No Lease on Life

by Lynne Tillman

  Tyrone would clean the halls and stairs. But since he hadn’t been properly hired—the Big G didn’t know or wouldn’t approve, Hector should be doing it, it was his job—Tyrone’s work had to be accomplished surreptitiously. Tyrone didn’t have access to a sink and clean water. He’d mop the six floors with the same bucket of dirty water. The dirt was pushed around, spread from corner to corner. Elizabeth always thanked him, because the floors looked a little better, the dirt was diluted, thinned into dark streaks. All Tyrone wanted was to be thanked.

  When Elizabeth offered Tyrone money for cleaning the halls, he refused. He seemed hurt by her offer. Offended. He’d say no, and awkwardly offer his big hand to shake hers, and they’d shake, and then she’d walk away. She tried not to look back, then she did. He’d be smiling at her and nodding his head.

  Today, he held her there. She was trapped. Tyrone showed her pictures of his wedding. Maybe his wife was slightly retarded too. They both looked blissfully or uncomfortably out of it. Tyrone was happy about the wedding. Marriage was the highpoint of many people’s lives. It was pathetic. She thought she should buy Tyrone a present. Roy would tell her not to get any more involved than she was. Elizabeth had as many compunctions as compulsions.

  What do you call a midget psychic on the lam?

  What?

  Small medium at large.

  Tyrone reminded her of the money slave. Roy and his friend Joe hooked up with the money slave years ago. Joe saw an ad in the Village Voice about earning money writing music reviews, no experience necessary. Joe and Roy contacted him. Easy money.

  It was a hustle. The money slave wanted another kind of transaction—he wanted them to make him work, wanted them to order him to work, he demanded them to force him over the telephone to work harder for them, to make him make money for them, to take two jobs, even three, to support them. He paid them to say that. He phoned them, and they’d accommodate him.

  They met with him in person occasionally. The money slave would hand over the money he’d asked Roy and Joe to order him to earn for them. Elizabeth followed Roy to one of his meets with the money slave, at the World Trade Center. From behind a column she watched Roy make the exchange with the money slave. He was an average-looking white guy, a low-level Wall Street suit.

  Roy was supposed to be the money slave’s master. It’s hard to be a master if you’re not trained for it. There’s an art to everything. The money slave probably didn’t have a family to make demands on him or to give purpose and meaning to a life of pallid corporate indenture. He was a lonely guy with strange, memorable desires. He explained to Roy, If you made me take a second job, that would make you the most important thing in my life.

  One day when the money slave was groveling, squealing, on the phone—Tell me to work harder, tell me, tell me to take a third job to support you, tell me, make me work harder for you—suddenly Roy couldn’t control himself. He laughed. The money slave was insulted, embarrassed. He hung up. He never called again. Roy lost the gig. The money slave paid for his own brand of humiliation. He had needs, desires. The city offered him anonymity. He could buy workers, substitutes. When he wanted, who, where, what kind, for how long. Roy laughed at an inappropriate moment. He couldn’t keep it up, even for the money.

  That was a while ago.

  Someone else’s fantasy is a joke, a comedy.

  Tyrone walked west. The Big G and Hector trapped him. They were talking to him. The Big G was shaking a hypocritical white finger at him. They’d castigate him, Gloria especially, she’d mete out some punishment for him, and call it work. The Big G didn’t want him around, Hector did if he could use him. Tyrone was unpredictable, but he was harmless.

  Yelping boys from the Boys Club were being rounded up and put on buses to summer camp to keep them from becoming murderers. A two-week idyll in the country for the underprivileged. The underprivileged’s mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers were hanging around, sad, bored, impatient, happy, waiting to wave good-bye. The Boys Club was tied to the police. They could do anything.

  Tompkins Square Park was leafy and green. The trees’ shadows marked sidewalk oases. Mothers, fathers, and assorted child-care workers parked themselves on benches near the sandpit. They had their stations and watched their kids. They fanned themselves.

