Текст книги "The Fuck-Up"

Автор книги: Arthur Nersesian

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

TEN

While Waitingfor the subway, I scrutinized Helmsley’s tragedy; unintentionally I had reduced Angela’s guilt. She was brought up to see love as a weakness, whereas all Helmsley’s books and needs had revealed love to him as a strength. Perhaps Helmsley’s view was nobler, but in the end her vantage certainly proved more endurable. I got off the F train at Broadway and Lafayette, where all the beggars were congregated. One guy a little older than me asked for a quarter. I told him to get a job and kept going.

When I reached West Broadway, a bombshell struck; I suddenly realized that I was missing—had missed—Helmsley’s burial. I kicked the ground and yanked my hair. He was being buried unaccompanied. The dead were so helpless, and being buried seemed like such a humiliating act. I could picture the grave diggers spitting as they shovelled the dirt into the hole.

With each step, the synonyms of his death whirled by: he’s gone, he’s cold, he’s still…. It really wouldn’t have mattered if I pursued the box into the earth. On West Broadway, I turned left, retracing those same streets that I had walked on my fraudulent gay date. By daylight, the area seemed quite different, large ponderous buildings with fancy storefronts, warehouse chic. I located my new apartment. A security system realistically evaluated the menace of Manhattan; locks were everywhere. First, a front door lock, then a key-operated elevator, two locks to the floor, and finally a lock to shut off the burglar alarm. Inside, it was one spacious industrial room, constructed for machines. Modern apartments pressed people into small, enclosed cubicles. In Sergei’s place the machines had long since vanished. Along the two walls bordering the width of the place were laminated posters of Ternevsky’s film experiments. Between these walls were juggled objects of technology and antiquity, much like Glenn’s. Apparently the rich either go for the very new or the very old. To imagine this stage as a one-time sweat shop cast with anemic seamstresses speaking in Yiddish was now nearly inconceivable.

As I sat on a large circular water bed in the middle of the floor, I heard a metallic clinking sound. Leather straps were fastened to both the heads and tails of the bed frame; they must have been part of Sergei’s insecurity. Spending most of his life in an Iron Curtain country must have given him a totalitarian sex drive. As the tide rippled across the mattress, I floated toward the quaint night table, where I found a rustic remote control switch. I turned on the TV. I flipped the TV back off and got off the bed. Persian rugs and Empire-style furniture juxtaposed with Dutch Nouveau. A state-of-the-art sound system was hidden below a long antique chest of drawers. There was also a panel of dimmers and rheostats that could more subtly vary the lights and shadows than Rembrandt himself.

A note written on a large empty bulletin board announced: “The cabinet by Napoleon is yours.” Sure enough, across the room on an old ionic pedestal was a marble bust of the great French general. Next to it, below an original Warhol silk-screen, was a beautiful rosewood chest of drawers. On the top shelf sat my Unique bag containing my single-sleeved shirt and single-legged pants. The few clothes that I had taken from Sarah’s and stashed at Helmsleys had apparently been snatched up with the rest of his things by his grab bag relatives. Now my entire wardrobe consisted only of the suit that Glenn had given me. I carefully folded the suit jacket and placed it in the top drawer of my cabinet, I folded my suit pants in another drawer, and the shirt took up residence in the bottom drawer. I resumed my tour of the apartment in my underpants.

Bathrooms are where a truly rich mentality distinguishes itself. Sergeis bathroom had no door. Tiny terra-cotta mosaics lined the room from floor to ceiling. Under the dimmer switch were two knobs—one was a thermostat that modified the water temperature, and the other dial heated up the tiles on the ceiling. On a glass shelf above the sink were many soaps, clay packs, lotions, and other miracle cures, aimed at restoring skin to the sacred state of youthfulness. Claiming over half the bathroom floor was the deeply sunken bathtub. In it was a white stone bench chiselled with reliefs. A huge porcelain faucet shaped like a small fire hydrant was fixed over the tub, urban architecture that Ternevsky probably found droll. I opened the hydrant all the way and set the water thermostat at a hundred degrees. While it filled up I took a dump and only afterwards did I realize that there was no toilet paper. I was contemplating despoiling one of the monogrammed hand towels when I noticed a small foot pedal. I hit down on the accelerator and a jet stream of hot water bull’s-eyed my butt. I’d heard about bidets but that was the first time I was ever abused by one. Turning off the faucet-hydrant, I eased myself onto a kind of shelf alongside the submerged stone bench. The water was bliss. I paddled about a bit and soon relaxed, drifting into that state of deliverance. A carrot simmering in a large stew. Between shades of wakefulness and waves of unconsciousness. Slowly a gentle noise signaled from above. My eyes opened, but I was still asleep. Before me—behold! stood a bath nymph; an angel had escaped from the myths of my dreams. I watched as the divine guide rummaged through my underwear, which I had casually tossed on the toilet seat. Although I knew at once she was real I took my time before addressing her.

