Marathon Man

by Goldman, William

  Doc I just got mugged, I got the shit kicked out of me, I’m not upset about that—no, bullshit, I’m plenty upset about that, but it was my own fault, it was Central Park, it was after sundown, only an idiot moron jerk would have been there in the first place.

  But see, I wasn’t alone. Elsa and I were sitting on a rock after I’d rowed her around awhile ’cause she’d never done it and she’d always wanted to and what the hell, it was a beautiful day, I said terrific and we did it and it was so great we stayed too long on this rock by the lake and then this Limper appears and I’m sitting there and this sonofabitch clubs her and starts dragging her for the bushes and I think I’ll fix that bastard, nobody touches my baby—

  —and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t do anything!— this big guy with shoulders out to here and I swear I’m not making this up, the guy was a pro, he started kicking the shit out of me and I never got hit like that, he knew just where to put his knees, just where to cream me, and I know Elsa’s getting the shit beaten out of her and maybe worse and all I want is just one time in this world to be a hero and this guy’s going for my wallet and pounding the crap out of me and I’m not even feeling it, it’s not the goddamn pain or the goddamn blood so much—

  —it’s the helplessness—

  —the fucking helplessness—

  —Doc I wanted to kill him.

  I swear, if I had had a knife I would have stabbed him and if I had had a bomb I would have blown him apart, and then I would have gone after the Limper and I would have tried to get him with my hands— Me, I’m a liberal, an historian, I never once wanted to hurt anybody, I never even wanted Richard Nixon to suffer, and right now I want to kill and it scares me.

  I just took five minutes off to go put some cool water on my face, I’m all the hell puffed up and cut and it stung and all I thought was revenge, I want revenge on those guys for making me feel that helpless, nobody should ever be made to feel that way, not in front of a girl who loves him, and I know in her mind she was thinking why doesn’t he do something, he’s right there, why doesn’t he help me and shit, I want to take every goddamn Charles Atlas course ever invented and get so strong and then I want those two guys’ throats in my hands.

  Doc, there’s this bunch of juvenile delinquents who seem to live on a stoop a few brownstones down (I don’t mean funny juvenile delinquents, these aren’t cutesy-pies out of West Side Story, these guys would suck your eyeball for a grape), and when I came home tonight, well, usually they mock me and who cares, they think I’m a creep, so what, and tonight when I walked by I figured with the blood and all, at least I’d get some respect and you know what? One of them said, “Who did it, a midget or a girl?” and they all laughed—because, see, they can take care of themselves, they would have pounded my enemies to shreds and I really think my I.Q. is higher than all of theirs put together and what good does it do me?

  I’m going to send this, I guess, because I guess I want to ask you, what would Father have said? See, I think he’d have told me that any experience is profitable if you allow it to be, all actions are profitable, no matter how badly you may suffer from them. The true historian never has enough grist. He spends his life in constant searching.

  Where’s the profit in impotence, Doc, huh?

  You tell me.

  Babe

  12

  Levy mailed the letter Sunday evening. He was not so swollen, and the cuts in his face were scabbing quickly, but he still felt freakish, so he pulled his peak-billed cap far down across his face and sprinted to the mailbox on the corner at Columbus, then went back to his room to hide.

  Monday he was supposed to have the Biesenthal seminar, but he could not go; he looked, as he stared at himself in the morning, unshaven, unappetizing. He had never been one for physical force, and seeing himself cut up and puffed he found strangely unnerving; he had never realized that he had all that much vanity, but evidently he did.

  He called Elsa a few times, and she called him a few times, and she wanted to come down—she was, she explained over and over, practically in the medical profession, how much’ harm could she do?—but he needed not to be seen, to be alone. He played the mugging over in his mind, winning some, losing some, and he tried to read, but more than anything, what he did Monday was study his face in the mirror and hope that it would reform itself into something he found more recognizable.

  It did; actually, by Monday night it wasn’t the kind of thing that would cause heads to turn any more. The cuts remained where the big-shouldered man had pounded them, but, with the constant application of cold compresses, the swelling disappeared quicker even than he’d hoped. His back ached from where the mugger had kneed him, but that he could cope with.