  After the cops’ attack on the park squatters one summer night, which was like living in Salvador for that night, with a helicopter whirring overhead and tear gas and hundreds of people running and hundreds of police chasing them, and after the cleanup of the park, which was closed for a year, its entrances transformed into Checkpoint Charlies, the sandbox was free of dog and human shit. No one argued about that.

  A few park insurgents were asleep under lightweight blankets. It was quiet.

  Ernest had wanted to be a priest. It killed her. Ernest needed to right their situation. He was a spiritual guy. He believed in God, Christ, and the Virgin. God was closing the century. The Crusades would look like the Easter parade.

  The Hispanic guy from the bike store was repairing bikes on the sidewalk.

  Ernest was propelled by faith and God’s grace. He was deluded, millions of people were. Huge numbers of people. Religion made her sick. Supreme beings and redemption. People expected to be redeemed like bottles or recycled, to return as birds or dogs or grains of sand, and go on and on. Ernest needed to make things right. She really didn’t care why.

  The smell of beer, pungent and musty, oozed to the pavement from the bars. At Brownies tonight: 700 Miles and Hooch. Elizabeth liked being in bars just before they were full. Nothing like a bar. Nothing like a bartender. Nothing like loose talk. People she knew weren’t drinking much. Everyone wanted to be in control. The older you got, that’s all you had, control.

  Being out of control was better, blasted and wasted, telling tales on telltale nights, on the brink of sex with a stranger with intense eyes and a mad laugh. On the brink of losing everything. Heartless, homeless. Some were never there, couldn’t touch the edge, live at the bottom, do some bottom feeding. Nothing adventured, everything lost. Nothing ventured without losing something else. Avoiding failure, even a whiff of failure, they didn’t think about the past. They say they don’t miss anything, didn’t miss anything, have no regrets. They did what they wanted. Elizabeth giggled, then she held herself in check, held back.

  People don’t expose their need the way Ernest does. It was confused with being needy. That’s why there was so much impotence, girlfriends complaining about flaccidity. Years ago a man told her, after she’d rejected him, that as he grew older, he was learning to enjoy the luxury of impotence. Impotence and failure are luxuries. Most people can’t afford them.

  It was muggy. She didn’t expect to be mugged in weather like this. Too liquid and slow for jumping on someone, except the most desperate, too enervating. Her skin was coated with light sweat. Elizabeth didn’t like to sweat unless she was having sex.

  How do you know when the stage is level?

  When drool is coming out of both sides of the drummer’s mouth.

  Five Catholic schoolboys were tossing a basketball in the school’s parking lot. They were lousy, black, yellow, white, lumbering to the basket, clumsy. A few nuns were watching their charges. Their white hands were crossed over their short habits and rested on full stomachs. The school’s mural: “Mary Help of Christian School, Give Me Souls Take Away The Rest.” It was painted blue, covered a wall. A cartoon portrait of Mary and Jesus surrounded by saints and souls. Have mercy. Take away the rest. It was a time without mercy. People who believe in the soul don’t think anyone else has one. Maybe Ernest did. Fear the righteous. They have no pity.

  The Metropolitan Funeral Parlor had most of the body-and-soul business in the neighborhood. It wasn’t where Emilia’s wake was held. There were no coffins on the sidewalk this morning, no crowd, no crying, no limos. Elizabeth hated passing by the mean and morose scene when the hearse was waiting for its next coffin, and family and friends were crying, clus
tered in small groups to console each other, and the hearse drivers were lounging around with cigarettes dangling from their mouths, bored out of their skulls. People were grieving in another world, not theirs.

  He didn’t have a funeral. He was cremated in another city. They held a memorial service for him later. It was hard to cry after a while. Elizabeth was toughening up, she was hardening with age, becoming brittle, like her nails. They broke more easily. Didn’t everything. Can’t take everything on. Have to take some of it on. The morons. The shit in the vestibule.