“May I help you?” I whispered graciously. She emitted a penetrating scream as she backed away.

“What’s the matter!” I jumped out of the tub, concealing my drippy genitals with a monogrammed washcloth. I followed her out to the living room.

“Who the fuck are you?” Her vocal cords were high-strung and fearful. She lamely offered a vase as a weapon.

“Sergei Ternevsky sublet this place to me. You must be the girlfriend.” With little else to offer, I extended a hand.

“Well, he told me nothing of it,” she replied. Even while threatened she stood captivating and captive, a vital beauty in the blonde Harlow/Monroe tradition.

“I wouldn’t break into the place just to take a bath. Call Terne vsky and ask him!”

“He’s out of town. If you subletted this place, you would know that.”

“Call Marty” I was shivering cold and dripping a puddle in the center of his lacquered, polished floor.

“Marty, right!” She went over to the phone and while she dialed I dried off and put on my underpants. While getting my pants from the rosewood cabinet, I heard her appealing, “Christ, Marty, why would he do this to me? What did I do? What haven’t I done?”

When she turned around and saw me standing there listening, her voice dropped to a whisper and she walked away. The extra long telephone wire uncurled until I could only grasp segments, “How am I suppose to … so what the fuck am I …” I started getting terrified; losing one’s residency meant losing everything. I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat, waiting in suspense for some kind of verdict.

Finally I heard her exclaim, “He is! You’re sure?!” After a while longer, she walked back into the living room with the phone. Then I heard her put the phone on the hook and waited for her to make a move. After a couple minutes, she approached the bathroom door frame, said, “Knock, knock.”

“I hope everything’s been straightened out,” I said. She only looked at me with a smile, and I quickly realized that Marty had informed her that I was gay. I half resented it, but in compliance with my agreement, I offered a stereotypically slackened posture.

“Sorry for being so rude,” she said.

“Its okay.”

“You must understand, I was quite terrified by your being here. No one told me a thing about it.”

“Me neither,” I replied and took a seat. I folded my right knee over my left and bent my head up slightly. I wasn’t sure how long I could maintain this position. “No one explained to me that someone else was living here.”

“Well I had been living here, mainly as a favor to Ternevsky. I guess he now sees fit to replace me,” she said.

“I could never replace you,” I complimented with a smile. “Sergei told me that he just wanted me to watch over things because of the burglaries. He was probably worried about you being alone here.”

“Knowing Sergei, he was probably worried that I was stealing his stuff.”

“That’s absurd,” I laughed with a flair.

With no prompting at all she divulged her entire Sergei file: They first met at an uptown gallery opening. He announced up front that she had sexually stimulated him and would very much like to besmirch her. In gratitude for this, he added—she imitated his accent a bit—“Janus dear, I must confess, I have little time for commitment, but I could compensate for this by granting you full use of my place and within reason I might be able to assist you by extending some of my connections in the trade.” She was a hopeful artist.

“We don’t have sex that much, he’s a rotten lover.” I commented on the straps at the four corners of the circular bed. She claimed they were just for show.

She went on to say that at times she felt ashamed. “It’s the closest I’ve ever come to prostitution.”

“If you feel that way, why did you do it?”

“He had me at a disadvantage.” She then started to elaborate. She had arrived in New York after graduating from an all-girl’s school. It was a small college town where the bulk of her colleagues were farmer’s daughters. Her actual education began in New York and after studying the present state of art she put down the brush, folded up the easel, sent the model home, and adopted the conceptual philosophy. But a female artist from out of town trying to break into the SoHo art scene was farcical. It seemed only those who were artists could be artists, no new ones were permitted. Until she met Sergei.

“What did he do for you?”

“He got one of my works accepted to a group exhibit.”

