2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas

by Marie-Helene Bertino

  Alex likes to be close to the percussion when he plays. He takes the chair next to Gus and vaults his brunette guitar onto his knee. He noodles, alert as a puppy, as Max rains more love on the girl in yellow heels. Max explains in his thick baritone what she should listen for as he plays, why each note is important.

  “Got it,” she says, irritated.

  “Let’s go, Max.” Sonny yells through his cupped hands. Then he says to Lorca, “They look like a loaf of bread.”

  Max cannot see Sonny through the stage’s glare when he purrs into the microphone, “Suck it, Vega, we go when we’re ready,” accenting the insult with a low kick. A cymbal hit by Gus. Max croons, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are the Cubanistas and we have come all the way from Cuba to play for you tonight.”

  Cassidy snorts, pouring a pint.

  “We would like to start with a classique de la Cubanista. It is called ‘Candela.’ We do hope you enjoy it.”

  The Main Line kid hisses some important distraction into Aruna’s ear, but she swats him away. Her gaze is trained on Alex, who pats his wet forehead with the back of his wrist.

  Max hits the first chord and bays to the ceiling, silencing the people who enter, shaking off the cold. The other musicians join. At first, they keep pace with each other, laying their rhythms over Gus’s timbales. Max rolls his shoulders in time. He calls out to the tin roof. In the space of one note, he sings three. He warbles up the ascending line. Hearing him sing is observing someone in great pain. He’s not reliable or even predictable. He’ll lead a song off a cliff if it means checking out a sound lurking in the valley. Lorca has heard him drift so far he forgets what song he’s playing, but he can make even venerable horn players turn.

  Max howls, gargles tri-notes, making everyone in the audience feel they are in on something. Windmills, thrusts, beads of sweat on the crab apples of his cheeks. He chugs almost offstage, then stalks back to keen Spanish into the mic. Max could reason with the archangel on Judgment Day, or just a university girl out of her dress. He stays drunk, scared of the part of himself that is able to blow his mind so far out. If he ever got sober, he’d be chatty and nervous, no better than the bums in the square playing chess with the pigeons, telling them he used to be a jazz great, and the pigeons would say, The hell you were, Max. Checkmate. Lorca knows so much of Max is bullshit. But when it comes to playing, he is the genuine article and has spent his life in service. For Alex to keep pace, he will have to adjust to quick-shifting harmonies and note patterns.

  Emo Sonofabitch Gladden solos. How he plays the trumpet: like a son of a bitch. His fingers are thick as garden carrots, but deft. He blows a phrase and it sounds like a girl saying, “come here.”

  It is almost time for Alex’s solo. Lorca strums his son’s chords on his jeans. He wants to play it for him, but he can only watch.

  The song surges into a different tempo. Alex pauses on the edge like a Northeast girl waiting to jump into double-Dutch, searching for the right height, or some incalculable readying of sound. Max calls out that this is his party and he loves to sing. The ropes go over and under and over and under.

  Alex chases after a few notes, but they don’t please him. He hunts for a run he likes more. Gus’s percussion supports him as he noodles. Alex listens for chords in the strings, his eyes at a fixed point over the crowd. He finds it. He lands it again. The people at the front tables stop talking. Holding silver-rimmed liquor bottles to the mouth of a drink, Cassidy stops talking. Even Max, spraying saliva into the microphone, nods. The song collects behind Alex’s lead. He licks at something sparkling at the corner of his mouth. He takes a run, picks at a particular line, threads it, yes he says because he likes it, holds it, noses into it, asks if it has anything more, lets it go.