  The sad-eyed gray-haired man was settled in his chair at the window of the printing shop. He chewed on a cigar. PREMISES CONTROLLED BY ATTACK DOGS. She’d never seen any. He was a daily enigma. Maybe a concentration camp survivor. She might work for the tragic old man one day. She’d spend hours proofreading, because no one in the shop was good at it, she’d choose typefaces for wedding, birth, and death announcements and listen to the relentless purr, chug, and whir of the printing press. The smell of ink and cigars would linger in the air, they’d all argue about politics, discuss the local news, how terrible the mayor was, how bad it was when the squatters were assaulted, how everyone deserved it or didn’t, whatever they got, in one way or another. Then they’d close up shop at the end of the day. Everyone would gather round.

  —Remember Howard Beach?

  —Always sounded like a person to me before…

  —It’s not like Germany, the old man’d say.

  —They chased him across the highway…

  —Can’t even live your life, the black printer would say.

  —Racist cowards, she’d say.

  —Howard Beach…

  The printer’s dark arms would be smeared with purple ink.

  —And Crown Heights?

  —A kid run over…

  —It was an accident…

  —A car runs a light…

  —Mayor Dinkins shoulda…

  —The ambulance ignored…

  —Dinkins did the right thing…

  —But the trial was a mockery, the old man would say.

  His voice would wane. He’d wander back to his chair, slump into it. His melancholy was physical. Elizabeth would return to proofreading, the black printer would go back to setting type. The receptionist and designer would settle in too. The next day it would all begin again. She’d become fixed and old in one place, one job.

  The public school kids should’ve been in school. The usual characters were hanging out on the corners. The runners weren’t out. Only the hard-core desperadoes with eyes like pins. They disappeared into chaotic rooms and emerged and disappeared again. Their eyes darted everywhere. Crackheads strode ramrod stiff, up and down the block, arms up, out, and down, like Nazi salutes, involuntary movements. They were on patrol. The nod squad arrived later. The crackheads were fueled with synthetic energy. They had nowhere to go, hunters and gatherers prowling in circles.

  One lesbian frog says to another, You’re right, we do taste like chicken.

  Gisela limped onto A from Twelfth Street. Her dog limped along beside her.

  —It is a terrible time, now. Look what happens again!

  Gisela’s face was dotted with scars, old wounds. There were a few fresh wounds. She had picked them. Elizabeth stared at the red holes, windows to the soul. Gisela’s skin was clearer than it was the last time she’d seen her.

  —A woman is trying to destroy me. See, my dog is sick. She is poisoning my dog. I went away and she was supposed to take care of him and look at him. Look at his rash.

  Gisela pointed to a scabby, hairless patch on the dog’s rump. It made Elizabeth sick.

  —Why’s the woman poisoning your dog? Elizabeth asked.

  —It’s the Swiss government.

  —They’re after you again?

  —Ach. My mother’s legacy. They thought I knew too much because a lot of very heavy people in the government were involved with my mother. My mother was exploited by them.

  —You mean, the heroin dealing she was forced to do?

  —They are very liberal with drugs because the government is involved, and that means money for them. My mother was working under a lawyer, in Zurich, who was a good friend with a man from the parliament, who was negotiating with the Syrian extremist groups in Argentina. They have a big colony of Syrian extremists. They were afraid that I knew about it. I didn’t know about it. They were afraid I would talk too much. I didn’t know anything. At that time.

  Gisela shifted from one leg to the other. Elizabeth had heard some of the story. Gisela shifted again.

  —Your leg hurts?

  —They want to operate, and I always say…

  —What kind of operation?

  —To replace my hip. I always say no, I need first intensive therapy. I’m very weak, I’m falling apart. In Cuba, for the first time I met a doctor who agreed with me. When I say this to a doctor, he doesn’t want to hear of it.

  A bicycle messenger zipped past them on the sidewalk.

  —I couldn’t sleep last night, Elizabeth said.

  —It’s the neighborhood, Gisela said.

  —It’s pushing me over the edge.

  —Compared to what I went through, it’s paradise. It’s beautiful, Switzerland, but I went through shit there. Those people are not human beings. They’re worse than Nazis. Here, you see, I’m happy. I keep my distance because I cannot tell my story. I get along. They leave me alone. They respect me. I respect them. I have no problem. I have my peace of mind.