“Oh really, is it here?” I asked surveying all the expensive junk in the large room.

“No,” she laughed, “the curator threw it out.”

“Threw it out! It must have crushed you.”

“No, thank God he did; it was a disposable installation.”

“What?”

“It was a rotting mess.” She then went on to describe the piece: a human torso made from the organs and muscles of dead animals that had been sewn together.

“My God! Where did you get dead animals, what were they?”

“Oh, the kind of stuff you’d find in any old meat department; pork, beef, chicken, fish, all the cheapest cuts.”

“Cooked?”

“No raw, but cooking it could be a future reinterprelation.” She rambled on further about her life, expectations, and personal affairs.

“Tell me about you, now,” she said upon conclusion.

After touching on the sketchy details that I had fabricated for Ternevsky, I mimicked the master trying to suggest a talent and modesty that I completely lacked. I told her, among other things, that I had dropped out of medical school after three years to write poetry.

“Oh really.” She bit the bait. “Have you ever published?”

“As a matter of fact, I just got something accepted in the upcoming issue of the Harrington.”If she had any doubts as to my vast sea of lies, she could refer to this one drop of truth.

“Really. I get a subscription to the Harrington,I mean Sergei does.”

“Good, then we’ll read it together when it arrives.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly looking at her watch. “My Swatch says five. Gotta run.” She explained while grabbing her coat that she had a class at Parsons. I too had to run; work was waiting. Putting on the rest of my suit, I locked the locks and left. The sun was setting early as I walked through the rush of homebound people. As I walked, I realized that today was the first time that I had a stable address in a while. I also realized that today was the first day that Helmsley would be facing an infinity of decay. Glenn was probably home alone now, perhaps wishing I was more accessible. Angela, who by now had probably lost more money than she had started out with at the OTB, was probably semi-drunk at that American Legion Post bar, looking for a new victim.

These were the songs playing on the Sony Walkman of my mind, tunes suddenly halted when I stepped into the lobby. Miguel was standing there awaiting me, dragging indifferently on an herbal cigarette and looking at me expressionlessly as I entered.

“How’s tricks?” I asked casually.

Pointing expressionlessly toward the office, he wanted to talk in seclusion. Could I have shut off a wrong circuit? Did I accidentally permit school children entry? Perhaps the cantankerous projectionist had complained.

When we finally sat together in that cramped office with the door closed, he began, “Do you feel it?”

“Do I feel what?”

“It’s lying between us like an age-old sequoia, look at it! Can’t you see it?” He pointed to the empty safe. He had discovered that I had participated in a crime that he had exclusive rights to.

“You mean the fact that we’re both stealing money,” I replied.

He snubbed his cigarette and sat so silently that all I could hear was the buzz of the fluorescent lighting overhead.

“Look, I don’t find it shameful. You shouldn’t either,” I said offering him a way out. He sighed and smiled and laughed.

“All right.” He looked up at me and included, “Honor between thieves. You’re not pissed are you?”

“Why should I be pissed?”

“Because I would’ve been pissed if you confronted me with it. I mean, I didn’t know that you knew about me. I was about to fire you, but now I feel like a regular Judas.”

“Well, I’ll always be straight with you,” I said, not intending any puns on my sexual preference. “If you ever find it otherwise, just prove it to me and hey, I’ll quit.”

“Thank you,” he said almost spiritually. Leaning over in his chair, he gave me a gripping handshake. Then, leaning back, he looked unblinkingly at me. I sensed he was struggling to bring all this to a graceful conclusion, so I decided to give him a hand.

“By the amount Ox pays us, all he buys is my presence. Loyalty costs a lot more.”

A smile broke on his face. “I felt bad before, ’cause I was going to fire you just to preserve my own facade of honesty. But now I even feel like more of a hypocrite. See I never have been entirely honest with you, but maybe I can make it up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, let me first ask you, how did you figure that I was stealing?”

“By comparing the amount the theater made on the days you did work with the days you didn’t.”

“I figured that would be the only way that I could be discovered, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Because the old manager who I used to work with was such an asshole. But now you’re here, and I need a partner,” he said.

“What are you proposing?”

“Let me present a speculative prospectus.” The hippie had collapsed away to the businessman. I leaned back and listened. He talked about raising capital. Then he talked about leverage, interest rates, credit rating and finally investments; the future. I had no idea what he was getting at. He sounded like one of those sleazy guys who buys time on syndicated TV to hype something. Finally, though, he started talking about specifics.