  Elsa’s hysteria proved more troublesome: “—Did you tell them—I didn’t tell them—”

  “Who?—easy...” It was Tuesday morning, and she had been pounding on the door until she finally woke him. He knew from her tone, even before he let her in, that she was way into panic.

  “—They said they’d come after us—they said they had our names and where we lived, so why did you go when you said you wouldn’t—”

  “Elsa, what the hell is this—I didn’t do a damn thing, I swear—”

  “The limper...” she began.

  “What about him? Tell me.”

  Her voice was soft now. “When I left my building... today when I left... this morning now... he was there... following...”

  “Are you sure? Did you see his face close up?”

  Now she was getting louder again. “You promised you wouldn’t tell the police, but you did, you must have, because now the limper comes—”

  He tried holding her for a moment, but that didn’t work. “I swear I never went. It must have been a mistake or something—did you really see this guy?”

  “I saw... a man outside... he was there... I started to walk away... he came after... limping... I turned a corner, he turned it after me... that was enough, I ran.”

  “Well, there’s only maybe nine million guys who limp in New York, Elsa,” Babe began. “I mean, it’s world-famous for being gimp heaven—the National Limpers’ Association would never think of holding its convention any place besides the Coliseum, I thought everyone knew that,” and he kept on, giving her a few lines to keep it lively, putting some water on to boil so they could have a little instant, and pretty soon she began to relax. He had a way with her, it was what made them so terrific. By midmorning she admitted it might have been imagination.

  By noon she admitted she was fine.

  They took in a Bergman double bill, Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, Babe being a Bergman nut, Elsa totally unfamiliar. Then he bought her a cheapo meal at the local Szechuan—he was a nut for that too. Then he took her to her place, where they touched a little, and after that he headed on home. He was bushed, so sleep came quickly, and he had no idea what time it was when he realized that it hadn’t been all imagination on Elsa’s part, because, even half awake, he could tell there was someone in the room with him.

  Before he had a chance to get afraid, Babe decided to do what Cagney would have done, so in his best White Heat voice he said, low and even, “I got a gun, I know how to use it; you make a move, I’ll blow your ass to Shanghai.”

  And from the darkness came his favorite voice in all the world: “Don’t kill me, Babe.”

  Babe practically flipped right out of bed. “Aw, hey, Doc, shit, great.”

  “Undeniably articulate,” Doc said. “But then, the lad has always had a way with words.”

  Babe let out an actual whoop then, something he didn’t do ordinarily, and a good thing too, since it was hardly Emily Post behavior. But what the hell, anything was acceptable on those rare occasions when your own and only good big brother came to town...

  PART

  II

  DOC

  13

  “Lemme get the light,” Babe said, and as he flicked it on, Doc went, “Hey?”

  “What?”
>
  Doc pointed to the cuts. “Face.”

  Babe shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it, just your garden-variety mugging, nothing worth making a fuss over. Happened Sunday—what’s today, Tuesday? I wrote you. When you get back you can read all about it.”

  “But you’re okay?”

  Babe nodded. When Doc got to worrying, he could be a real mother hen. “As a matter of fact, do me a favor and when you get back, don’t read all about it, just pitch the letter, yes?”

  Doc twirled his key chain, which had, among others, Babe’s apartment key on it. After a few circles he flipped it high into the air, caught it behind his back without looking. He did it all in one motion, a trick he could do from the time Babe could remember, only in the old days he did it with softballs or marbles. Now, at least when they were together, Doc did it only in times of decision. Babe realized that, though probably Doc didn’t; it was ingrained by now. “’Twill be burned,” Doc said. Then, loosening his tie: “I’ve been off working, and all that was waiting from you upon my return was this, may I say, obscenely overwritten piece of purple prose that would have made Rossetti blush— it contained, to be precise, a description of Her Ladyship, and I figured I better quick get my ass down here and meet her before she made her ascension into Heaven.”

