The Tenants of Moonbloom

by Edward Lewis Wallant

  Finally Norman flopped onto a chair and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, shaking his head to rid himself of the hysteria.

  “I entertain you?” Sugarman said in a cold, delicate voice. “You have the humor of those who made lamp shades from human skin. I speak to you of infinite loss, of the tragedy of the irrevocable, of the end of something—end, end! Is there a more frightful word? And you, you dry pod of a bookkeeper, you crustacean with ball-point claws—you laugh, just laugh. You are worse than I.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” Norman said. “You spill yourself to me. I don’t ask for these intimacies. I’m the agent, I collect the rents. This whole setup is a madhouse. Did you give these great speeches to the agent who had the job before me? What deludes all of you people into thinking that I’m interested?” He sat very still now, suddenly feeling something in his grasp, his eyes intent on the florid face before him, noting the small, burst blood vessels that gave Sugarman’s face a spurious outdoor look.

  “All us people,” Sugarman repeated, stumbling over Norman’s unexpected rejoinder. “Because . . . because you have a look, your eyes are starved. Don’t you ever look in the mirror? There is something masochistically inviting in the center of your raccoon eyes. Like the little square of confection in Alice in Wonderland, there is written all over you ‘Eat Me.’ I know that with me I rant and rave in moving trains, deaf to my own voice and blind to the laughing faces. Only in here, in solitude, my voice rises to sound, and I wait for anyone to listen. And then you come along in your dark suit and vest and your pin in your lapel and your Al Capone hat, and you are like a queer microphone into which my pent-up words can pour. To what purpose? God knows. Perhaps we all wish to be inscribed upon something. Maybe it has to do with perpetuating our silly little consciousnesses. If we are wrong, it is the fault of your face—it is a fraud. Change your face, Moonbloom, or else listen and do something for us.”

  “What do you want me to do for you?” Norman asked in bewilderment. “All right, I’ll do, I’ve promised to do things. What is your complaint? Do you want wall-to-wall carpeting, a stall shower, air conditioning? Is something broken? Name it, don’t be shy. No one else is. Make a demand on me. A refrigerator, a paint job, what?”

  “No, no, Moonbloom, it is not so easy. Man does not live on fringe benefits alone. What I want from you . . .” He stared musingly at the floor.

  And Norman, the dread rising in him at the thought of some unimaginable request, scooped the money from the table and poured it into his pocket as he rushed to the door.

  “Wait, wait, what are you running away from?” Sugarman called after him.

  Norman waved in panic, and his answer was cut in two by the closing of the door.

  “That’s why I’m running . . .” Slam. “. . . because I don’t know.”

  •

  He said nothing to Paxton, who, fortunately, was too busy working to do more than indicate the money in a litter on the table. Norman counted out the rent, left the receipt, and went upstairs to Louie.

  “I was suppose to go to that movie,” Louie said, “but I come down with a bug. Had a little fever. I’m drinking a lot of juices and all. I didn’t miss any work though. Went in with a hundred point three. They promoted me a little. I answer the phones now and only do a little delivering. Kind of keep a eye on things. That’s because of Ralph. Ralph’s okay; it’s Sal is the wise guy. If it wasn’t for Ralph I woulda . . .”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Norman said tersely. His cruelty was turned on himself though, as he took away with him the dimly hurt face of the man, standing in the simmering air of his room, his tiny television screen flickering its ignored performance, something bland cooking on the stove. The windows rattled slightly in the cold evening; Louie stood like the victim of a thrown custard pie, gaping, injured, forever lost to the joke.

  “I ony was sayin’ . . .” The rest of his plaint was lost to the closing of the door and distance; yet that fragment drew itself out as fine as the tapered sound of wind drawn through the finest of cracks and crevices. It was like a thin spray of lacquer and served to fix the small simian face of Louie on Norman’s brain as he rushed out into the December darkness of cold wind and stone and stars.

  “I am no longer Norman Moonbloom,” he said aloud in the great privacy of the city night. And then, seeing the floral brilliance of windows and distant sign lights, he was suddenly confronted with a more terrible possibility, which made him bite the windy blackness and gasp, “Or I never was.”