“Hoboken is dying as a blue-collar community. But it is slowly returning as a white-collar, yuppie neighborhood. Now I located a place, an old garage that could easily be converted into a theater. I’ve got an independent contractor who already has plans. I’ve even got two used thirty-five millimeter projector heads. All I would need are lamp houses, and I’ll have the projectors.”

He talked suspense fully for another two hours, telling me about everything from the fold-down chairs and emergency lights to the hiring of ushers. But he kept me wondering about where I entered in this picture. I think he wanted me to approach him, but I decided to sit back and let him make the offer; he wouldn’t take the chance of telling me about all this if he didn’t want something. Deciding to show him that I was no school boy, I started arguing about all the possible bugs. “How about the projectionist wage? How long could you sustain that if you don’t break even quickly?”

“Hobokens a non-union town. We can exploit some kid.”

“How many other theaters are there?”

“Just one duplex in the entire town, the real competition will come from the five or six video stores.”

“How about a distributor?”

“If it can be done,” he said, “we can do it.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said ‘we.’ What do you mean, ‘we’?” I’d have done anything for the chance of getting in on the ground floor of any kind of deal.

“Here’s where you come in. If I can scrape together ten grand by this June, then this place will soon be ours. But we have to keep on a rigid payment schedule.”

He wouldn’t involve me in this if he didn’t absolutely need to. “Who exactly owns this place now and why won’t they let you just put something down and extend the payments?”

“We can make the amount together by June,” he said, not volunteering anything else. “But we can only do it if we do it together. How about it?”

“Let me ask you two questions. First, where exactly will I stand in this Hoboken theater?”

“Well, this would really depend on how much you’re willing to participate. Would you like to work at the theater full time?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, a seventy-thirty split on what we clear, with possible options to a larger share when you have more money, that would be my rough estimate. What’s the second question?”

“How much will we have to steal from here each night, on the average, to reach the deadline date?”

“We’ll need to average a little more than a hundred-and-eighty a night.”

“We might be able to get away with it,” I replied, “if we don’t get caught by the checkers.” They were people hired by the production and distribution companies to check against what we were doing.

“Well, that’s the risk. How about it?”

I thought about it. I could discreetly take in half of the prescribed amount and still live high on the hog. Or I could agree to a partnership, steal an incriminating sum each night, risk getting caught and live on a pittance. More than any other word, America meant ownership and by that definition I was a patriot. “Okay.”

“Okay, fine. I’ve already arranged for another account at the bank we deposit the theater’s money. Every night, fill out a deposit slip to this other account and zip it into the same night bag, understand?”

“Isn’t that playing it a little close?”

“Everything’ll be fine.” Apparently one of the bank officers was in on the deal.

We both gave a final shake on the deal and then he left. While considering his offer, I’d scratched my calf. When feeling moisture along my fingertips, I noticed blood and quickly realized that I’d accidentally torn open the Angela bite scab. I cleaned the wound and taped a napkin to it. I then checked my arm wound, which seemed to be healing. I then thought about Glenn. She seemed so strong and infallible during the day of that hold up. I walked in on her life at a bad time, and watched her deteriorate. I, on the other hand, had remained consistently in shambles.

She was undoubtedly waiting for something better, so I decided at that moment to bring it to an end. Taking out a piece of paper, I wrote:

Dear Glenn,

What we had was short lived but sincere and to try to continue it any longer would be prolonging a natural end. I don’t want you to see this as a rejection, but what we have is neither a relationship nor a friendship. All this can lead to is preventing a more important person from entering either of our lives. Enclosed, I’m returning the keys that you entrusted me with.

Take care.

I signed it and then reread it. She wouldn’t mind breaking up with me as much as being dumped I figured. So I wrote the phone number of the theater allowing her the option of formally dumping me.

I then taped her house key and the car keys to the letter. I put it in a stamped envelope and sealed it. Glenn was actually quite a find, but the decision seemed noble and wise—occasionally those decisions also turn out to bring the most gain. It was only when 1 stuffed the letter into my jacket pocket that 1 remembered all of Helmsley’s books I had left in the Mercedes. What Helmsley would have liked me to do with the books was the next float in the parade of questions. I didn’t think he’d forgive me if I just sold them and bought leisure gear with the proceeds. I could probably donate the whole mess to the New York Public Library on Forty-second Street, Perhaps I could stipulate that there would be some established title honoring him: The Helmsley Collection. It had a nice ring to it. Anyway all this meant I couldn’t break up with Glenn yet, so I called her. Answering the phone, she sounded calm, “Where are you?”

