Dry Bones

by Peter Quinn

  The kettle began to whistle. “Stay where you are,” Dunne said. “I’ll get the tea.”

  “That’s kind of you, Mr. Dunne. The tea bags are in the canister next to the sink. The cups and saucers are in the cabinet above. The sugar is here on the table. There’s milk in the icebox. I prefer my tea plain.”

  “I do, too.” He dropped the tea bags in the cups, poured in the hot water. He opened the cabinet drawer between the refrigerator and stove and put spoons on the saucers. He used a tray he found in the dish rack to carry the cups to the table.

  Mrs. Pohl was hunched over the album. She turned a page. Speaking in a voice so soft it was barely audible, she reminded Dunne of an old priest reading from the altar missal as he said Mass, a ritual that required no audience.

  Dunne pulled up a chair and sat next to her. They sipped their tea. He retrieved two more albums from the hutch. She continued her narrative, pictures and words, the liturgy of Louis Pohl.

  Next-to-last picture: unsmiling Louis standing in front of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, his ancient mother leaning on his arm, her hat trimmed with fur instead of flowers. Last picture: high school student in cap and gown. “This is my nephew, the only son of my husband’s brother. His name is Louis Pohl. He’s in college at Brown. It brings me some comfort to know that my Louis’s name is being carried on.”

  She closed the album. “My son was lonely, Mr. Dunne. I hoped he’d find the right girl, but he never did.”

  “He had friends, Mrs. Pohl. We all admired him.”

  “I’m afraid he was more comfortable with books than people. He could read when he was only three. Books were his lifelong companions.”

  “We all respected his learning.”

  “‘Better to have love than learning.’ That’s a saying among us Copts.” She removed her glasses. “But learning was what he had. The last thing he left me was a book. A book he loved. It was the day … the day … before he …” She shook her head.

  “What book?”

  “Do you like books, Mr. Dunne?”

  “Some.”

  Resting her palms on the table, she pushed herself up. She took her cane, went into the bedroom, and returned with a book under her left arm. She hooked the cane over the chair and handed the book to Dunne. “I want you to have this.”

  “Are you sure?” It was an old book, leather-bound. The gold-lettered title engraved on the cover was in a Gothic script he couldn’t decipher.

  “It’s an early edition of Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. It was a favorite of Louis’s. Do you read German, Mr. Dunne?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “No matter. The Sorrows of Young Werther is the title in English. The important thing is that you have one of Louis’s prized possessions. I’m sure he’d be pleased.”

  As he opened the cover, the stiff, brittle spine creaked softly. Tucked into the frontispiece was what looked like a red ticket stub. He shut the cover.

  “I don’t know why he took his own life. I’ve tried to understand. He was lonely but not unhappy. Can you understand that?”

  “I can.”

  “There’s a line in Goethe’s book that’s brought me some comfort. It’s where he writes that it’s just as silly to call a man a coward who dies by his own hand as it is to call a man a coward who dies from a malignant fever.”

  “Your son was no coward.” He wrote his address and phone number in Florida on the back of his business card. “Let’s stay in touch, Mrs. Pohl. I don’t know if you travel much, but my wife and I would love to have you visit us in Florida.”

  “How tempting. More likely, it will be a phone call. I enjoy talking on the phone.”

  PENN STATION, MANHATTAN

  DUNNE WAITED UNTIL HE WAS ON THE TRAIN BACK TO MANHATTAN to examine the red ticket stub. It turned out to be baggage-claim receipt, number 100936, issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad, Pennsylvania Station, New York City.

  When the train reached Penn Station, the evening’s flood tide of rush-hour commuters was ebbing away, giving the concourse the air of a beach just after a violent squall. He went upstairs to where he remembered the baggage checkroom was located.

  A hot dog joint now occupied the space. A railroad porter came by pushing a dolly stacked with luggage. Dunne went over to him. “Where’s baggage claim?”

  The porter stopped. “Hasn’t been here for a few years.”

  “Last time I was here it was.”