  11

  GAYLORD CALLED HIM at seven o’clock in the morning to tell him that there had been a small fire in the Lublins’ apartment. For the first time in his adult life, he rushed out into a business day without a tie and without shaving, only to find upon his arrival that such disturbing impulsiveness (like all impulsiveness, in his opinion) had not been necessary.

  About two square feet of the wall beside the stove was charred, and the wastebasket that stood there was blistered to a colorless gray. The little girl stood behind her mother with wide, frightened eyes, biting silently on her guilt, while Sarah Lublin lied unhappily.

  “Of course the stove is defective,” she said. “I attempted to light the burner and a sheet of fire went up, caught on the drape and . . . started to burn. I called the superintendent when I heard him with the ash cans, and together we put it out.” She studied Norman’s face. “It is a menace. It should be repaired.”

  “A sheet of fire,” Norman echoed expressionlessly.

  “Shee-et,” Gaylord muttered disgustedly behind him.

  They all stood in the kitchen—Aaron, the old uncle, the little boy, each eying the black smear of the wall with a different contemplative expression, like people studying an unusual natural phenomenon. Only Gaylord looked bored; he knew better, but didn’t have it in him to side with landlords. He leaned on the cabinet that separated the kitchen from the dinette, blowing softly over his thumbnail. Norman squinted at the burned wall, searching for an attitude. He had responsibility, no matter who he was now. What else was there to hold on to? He was cut off from the place and time that had at least given him a spuriously familiar shape, and if he relinquished duty, he would be totally lost here in this sunlit kitchen, among the strangely discreet torments of these pale foreign people. He assayed the alternatives.

  “We do not wish to make trouble,” Aaron said confidently; he was professional and poised with strangers, only gave in to screaming fear and rage among his own. “If you would just check the stove and make some adjustment for the paint, I will be glad to paint the kitchen myself.”

  Norman darted his eyes to him, swiftly moved them to the uncle, who might have been the weak link. But Hirsch, an enemy of sorts to his nephew, was conditioned to larger, outside enemies.

  “It’s a fire hazard,” Hirsch said blandly. “Your whole building could burn.”

  Sarah’s lips were tight, and the morning sunlight grouped her solidly with her family; they had endured worse interrogations. Their skins were sickly white, and yet strong, absorbent. How was it that he had never encountered people like these tenants?

  His eye fell on the little girl. “Do you play with matches?” he asked suddenly, feeling the exhilaration of righteous cruelty.

  The girl looked up at her mother in supplication, the tears starting from her eyes. Sarah pushed her out of the room, and Norman heard her running toward a bedroom. Hirsch just shrugged, smiled, and followed after her, too old to be concerned about anything less than ultimate defeat. Aaron tried to spread his body over Sarah and the boy, but Sarah, with sudden determination, shoved him and said, “Go see to Ruthie.” She must have given him a significant glance, because he went, his back somehow defeated looking.

  “Please,” she said to Norman and Gaylord. Gaylord waved both hands at her and left too. “It is difficult here, with the old man. We have tension. We are nervous people, you understand.”

  Norman nodded firmly. “Your little girl
did it, didn’t she?”

  “She didn’t know,” Sarah whispered harshly. “She wished to boil water for tea—to surprise me.”

  “The stove wasn’t defective. I could see by the wastebasket that it started in there. She dropped a match in there.”

  “Yes, yes, but please.”

  “I don’t know what you’re so upset about,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything to you. The damage is slight.”

  “You will have it painted?”

  “Me? I’m sorry, you’ll have to take care of that yourself.”

  “We are so short of money. . ..”

  “Well, then, leave it as it is until you have some extra money.”

  “I can’t,” she cried desperately.

  “Why not?”

  “I cannot explain it to you.”

  “Look, I don’t understand any of this. All I know is that the bills are piling up. I’ve promised to do a lot of things. I’m going to. I’m going to fix your sink; I don’t know how but I am. Now you expect me to paint your kitchen too. Some things are impossible. There’s a limit. If you only knew the finances of this setup. It’s a nightmare. I have to draw the line. What is so terrible about your leaving the wall like that for a while?”