  “Screw,” Babe said, “I never went on like that and you know it.”

  Doc picked up his Gucci bag and plopped it on Babe’s desk. “You didn’t, huh? You’re just lucky I understand you’re a mental defective and unaccountable for your actions, or I’d spend the rest of my life blackmailing you. I think you called her ‘utopian’ at one point. ‘Indefectible, utopian and sublime.’ Hell, even Annette Funicello was never that great.”

  “Screw,” Babe said again, this time barfing out loud, because just once, in a moment of weakness, he had told Doc he thought from certain angles Annette Funicello was “kinda cute” and Doc never forgot anything, especially when you gave him ammo like that to deal with.

  Doc looked around Babe’s room. It really was crummy. Bare-floored and covered all over with dust. Books piled everywhere, the sofa showing bare springs, the bathroom permanently gray. “You’ve done wonders,” Doc said. He had been down only once before, a week or two after Babe took the place.

  “It’s not everything it’s gonna be,” Babe admitted, “but my decorator’s so goddamn unreliable. I should fire him, but not many top guys will handle a job this big.”

  Doc nodded, opening his bag; he took out three bottles of red wine, and looked at them against a bare light bulb by Babe’s desk. “I just hope the sediment’s not too stirred up,” he said. He looked at Babe. “Corkscrew?”

  Babe pointed toward the kitchen, waiting for the lecture to start on the glories of Burgundy wine.

  “I’ll open the Moulin-a-vent,” Doc said. ‘“It’s a Beaujolais, but I think you’ll be surprised at the power.” He concentrated on opening the bottle.

  “Terrific,” Babe said. He tried a few experimental snores, drooped his eyes shut. “Go on, go on.”

  Doc was having trouble with the cork. “It’s known as the king of Beaujolais—Fleurie’s the queen—”

  “Fascinating, my God,” Babe managed, snoring a little louder now.

  Doc ignored him. “This is a splendid year, seventy-one, and the balance is what I want you to pay attention to.”

  Babe dropped his head limply, began snoring and whistling, snoring and whistling.

  “You are a boor and a turd,” Doc said, but then he was laughing. “I give, I give, no more wine talk.” He paused. “Dammit, I meant to bring glasses down with me.

  Now Babe started to laugh. “You bastard, you know I got glasses.” He headed toward a cabinet.

  “I do not include paper cups,” Doc said.

  Babe grabbed a glass, handed it over. “Here, goddammit.”

  Doc started to pour, stopped. “This thing is filthy.”

  “I never said I had clean glasses, asshole,” Babe said, and then they said, at precisely the same moment, “Not the shoulders, just the head,” and then, again together, they started plotzing out loud, because it was a favorite family story. H.V. had loved it, about an awkward Brooklyn Dodger, Babe Herman, who got angry one day when a sportswriter said, in print, that Herman was going to get beaned on the head by a fly ball, he was so clumsy in the outfield, and Herman, furious, cornered the sportswriter and called him every name in the book, ending up by saying, “And I’ll betcha fifty bucks you’re wrong,” and the reporter said, “Okay, it’s a deal, fifty bucks says you get hit on the head or the shoulders by a fly ball,” and Herman thought that one over awhile before concluding, “Nah—nah—not the shoulders, just the head.”

  Still laughing, Doc went to the sink and turned on the water. “When does it stop being rusty?” he asked after a while.

  “If you’d unpack, it’ll probably be okay by the time you’re finished.”

  “Might as well wash one for you too,” Doc said, and he picked a dirty glass from the sink.

  “Just a touch,” Babe said. “I’m working up to twenty miles now, and booze is tough on the wind.”

  “Burgundy is not ‘booze,’” Doc said, busying himself with the glasses. “I’m sorry I joked about your place,” he said, his back turned. “You’re a scholar, what the hell do you need with a palace? Live the way you want while you can. Forgiven?”

  “I wasn’t even sure I’d been insulted.”