  “Lots of things aren’t where they used to be.”

  “Where’s it now?”

  The porter removed his cap and ran his finger around the sweat-stained inner band. A thin, meticulously tended pencil mustache crossed his cocoa-colored face. “Used to be that everybody traveled everywhere by train, here to New Orleans, points west and south. More and more, it’s the cheap-ticket crowd commuting next door to Jersey and Long Island.” He nodded in the direction of a nearby staircase. “That’s why they got hot dogs up here and baggage below.”

  The baggage room was at the end of a corridor that had a subway smell—sweat, urine, and stale gum. Dunne handed the ticket stub to a clerk in a frayed, soiled beige smock. The clerk held the ticket by both ends. He frowned. “Christ, this is a nine-oh.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s been here over ninety days. Going to cost you an extra, let’s see”—he pulled the pen stuck behind his ear and did some quick calculations on a pad—“four dollars and seventy-five cents, which brings it to six bucks and fifteen cents.”

  “Fine.” Dunne put a five and two singles on the counter. “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks.” The clerk opened a receipt book.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Maybe not for you, but the railroad requires it.”

  “Excuse me, but I’m in a hurry.”

  A stylish, twentyish-looking woman behind Dunne held up a round blue traveling case. “I need to check this.”

  The clerk continued filling out the receipt. He detached it from the book and gave it to Dunne. “Have to wait your turn, Miss.”

  “I’m going to miss my train!”

  “Everybody’s got to wait his turn, no exceptions.” The clerk sauntered down an aisle lined with metal shelves stuffed with suitcases and bags.

  “Oh God, you’re hopeless!” the girl yelled at the empty counter and hurried away.

  The clerk returned in a minute or so—less time than Dunne anticipated—with a brass-latched canvas satchel. “I appreciate your patience. Nobody wants to wait their turn no more. Not like the old days.” He put the pen back behind his ear and lifted the satchel onto the counter. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” Dunne unfastened the latch, took a glimpse inside. There was a thick manila folder. On the cover in block letters was a single name: KARSTEN HEINZ. He tossed in the book Mrs. Pohl had given him and closed the satchel.

  He walked to the staircase, removed a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, and folded it in his hand. At the top of the stairs, he veered right and mounted one of the three empty chairs on the shoe-shine platform.

  “How you this evening, sir?” The shoe-shine attendant wore a smock similar to the baggage clerk’s, but his was clean and belted. “What will it be? Regular or deluxe?”

  Dunne rested the canvas satchel in his lap. He slipped the ten-dollar bill into the attendant’s breast pocket. “Super deluxe.”

  The attendant peeked into the pocket. “Man alive, super-duper deluxe it is!”

  Dunne picked up a copy of the evening paper from the chair beside him, unfolded it, and pretended to read. “How long you been at this stand?”

  “Since Adam met Eve.” The attendant laid a thick layer of brown paste on Dunne’s shoes and rubbed it in so hard it felt like a foot massage. The pomade in the attendant’s black, marcelled hair glistened in the artificial light from above. “You’re a worried man.”

  “Ever meet a man who wasn’t?”

  He looked Dunne in the eyes. “I met plenty was
n’t as worried as you.”

  “Bet you know this room better than Adam knew the Garden of Eden.”

  “What got you worried?” The attendant picked up a brush and pushed it hard across the front and sides of Dunne’s shoes.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Worst trouble of all is the trouble you don’t know you got.” He threw the brush from hand to hand, buffing the shoes all the while. “Cop trouble?”

  “You know about cop trouble?”

  The attendant paused his brushing. “Every colored person in this city knows about cop trouble. Don’t have to look for it. Sooner or later, one way or other, it’ll come your way. Think you got a tail?”

  “What do you think?”

  The attendant threw the brush in the air, swirled in a circle, caught it, and worked on Dunne’s right shoe; he repeated the same routine on the left. “Every Eden got its snake.” He removed a felt cloth from his belt, laid it across the toe caps, pulled down on the ends. “You got two: snake number one by the newsstand, snake number two by the stairs to your left.” He snapped the cloth as he moved it to the sides, working away until the shine seemed to lift off the leather. “They ain’t railroad dicks, I’ll tell you that. Them I could pick out with my eyes closed.”