  Sarah’s look embarrassed him, made him feel he was being measured, and he worried perversely that he might be found wanting. In the other rooms he could hear the soft, mouselike sounds of the family being quiet. The old, lumpy putty on the window glistened and made the room seem like a cave.

  “I cannot stand the signs of the fire,” she said slowly, placing each word in him like a dart. Her eyes were like mirrors, and he saw a tiny Norman Moonbloom in each of them. He smelled the burned odor, but it seemed to come from her. Something made him put his hand up to his tie, but his fingers recoiled at its absence. She looked wild, and he was afraid.

  “All right,” he said hoarsely. “It’s already beyond reason. Why not?”

  “Thank you,” she said with the expression of a whore.

  “Sure, sure, sure,” he snarled.

  She smiled.

  •

  “Our Lester,” Minna said, “has gotten into trouble, but he knows where to turn. We’ll take care of everything. And when it’s all cleared up, I want to have you come to dinner. You seem like a nice young man, both feet on the ground. I think you’d be a good influence on Lester.”

  From the other side, Eva returned coyly, “I’ll bet a lonely young bachelor like you could appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

  “Everything is going to be all right,” Minna said, starting a new serve.

  “Oh, he needs us, all right.” Eva, like her sister, did not recognize the manic quality of their conversation. A doctor had agreed to abort the girl, and Lester was sulking safely in his room. The green years of the nephew’s childhood would never end for them, and they remembered how he had looked in sailor suits and promised themselves they would feast on the photograph albums that night. Age and loss became distant and unreal, someone else’s blood was only as sad as that which was shed on the other side of the world; one clucked pityingly but lived on in personal love.

  “Now you just tell us your favorite menu, Mr. Moonbloom, and we’ll set a date,” Minna cried on the edge of laughter.

  “And I make pies,” Eva threatened, rolling her leather-enclosed eyes.

  Norman looked from one to the other of them like a spectator at a tennis match but with the painful sensation of being the ball.

  “I mean it pays for a boy to have a family,” Minna said.

  “Loved ones,” Eva qualified.

  “People to lean on,” Minna shrieked, speeding up the volley.

  Norman reeled.

  •

  “Don’t want him to know,” Betty Jacoby murmured from the dimness as she lay on the couch, sick and hopelessly old.

  “Mustn’t let on to the little woman,” Arnold said to him, caught killing time in the lobby of the apartment. “Just a brief slack period at the place. I can always get a job; it’s not that. Don’t want her to think I couldn’t go right out and get a job. You understand.” He winked slyly, his cheery, round face somehow obscene and weird to Norman, who could only nod in the viscosity in which they were submerging him.

  •

  “Katz is out auditioning,” Sidone said, his fish eyes protruding behind the sunglasses. “The leader told him that if he made it, he would let him arrange and all. It’s a big deal, but Katz is counting on it too much. That whacked-up bastard is already apologizing to me for his success. I don’t build up, so I don’t fall down. Trouble is, he doesn’t want to be a bum. That’s murder when you really are. That poor bastard. Maybe you’ll help me pick up the pieces, Moonbloom?”

  •

  Pasty and trembling, he stepped into the Hauser apartment, where he was assaulted by Carol’s screaming rage and then hit by an ash tray she had aimed at her husband.

  “Aghh,” she gargled in fear and disgust. Sherman, and the child too, froze in shock as Norman put his hand up to another wound. His forehead was bleeding, his eyes were blurry. He sat down, completely at a loss.

  The lamp shade turned slowly, animating the river; the fake fire consumed something beyond comprehension. Ripples widened from a drowning that had not yet taken place. The child began to cry, and Carol ran from the room.

  “Let me get you a Band-Aid,” Sherman said dully. “That bitch, she was aiming at me.” He trudged heavily out of the room; when he came back, the child went into the other room and began throwing blocks savagely; each block’s impact detonated a nerve in Sherman’s cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” Sherman said in an undertone. “It’ll be all right, it just broke the skin.”