  —That’s important.

  —I was fine here, until 1973, that’s when I collapsed. I was accused of being involved in drugs, which wasn’t true. Then I had a terrible, terrible love affair. Men never meant much in my life, believe me. I did not even love him. It was like he was doing black magic to me. It was the first time in my life, I was thirty-six. It was horrible. I just collapsed.

  —Then your hip went out?

  —From standing on my feet too long. But I had a problem before. I was beaten up by the police in 1964 when I was arrested.

  —In Switzerland?

  —I didn’t pay my hospital bill in India. I had enough money to pay for an Indian hospital, but they said that I was white and I had to go to a luxury hospital. I knew in advance I couldn’t pay. Then one night the troops came and picked me up and kidnapped me and took me to Switzerland where I got beaten up very badly. They went inside me to see if I had drugs, of course I had no drugs. I was in the hospital. And they beat me up, to make sure I would spit out drugs. But I had my hip problem even before.

  —How did it start?

  —Child abuse. I went through hell, but I’m happy to be here.

  Elizabeth knew she should get going.

  —My family didn’t want to have anything to do with me. First of all because I was my mother’s daughter, and because I look like her. I look exactly like her. Except I’m lighter, My mother was of gypsy background. So was my father.

  —They’re gypsies?

  —French Huguenot, but of gypsy background. I am so light, my family didn’t want to have anything to do with me. They’re assimilated.

  —When did they give up their gypsy ways?

  —When they became Huguenots in the fifteenth century. They were kicked out of Spain and became French Huguenots. People don’t know that the Huguenot religion was founded by the Jews and the gypsies and the Arabs, who were kicked out of Spain. The Catholic religion didn’t believe in money, but the Protestants believe in money. The Thirty Years War was based on this, it was a money issue. The so-called religious war.

  Elizabeth was tempted to melt with Gisela on the sidewalk. She could lose herself in salty, humid dispiritedness.

  —What happened to your mother?

  —I have no idea. Yesterday I told my social worker that my first memory was of my mother, how beautiful she was.

  Elizabeth scrutinized Gisela’s dry, pale skin.

  —Are you eating OK?

  —To tell you the truth, I’m
so depressed since my burglary, I don’t eat right. I eat bagels, with cheese, butter. I do eat a lot of fruits. I drink water a lot.

  —Your skin is looking a little better.

  —Because I’m over that problem. My soul is better.

  —About losing your children years ago?

  —All of that. That’s why my skin looks better.

  —I don’t want children.

  —I didn’t want them, they just didn’t have abortions, and no protection in those days. I was a runaway, and somebody took advantage. It wasn’t rape. I was raped later on.

  Gisela looked down the street. There was some commotion on the corner. They watched it together. A couple of boys were being territorial. No weapons. It broke up.

  —Thank God, I’m rent-controlled. If I lose my apartment, that’s it. I don’t go out, I stay home. I only walk the dog. You don’t see me.

  —Not much.

  —Because I only go to the doctor or grocery shopping, I walk the dog, that’s about it.

  —It’s good to get exercise.

  Elizabeth hardly ever exercised. She walked. Gisela thought about something else, Elizabeth could see some caution, storm alert arrows, crossing her face, and then the concern passed, or Gisela pushed it away.

  —Don’t you ever complain about a social worker. They have more power than you think.

  Elizabeth didn’t have a social worker. She complained to the wrong people on the block. Elizabeth didn’t tell Gisela about her problems with the young super, Gloria, or Hector. Gisela shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Her dog was hunkered down on the hot sidewalk. He looked miserable. It was jungle humid. Gisela glanced at her dog, then at Elizabeth. She ignored her pain.

  —In Switzerland, everybody who’s a humanist ends up in a mental hospital, because they don’t want human beings. There are only banks and insurance. The guy who was the founder of the Red Cross, Jean-Henri Dunant, he ended up in a mental hospital too. I go now.