,’ said Addie, taking Rhoda by the shoulders firmly and pushing her towards the door.

  ‘No need to get rough,’ said Rhoda in an infuriatingly calm voice. ‘I can wait, if you insist. But when you two leave, I will leave with you, and whether you like it or not – either of you – we’re going to have this out!’

  She closed the door behind her with surprising gentleness, an example, presumably, of how calm she was, how patient, how considerate.

  It was ludicrous, farcical. The Turkish delight lurking in the hall, the two of them confronting each other without anything to say, with too much to say. Same thing, was it? It would take a while, best to let it run and run, let little Miss Delight wet her pants lurking in the hallway.

  ‘Do you love her?’

  Ben seemed surprised both by the bluntness of the question and its appropriateness. Very Addie, surgical: locate the core and go for it. Nothing like a lawyer would do, they might – he would! – circle round, prepare, lay the foundations, get the facts right, put the points in order of priority, begin marshalling an argument. And what did he get? Like a thrust of a knife: Do you love her? Did he?