  Lorca exhales. He guesses where his son will leap and is wrong every time. Can’t catch me, Alex’s tempos seem to say before leaping in wild directions. He’s better than this club already, it’s all over his posture, more like that of a visiting musician stopping off on his way somewhere better. An urge cracks beneath Lorca’s breastplate. He wants to be softer with Alex, encourage this tender talent. This is how it must feel to be a good father. But then the urge is replaced by helplessness; the amount of energy it would take to reverse the father he already has going would be too much. He can’t be expected to do that plus operate a club. If Alex keeps playing, all he’ll have are these balding nights with strangers. He’ll be surrounded by people like him, Max, and Sonny. This is no life. Who does Alex think he is? Lorca is filled by a quick, cheap anger. Alex has made it impossible to father him. Then this feeling too parts and is replaced. Lorca is tired of trying to keep the club together. The keg orders, the rotting basement, the floors that cling to their stains. Lorca wants to sit in a boat with no task more urgent than finding a fish with bait. He slumps next to Sonny at the bar, weary from this rearrangement of disposition, though only a short time has passed, the time it takes Alex to reposition his guitar, bringing the neck within breath’s distance so he has easier access to its strings.

  Max yells, rolls. The song builds to one repeating line that Alex solos over.

  “I’m burning,” Max sings. “I’m burning, I’m burning.”

  Alex’s notes go under and over and under and over.

  “Look everyone,” the Cubanistas sing, “he’s burning.”

  It’s up to Alex to gather the whole mess like a family: Max’s baying, Gus’s percussion, Emo’s snivelly, choppy horn. But he’s having too much fun.

  “I’m burning,” Max yells.

  “He’s burning,” the Cubanistas sing.

  Alex lands the final chord and releases the room. The club goes blank with noise. The crowd can’t get to their feet fast enough. They yell through megaphones they construct from their hands. Max applauds himself, the band, and Alex.

  “Not too shabby,” he says into the microphone, forgetting his accent.

  Alex kneads sweat into the denim of his thigh. He blinks toward where his father is, though he cannot see him through the gluten of bodies.

  Sonny whistles and stomps. “Good job, Dad,” he says to Lorca.

  A young girl looks up. “Are you his dad?”

  “He sure is, darling.” Sonny beams.

  “Does he have …” Her friends close ranks around her. One of them finishes her question. “… a girlfriend?”

  Three pairs of eyes lined in charcoal wait for Lorca to answer. The muscles in his back tense with pride. “Single as a bluebird,” he says.

  Onstage, Alex is being tousled and hugged by the Cubanistas. Max makes a show of fending off the audience. Alex is congratulated to the bar, where the trio of girls bluff errands in their purses, fuzz on their stockings.

  “Drink?” Cassidy says.

  “Whiskey, please.” He turns to his father. His eyes are slick. “How’d I do, Pop?”

  Lorca doesn’t answer.

  “Pop?”

  “You were great, kid.” Sonny pounds his shoulders. But Alex wants to hear it from his father.

  “You showboated behind Emo’s solo,” Lorca says. “You should have been supporting him, letting him take the chances.”

  Sonny winces. “Come on, Lorc.”

  “May we please have the little guitarist back onstage?” Max hums into the microphone. “Leetle guitarist?”

  Alex gets his whiskey and goes back onstage, no longer smiling.

  Three pairs of charcoal eyes scrutinize Lorca. “Damn,” says the first girl. “I wouldn’t want to be your son.”

  12:42 A.M.

  It gets TOAD away!” Sarina exclaims, before he can answer. Ben’s mouth contorts, trying not to laugh.

  12:41 A.M.

  Sarina’s face is serious. “For example,” she says. “What happens when a frog’s car breaks down?”

  Ben taps his foot against the bleacher, thinking.

  “Give up?” she says.

  He throws out his hands in phony exasperation. “Give a man some time to think.”


  12:40 A.M.

  “Can you do better?” Ben says.

  “In my sleep, fella. I’ve got jokes for days.”

  12:39 A.M.

  Ben and Sarina sit on bleachers at the baseball field on Chestnut. A mural of autumn trees stretches over the entire wall of a row home across the street. Their clothes are almost dry. “This public art is getting out of hand,” Sarina says.

  “Did you hear the one about the two leaves?” Ben says. “Sitting on a branch together? One leaf turns to the other and says, ‘It’s really windy.’ And the other leaf says, ‘Help, a talking leaf!’ ”

  Sarina rolls her eyes. “Major groan.”

  12:43 A.M.

  A breeze bickers around the bleachers. Sarina hugs her coat tighter. “What time do you think it is?”

  “It could be eleven or three and I’d believe it.” Ben consults his watch. “Twelve forty-three.”