  Dunne dismounted the stand. He took his wallet out.

  The attendant shook his head. “You’re all paid up.”

  “Not yet.” Dunne stuck a five in the same pocket as before. “What’s your guess?”

  “About what?”

  “My best way out.”

  “Way you came, downstairs, hop the subway.”

  “Thanks for the shine.” Dunne shook the attendant’s hand. “And the advice.”

  “Get home safe.”

  “I’ll have the best shine on the A train.”

  “Be sure to tell everybody where you got it.”

  Retracing his steps, Dunne went past the baggage room, made a left to the Eighth Avenue subway entrance. He bought two tokens at the ticket booth, pushed through the turnstile, and leisurely made his way down one flight of stairs, up another, and emerged on the express platform.

  He sat on a bench midplatform. Without removing the book from the satchel, he opened it and randomly underlined letters with his pen. A downtown express arrived. Passengers exited and entered. He closed the satchel. About a dozen people still waited on the platform. Snake number one was reading a newspaper at the southern end; snake number two loitered with arms folded several yards to the other side of Dunne.

  The approach of the uptown express was heralded by steel-on-steel grind and screech. The train came to a halt. Snake number one entered a rear car. Snake number two lingered one door away. He waited until Dunne got in the car and took a seat before he did the same.

  The doors closed. Dunne held the satchel in his lap. The train idled in the station. Snake number two was on the same side of the car as Dunne but at the north end. The doors opened once more, then closed. The train still didn’t move. Suddenly, it jerked into motion. People swayed in their seats. It stopped, jerked again.

  Dunne bolted to his feet and toward the door that led to the car behind. Snake number one had already made his way into it. Framed in the door’s glass panel, he had his hands around the white enamel pole in the middle of the car.

  Dunne pulled on the door handle. It didn’t budge. He pulled twice more. It turned down. The heavy metal door slid open. He stood between the cars. Snake number one, in the car behind, let go of the pole and moved toward him.

  Dunne pulled the dossier from the satchel and shoved it down the front of his trousers. He dropped the satchel on the car’s metal ledge, scaled the trio of iron chains linking the cars, perched for an instant on top, hands on opposite walls. The train started to gather speed.

  He jumped onto the platform, skidded, tumbled, caromed off a bench and into the wall. The train disappeared into the tunnel. He lay sprawled on the floor. His hat rolled on the tracks. A woman screamed in a high, panicked voice, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  A man in blue overalls loomed over him. “You trying to get yourself killed or what?”

  Dunne sat up. His knuckles were badly scraped and bleeding. His right trouser leg was ripped. A bloody knee protruded.

  The man continued to hover. “Stay where you are, pal. Somebody went to alert the token clerk to call the cops and get an ambulance.”

  “Help me up, will you?” Dunne extended his hand.

  “You might’ve broken something or have a concussion. Don’t move.”

  “I didn’t break anything. Please, help me up.”

  “It’s your funeral.” He gave Dunne his hand.

  Dunne walked a few steps. His knee throbbed. “Thanks, I’ll be okay.”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” The man scratched his neck.

  “I realized it was an express. I wanted the local.”

  “It don’t matter. The next stop for both is Forty-second Street. You could’ve switched there.”

  “Now I know.”

  “You risked your life for that?”

  “I didn’t want to keep my wife waiting.”

  “You must have some wife.”

  Dunne hobbled away. He ignored the staring people who kept their distance as he passed. Slowly mounting the stairs, he noticed his shoes were badly scuffed. A great shine gone to waste. He hopped into a cab on Eighth Avenue. He imagined that by now snakes one and two were paging through The Sorrows of Young Werther, pondering the underlined letters, and the code they might contain.

  He rolled down the window. Traffic was light. They sped up the avenue. The wind hit his face. Fresh air: The best medicine.