  “Good,” Doc said, working away. “It’s a crazy world, I tell you, who the hell knows what’s gonna happen one minute to the next, I was just reading this morning’s Wall Street Journal and there’s this California firm—you won’t believe this but what the hell, they’re all nuts in California, I guess, that’s how they qualify for citizenship—anyway, this bunch of West Coast guys have patented a thing they call, lemme get this right now, oh yeah, they call it a ‘br—oooo-m’— it’s like a long stick with a bunch of hay tied to one end of it, and the Journal says they think they’ll make a fortune with this thing—they claim with their ‘br—oooo-m’ you can clean things, floors, for example, just by sweeping.”

  “Never catch on,” Babe said.

  Doc whirled from the rusty water. “Jesus, Babe, how can you exist in ah armpit of a place like this?”

  “Glasses’re clean now,” Babe said. “Pour the firewater.”

  Doc poured, giving the bottle a twist to avoid spilling.

  Babe took a sip, Doc too. Babe could never remember even seeing his brother high, much less drunk, and the same held true for him. But then, H.V. had more than brought up the old family average. At least during the last days. Last years, actually. Last bad years.

  “This expensive?”

  “Sort of, why?”

  “No reason. Smells it, kind of. Smooth. Whenever I don’t have a coughing fit, I figure it’s expensive. Oil business must be good.”

  Doc raised his glass to toasting position. “The oil business is always good.” He made a slight religious bow.

  “That wasn’t east,” Babe said.

  “I was bowing toward Detroit, jerk—General Motors is more important to this country than Jesus ever was.”

  “Goddamn polluters and thieves,” Babe said. He really hated it that Doc worked at what he worked at. Drilling equipment, selling it all over, contaminating the goddamn world.

  “If you give me your ecology lecture now, I swear I’ll tell Irmgaard when I meet her how I caught you pulling your pud when you were twelve.”

  Babe laughed. “That was a great day for me, really. Up till then, I thought I was the only one in the whole history of the world to do anything that horrible. I thought you’d have to cast me out or put me in the stocks and have the villagers throw rocks at me. When you told me that everybody did it all the time, I remember thinking, ‘Those bastard grown-ups, why have they kept it secret from me all these years?’”

  Doc smiled, pointed to the bed. “Move your debris.” Babe began to. They had a deal:
Whenever Doc came calling, he got the bed, Babe took the spring-filled sofa.

  While this was going on, Doc said quietly, “Hey? Quit living in a hovel like this, come on down to Washington, I’ll set you up in a decent place, we’ll be near each other, give it a try, huh, I got the bread, you know that’s no problem.”

  Babe shook his head. “No decent grad schools down there.”

  “Nothing to compare with the glories of Columbia, is that it?”

  “Columbia’s not all that great, I’m not saying it is, but it does have a much lower percentage of mouth-breathers than, say, Georgetown.”

  Suddenly Doc was hollering, “Jesus, Babe for Chrissakes, just ’cause Dad did it you don't have to!”

  “I’m sick of that!” Babe hollered right back.

  Doc stopped short, confused. “Sick of it? I never said it before.”

  “Professor Biesenthal at Columbia. He did, kind of.”

  “Wasn’t he one of H.V.’s geniuses?”

  Babe nodded yes. Then he said, “Look, I like my hovel, thanks for the offer, but I’m staying here, and it’s got nothing to do with H.V.”

  “Bull!”

  Babe shrugged, shifted pillows, while Doc continued hanging up the few clothes he’d brought along. “So I’ll take you and Etta for dinner, okay? She does need food, doesn’t she? Or can she sustain her divinity on pure atmosphere?”

  “Wait’ll you see her, you’ll salivate, I guarantee it.” Doc laughed. “Sonny, you’re talking to a guy who was married once and engaged three times before he was twenty-five—it takes a lot to make me lose my spittle.”

  “What is that, bragging? Four arrests and only one conviction?”

  “I haven’t had a sincere conviction since I entered the oil game—there’s an industry-wide regulation against them.” He closed his Gucci bag, shoved it into a corner of Babe’s closet. Casually, he said, “Hey, you don’t still have that thing, do you?”