  She asks if he wants to talk about it. He doesn’t answer. A cab slows in front of them. Its driver calls, “You two want a ride?”

  Ben waves. “We’re fine, thanks.”

  The cabdriver regards them with longing. “Olde City? Northern Liberties? Ten dollars.”

  “Christian Street,” Ben says.

  “Five dollars.”

  Sarina’s feet ache, but a cab ride will end their night sooner than she wants. “It’s late,” she says, hoping he’ll protest. “Maybe I should go home.”

  “Can you do two stops?” Ben asks the cabbie.

  “I can do anything.”

  “Deal.” Ben says. He climbs in and Sarina, disappointed, follows. The cab is lit by strands of jalapeño and twinkle lights.

  “So glad,” the cabbie says. “I was about to fall asleep. You two just married?”

  “Why would you guess that?” Sarina is pleased.

  The cabbie’s face glows red then green. “Friendly talk.”

  “Not married,” Ben says.

  He answered fast, she thinks. It wouldn’t be hell, being married to her. She knows some things about some things.

  “I get it,” the cabbie says. “Won’t commit. Wants to go to the club with her girlfriends. Doesn’t want to be wired to some guy day and night.”

  “You got that right, bud,” Sarina says. “Life is short.”

  “Call me Martin.”

  “Life is short, Martin.”

  Ben shakes his head. “Infuriating. Going to the club day and night with her girlfriends.”

  “Snorting blow,” the cabbie offers, watching them in the rearview mirror.

  “Mountains of it,” Sarina says.

  “Guys’ phone numbers falling out of her pockets like rain,” Ben says.

  “Like a hurricane,” the cabbie says. “Like that one we had last year. You guys around for that?”

  “My car flooded,” Ben says.

  They drive in silence. Sarina watches the boarded-up market flash by.

  After a while, Ben speaks. “She won’t let me tell anyone. She’s worried what everyone will think. Who’s everyone, I keep saying.”

  “The Joneses,” Sarina says.

  “Exactly. Everyone is everyone. She said if we divorce, I won’t get any of her money.”

  “Well, you didn’t marry her for money.”

  “I did not.”

  A bus glides toward the jazz clubs on Girard. “Why did you marry her?”

  “I married her,” Ben says, “because I thought she was a nice person. That we would have a nice life.” The cab clatters over a pothole. “Turns out, she’s not that nice.”

  Martin drums on the steering wheel. “You want to see me do the expressway with no hands?”

  “I’m a big fan of driving with hands,” Ben says.

  “You’re no fun. I can see why she won’t marry you.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” Ben says, by way of explanation.

  “Don’t curse at me, buddy.”

  “He’s a writer,” Sarina says.

  “Cockle-doodle-doo,” says Martin. “A writer.”

  “That’s right,” Sarina says. “Cluck cluck. Now, turn on this street, count to three, then stop ’cause we’re there.”

  Martin brakes at the archway leading to Sarina’s horseshoe-shaped building. The whiskey has made her optimistic. She smells baking cookies. It is Christmas Eve Eve and she doesn’t have to work tomorrow. No matter what happens she has already had a good night. She points to her courtyard, where a waterless fountain loiters, producing nothing. “Do you see what I see?”

  “Oho,” Ben says.

  “Race you?”

  “Lady, you have no idea what you’re in—”

  She takes off. He chases her into the courtyard. She is winning then he is winning then she is winning. He grabs for the strap of her bag. She lunges for his scarf. It is an urgent, silly display. He leaps the wall and is inside the fountain. One of her heels has come off in the race. She hops on one foot while throwing the other heel off.

  “The winner!” he cries.

  Sarina feigns dramatic, faltering loss. Ben feigns accepting bouquets from an audience. She feigns cutting her own throat in agony. He feigns running to her: resuscitation. She feigns death. He feigns imploring heaven for answers. Receiving none, he stabs himself in the chest. Then they are both dead.

  “Good luck,” Martin, tired of waiting, calls out as he drives away.

  Sarina and Ben watch him leave from the fountain. “Martin!” Ben says. “You traitor.”