  September 1958

  ST. GENEVIEVE’S ACADEMY, MANHATTAN

  THE SUDDEN MIDDLE-OF-THE-NIGHT RING JOLTED DUNNE AWAKE. HE rolled over. The luminous hands on the clock beside the phone pointed to 2:47. He switched on the light. At this hour, you could be sure you weren’t being notified you’d won the Irish Sweepstakes. The best to hope for was a drunk who’d dialed the wrong number. Otherwise, someone had died, or another war had started, or some equivalent misfortune. He held the receiver slightly farther from his ear than usual. “Hello.”

  “Fin, is that you?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Bassante.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Bad news.”

  “How bad?”

  “Really bad.”

  “Shoot.” Dunne reached over and grabbed an open pack of cigarettes.

  “Dick Van Hull is dead.”

  “When did it happen?” He lit the cigarette.

  “Five days ago.”

  “And you’re just calling me now?”

  “I just found out a little while ago. I stopped into Red’s to see how he was doing. Terry, the bartender, gave me the news. Dick died right there, in the bar, massive heart attack as he got out of a booth.”

  “What about funeral arrangements?”

  “There were none. He had no next of kin, but he had a proper will that directed he be cremated and his ashes thrown in the harbor. Terry’s already seen to it.”

  “Nice of him to let us know.”

  “That’s the way Dick wanted it, quick and quiet. But Terry said there’ll be a memorial ceremony at St. Genevieve’s, where Dick taught.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow, noon.”

  “You have the address?”

  “Not with me. But it’s in the phone book.”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  It was drizzling on and off. Dunne had trouble finding a cab. The crosstown traffic crawled. He arrived twenty minutes late. The turreted, three-story gray stone Gothic facade was two parts imposing, one part oppressive, like an old-style penitentiary. He rushed up the stairs. The chapel was next to the entrance. It was empty. The shimmering, spotless linoleum hallways were deserted and silent. Maybe Bassante had got the time wrong.

  He stepped back outside. Bassante signaled from the corn
er. “Over here!” He led the way into the building’s side entrance. “It’s in the auditorium. The sisters couldn’t have it in the chapel. Fond as they were of Dick, he was a Protestant. The head nun said it was all right for us to attend. They’re already well into it. It seems like it’s going to be short.”

  They slipped into the last row of seats. Faced framed by drapery of auburn hair, the teenage girl at the podium in the center of the stage read from a sheet of paper held in an awkward way as she tried to speak into the microphone. Her voice quavered slightly.

  In front, beneath the stage, was a motionless curtain of nuns in black wimples; behind, several rows of lay faculty, overwhelmingly female, a sprinkling of men. The rest of the auditorium was filled with the girls of St. Genevieve’s Academy, homely and lovely, most yet to bud out of girlhood, a few in full flower, all dressed in identical uniforms of knee socks, plaid skirts, white blouses, and blue vests.

  The girl put aside the paper and left the stage. A tall nun rose from the aisle seat in the front row. Railing gripped in right hand, robe raised an inch or two above old-fashioned high-buttoned shoes with the left, she mounted the stairs to the stage and went to the podium.

  “Mr. Hull was a godsend to this school.” She leaned close to the microphone. “He might not have been the best organized person who ever walked these halls …”

  A murmur of muffled laughter rippled through the room.

  She swept the room with a stony, cursory stare, a reminder that her interest was in brevity, not levity: Say what should be said; don’t dillydally, or indulge in frivolity, or violate the truth.

  The laughter stopped.

  “But he was a dedicated, talented teacher. Let him be remembered by us all as a man of true allegiances—to his country, to this school, and, above all, to his students. Let us pray he has found eternal happiness in the presence of God.” She left it at that.

  The girls stood, their clapping tentative at first, then louder and more confident. When they were done, the tall nun led the girls up the aisle, out of the auditorium.

  Dunne stood with Bassante on the steps of the school. A light drizzle fell. Bassante pulled down the brim of his hat. “Didn’t sound to me like that nun knew Dick very well.”