“I’m at work. Why, what’s wrong?”

“I thought you promised that you’d be in the vicinity?”

“You said you wanted to spend the evening alone and 1 had to work.”

“I suppose so,” she said.

“The theater doesn’t close for another half hour or so. Would you like me to come by then?”

“Do you want to?” she asked.

“Sure,” I replied, lying. I had to take the books to the library tomorrow anyway. This way it looked like I was doing her the favor.

“See you, then,” she said and hung up. With jittery hands, I counted out the nightly sum of money and prepared Miguel’s cut. As soon as I had finished turning back the gauge, establishing Miguel’s cut, flipping off the lights, locking the theater, and dropping the money in the night drop, I hailed a southbound cab on Third Avenue. It went down the Bowery, over the bridge, right on Tillary, left on Court, and on Pierrepont it halted. I dropped a fivedollar bill in the front seat, dashed up the brownstone steps, and knocked softly on her front door.

She opened the door. As soon as I entered, she hugged me and dissolved on my shoulder, crying, “It’s all a mess!”

“What happened?”

“I saw Adolphe.”

“You mean, like Hitler?”

She was too far in tears to reply. “What mother would name her son Adolphe?” Through sobs came broken phrases, “He’s so sorry…right now he needs…he says he loves me…he needs me so….” She couldn’t stop crying, and 1 couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was saying.

“Space!” she finally barked. “The jerk needs space…”

“I can understand that,” I replied, trying to be understanding.

“Oh? So what are you saying. It’s okay to cheat on someone, long as you get away with it?”

“No, I just meant that everyone needs some space.”

“What are you saying? That I’m difficult to be around?”

“Not at all…”

“Do you feel uncomfortable around me?”

“No…no, I’m just saying that everyone needs some space. Of course I feel comfortable around you.” We talked some more along the same shaky and halting lines until she yawned and said she was tired. The nervousness was too much and I vowed that first thing tomorrow I would unload the books, park the Mercedes in the basement, and bail out of whatever I had gotten involved in. We lay together without touching. I could feel her fidgeting in the darkness and wasn’t certain what she wanted. She seemed very tense and it made me nervous and sweaty. Somehow, eventually, we fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I found myself alone again; I had been awakened by the front door buzzing. I wrapped myself in a sheet and grabbed a note that Glenn had left for me. I read it as I headed for the front door:

Sorry about last night. This is obviously a very unstable time for me. I’m not like this at all. I really don’t even know you and I feel disgusting dragging you through this. I’m willing to make an effort though.

Yours,

Glenn

When I finally went downstairs, I hesitated at the door. Suppose it was Adolphe wanting to scorch the earth. Peeking through the Venetian blinds, I checked out a youth standing on the front stoop with a knapsack that said, Rolling Stone Magazine.I watched him waving good-bye to a passing group of kids and then he rang the doorbell again. I figured that he was peddling subscriptions.

“We don’t want any,” I yelled though the door.

“Neither do I,” he yelled back. Opening the front door, he quickly marched in. He was in his early teens, wearing a Sid Vicious T-shirt, tight black pants, and combat boots. He didn’t seem surprised by my improvised toga.

“What are you selling?” I asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. I’m Tom, where’s Adolphe?”

“Glenn isn’t getting along with him just now,” I informed him.

“She’s getting along with you, isn’t she? My mom must have warned you about me.”

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“Glenn. Who do you think?”

“You’re lying,” 1 replied. There was no way that Glenn could have engendered this kid.

He dropped his bag to the floor, still retaining the straps in his fingers, “My mother is a young cutie named Glenda, she had me when she was just a teenybopper.”

“I never… she never even…”

“That Glenn’s quite a card, ain’t she?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked with a slight parental condescension.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” he replied. Then he tugged the bag back up to his shoulder and mounted the stairs, three steps at a time.

1 couldn’t deal with this, so 1 quickly got dressed and left. On the subway 1 realized that I had completely overlooked the purpose of the day: dump the books, the car, and the relationship.