  “I think saying good luck to someone is the meanest thing,” Sarina says. “I’ll call you a cab. You suck at dying.”

  From one of the apartments above them, a Frank Sinatra song. They help each other up. Their breath in the fountain.

  “Where is that coming from?” Ben’s eyes are bright. “Should we dance?”

  Sarina puts her hands at twelve and three, like Madame Jennings instructs her children to do at Saint Anthony’s. “Donce?” she says, performing a deep plié.

  “Dance.” Ben encircles her with one arm.

  Sarina rests her chin on his shoulder. All of this is between his hand and her bare skin: her thick coat, blouse, camisole, black lace bra, citrus lotion.

  The song keeps going. The courtyard smells like bike grease and Ben’s skin. He holds her hand in his gloved hand. There is no wind. Ta tum, ta tum, Ben sings into her ear. Ta tum.

  Several streets away, Martin slows at a stop sign. Over an abandoned lot, the PSFS building looms. An elevator climbs its spine. The lot is filled with old bar signs and truck parts. Martin lets out a low whistle. “Get a load of that pretty city.”

  The song comes to an end and a faster one begins.

  Ben releases Sarina and performs a wild one-two-three he hopes will make her laugh. But the neighbors rethink music; it ceases with an unceremonious click. A television turns on.

  “I guess that’s it,” he says.

  On her porch, Sarina roots in her bag for her keys. The dirty light from her neighbor’s porch makes everyone on hers seem shoddy.

  Ben’s mind is peaceful and blank. The whiskey has made his jaw feel achy and sparkly, as if he has blown up a balloon.

  If she asks him to come in, he will say no. To ask to come in would not only acknowledge but cross the line they have been skirting all night. Since he cannot ask to come in or accept any invitation to do so, he wants the whole thing to be over. He yearns to leave so he can think about her. He will buy himself a pear at one of the twenty-four-hour places so he has something to toss to himself as he walks. He will reference the hand that held her like an important emissary. In his mind, he is already crossing the courtyard. He is buying the pear. He is saying to the vendor, “Love pears. Red Anjou, green Anjou, An Jou-st don’t care.”

  Find your keys, Sarina.

  He can no longer stand on this porch in agony. He can no longer sit in that car, on the night of that dance when he did everything wrong. He heard a few days later that her father had left her family, so on prom night she had been newly abandoned.
How many girls did he take out in college and law school to atone? How many relationships did he solidify, even when his investment was weak to wavering?

  “Do you want to come in? I make a killer martini.” She cringes. She is not the kind of girl who calls martinis killer.

  “I can’t.” He sounds early for his cue. “Busy day tomorrow.”

  “I found them!” She jangles her keys.

  “At last.”

  “There is something I want to say.” It’s a lie. She only wants to keep him here, on her porch, for another moment.

  “Anything.” He worries she will say something that will drag the night’s meaning into full view. He worries even more that she won’t. Her neighbor’s television is loud enough to hear that it is a rebroadcast of the game, but not loud enough to hear the score.

  “I forget what I wanted to say.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “You might be here a while,” she says. “My memory is worse than a goldfish’s.”

  He pauses in the yellow light. “No hurry.”

  There is rustling next to them, the sound of a window being thrown open. A girl wearing a Santa hat and a clothespin on her nose climbs out. “Miss Greene?” she says, as if standing in front of a deep forest, calling out for anyone she knows.

  Sarina’s jaw slackens with surprise. “Madeleine?”

  1:00 A.M.

  After their wedding, Ben and Annie buy a town house in Olde City and protect it with a top-of-the-line security system. Every night, Annie smooths moisturizer into her elbows and lists the following day’s To Do items. Depositions, recycling, the post office. Ben watches her as if from the other side of a bay. Who is this tall, freckled woman and why has he done something as important as marriage to her? He makes excuses to linger in his home office, tapping at his manuscript. She seems relieved. The sexless weeks pile up.

  He tries coming at her from behind, in the shower, like a predatory fish. This dissolves into polite intercourse. He moves into her as if he doesn’t wish to disturb her. Any interruption, a loud commercial or a passing siren, derails their tenuous physicality and they fall asleep, separate and worried.