  “That’s all,” Norman intoned; he had the sensation of sitting in a rocket with the flames of propulsion already roaring beneath him. Slowly he raised his eyes to the ceiling, anticipating the impact of the plaster against his head. Sherman’s large white fingers tangled before his eyes; he felt the pressure of the Band-Aid against his brow. The rocket pulsed, ready to lift him. “Hurry up,” he said, as still as stone.

  “Well it was an accident,” Sherman said, breathing Sen-Sen at him. “The whole goddamn thing was an accident, from beginning to end.” His cheek continued to transmit the rhythm of his son’s furious mischief in the bedroom, so that the clockety clock thud seemed a destruction taking place in the bones of his face. “I went with her for two years, and she teased and teased until I thought I’d flip. Then once, just once, she made a big production when her mother was away, gave me the big thrill finally. For Christ’s sake, she probably had it plotted on temperature charts. That one time, and she was knocked up. We got married, we had Bobby. All an accident, see. But oh, that Bobby, he’s a beauty anyhow, he’s a miracle. How can I wish it never happened? Can you really wish you’d never been born?”

  And Norman, his head hardly hurting, realized that the greater shock had happened to Sherman, and that fact caused him new pain. He could hear Carol Hauser crying furiously in the other room and he noticed that as Sherman became aware of the sound of her crying, a curious, lustful expression came over his face. He leaned away from Norman, crumpling the Band-Aid paper in his hand, his eyes turned toward the sound of her weeping.

  “Oh that bitch,” Sherman breathed passionately. “Do you see how she is? Isn’t she a hot sketch, that broad? Isn’t she something?” His voice burned with his own grotesque form of love, and when he stood up he appeared to be an actor playing Romeo who has completely lost himself in the part.

  Norman went out as Sherman entered his wife’s room and closed the door. The child stopped rioting. Everything was still except for the hot, terrible whispering from behind the closed door and the rotating lamp shade and the heatless fire.

  Ashen and crumpled, Norman went directly home, wondering whether or not he was at the bottom of his fearful descent. In his bed, he lay with the pillow wrapped around his now throbbing head, and he drew a thin thread of comfort from
the realization that he probably wouldn’t survive anything worse.

  12

  THE NEXT MORNING he was forced to seize upon one piece of reality. His head cleared at the sound of Irwin’s voice on the phone, and hand over hand he crept back to a ledge of his former life.

  “I must say you took me at my word, Norm. I haven’t heard from you in a month. That would be fine except for the fact that I also haven’t gotten any mail from you either.”

  “Yes, I know, Irwin,” he said, surprised that he still sounded the same. “Things have gotten a little mixed up. All those repairs and . . . well I was sick for a week.”

  “You’re not letting things get out of hand, are you?” All this was, was a hole in Irwin’s fourth-best suit, but he hadn’t gotten to where he was without paying attention to details. “There’s nothing you’re keeping from me? You know I trust you, Norman.”

  “Of course, Irwin.” He wondered if he were still recognizable with the scab on his lip, the too large Band-Aid on his forehead. Never in his former life had he displayed the marks of violence; it had been like a symbol of his complete disbelief in it. His comfortable association with small talk was gone, and in its place was a growing discomfort with words of all kinds. He who had never been sure that sin existed now wondered whether he was involved in it. Would the mirrors of his old house far away reflect him now?

  “Are you still there, Norman?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Norman?”

  “Oh, yes, I was thinking about something else.”

  “Well don’t. Think about this. Is everything as it should be there? What is it with the money?”

  “As I was saying, Irwin, I’m just in the process of straightening things out. Going to put one of my old studies to a little good use, heh, heh. Do a little complicated accounting and see where I am. You don’t have to worry about a thing on this end, Irwin. Just a matter of sort of inventorying, Irwin. You know how jumbled up these things can get, Irwin. I’m back in the groove after my recent illness, Irwin. Have everything in apple-pie order by the first, if not sooner, Irwin. You know, Irwin, I . . .”