“Sure. Because you’re a jerk.”
I pushed my face into her chest. She played with my hair. I wouldn’t have wanted my future fans to see me like that. Tenderness is a hard pill to swallow-there’s always a big risk involved. It’s like sticking your hand through the bars of a cage.
Betty had no bra on, and my stool had no back. It all felt so good that we nearly wound up on the floor, but at the last minute I called my back muscles into action, squealing in horror. I felt the end was near. My last bit of strength was disappearing like the cherry blossoms in a Japanese garden. So it is said in
“You look tired,” she said.
“No, I’m fine.”
She liked my hair-it got along famously with her fingers. I myself was happy to have her weight on my lap; it made things less dreamlike, made me know she was really there, and nowhere else. I could have just picked her up and carried her away. But I didn’t try anything fancy-I didn’t want to budge. I’d have died first. I felt lead pouring down my spine, and it made me grimace. And yet my soul was light as a feather, carefree and docile, floating up in the slightest of breezes. I couldn’t figure it out.
“Anyway, there’s no room for us to stay upstairs,” she said. “What are we going to do?”
This kind of remark would have destroyed me a few minutes earlier, but I was beyond it all by then. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. Thinking itself was a herculean feat. Still, I did it.
“I’m going to go get in the car,” I said.
Luckily she came with me. I was taller than she was, so it was easy to lean on her. As I feared, the door to the street was locked, so we had to go back up and come down the miserable stairs. On the way, I was suddenly struck with terror-I saw myself being swallowed by a boa constrictor. By the time I sagged into the backseat of the car my teeth were almost chattering. Betty gave me a worried glance.
“You don’t feel good? My God, you look like you have a fever.”
I made my hand into a white flag. I waved it.
“No, no. Everything’s fine.”
I pulled a blanket up over my legs in one last act of lucidity.
“Betty, where are you? Don’t leave me…”
“I’m here! What’s gotten into you? You want a cigarette?”
My eyes closed by themselves.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“Hey, did you get a look at all the stars? Look…”
“Hmmm… yeah, it’s nice out…” I mumbled.
“Hey, you sleeping?”
“No, no. I’m cool…”
“You think we’re going to stay here all night…?”
15
At around eleven o’clock we went to the funeral. The sun was beautiful and the sky was blue. We hadn’t seen weather like that in months. The air smelled sweet. I’d slept well; one of the advantages of luxury cars is that you can just about stretch your legs out and the seats are comfortable. I hadn’t been cold. There I was in the sunlight, my eyes half closed, while they lowered the coffin, hulling and puffing. I was meditating on the warmth of the sun on my face, realizing that man and the universe are one. I was realizing these things mostly to make the time pass. I wondered when we were going to eat.
No one seemed to care. We went back to the house without saying a word. I lagged behind. It took a few minutes of walking around in circles above the pianos before someone had the bright idea to open the refrigerator. But she had only been an old woman who lived alone-a poor little thing already half dead, who ate like a bird. We had to make do with a little pork chop, half a can of corn, some plain yogurt already past its expiration date, and some crackers. Eddie was feeling better. He was pale and his forehead was still wrinkled, but he’d recovered his cool-he asked me for the salt in a peaceful voice. Luckily the weather’s nice, he added.
He spent part of the afternoon going through a drawer full of photographs and papers, talking to himself. We watched him and yawned. We turned the TV on, then had to get up I don’t know how many times to change the channel. Finally night fell. I went out to do some shopping with Betty. We took Bongo with us.
It was a terrific little area-trees everywhere, and very few cars in the street. I felt like I hadn’t breathed in centuries. I almost smiled as I walked. When we got back I put a huge casserole in the oven. Eddie had shaved, showered, and combed his hair. After the main dish, we downed six pounds of cheese and an apple pie as big as the table. I cleared, then started on the dishes in the kitchen. The girls wanted to watch this western I’d already seen a hundred times, so it didn’t bother me. I was back in good shape.
While Bongo was finishing up the casserole, I sat down and smoked a cigarette. Aside from the gunshots in the next room, all I could hear was the silence in the street. It felt good-as if we were in the heart of a summer night. Then I rolled up my sleeves and sudsed up the kitchen sink, my cigarette between my teeth.
I was putting the final touches on a floral plate when Eddie came in. I gave him a wink. He stood behind me, his drink in his hand, looking at his feet. I started scrubbing at some burned-on grease.
“Listen,” he began. “I’ve got a proposition for you-the two of you.”
I tensed, my hands under the water, looking straight ahead of me at the tile on the wall-splattering myself.
“Betty and I stay here and take care of the store,” I said.
“How’d you know?”
“Beats me.”
“Well, I’m going to go ask Betty what she thinks about it. Is it okay with you, though?”
“Yeah, it’s okay with me.”
He went back into the other room, nodding his head.
I went back to the dishes. I took two or three deep breaths to get my head back together-to finish the dishes without breaking too many-but I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing. I found myself staring at the running water, imagining the serenity that awaited us. From time to time I’d wash a plate. I didn’t want to get delirious over Eddie’s offer. I didn’t want my dreams to get too concrete. I chased them out of my brain. I preferred vagueness, letting the soft feelings wash over me without thinking. It’s a shame that movie music is so trite-I deserved better than that.
As expected, Betty flipped. She was always up for anything new. She was always sure that something somewhere was waiting for us, and whenever I dared to modify her thesis a little-saying that it was OTHER THINGS, ELSEWHERE that awaited us-she’d laugh in my face and skewer me with her eyes, saying, Why’re you always splitting hairs? What difference does it make? I didn’t argue. I just lay down and waited for it to blow over. We spent most of the evening going over everything. We tried to make it as simple as possible. It was easy to see that Eddie was in fact making us a gift of it, even though he made it seem otherwise.
“Anyway, she was all I had left, and for the moment Lisa and I don’t need anything… Now wouldn’t be a good time to sell, and I’m not about to leave my mother’s house to just anybody.”
He was looking at the two of us out of the corner of his eye as if we were his children. I opened his beer for him, laughing, while he explained about selling pianos. All in all, it didn’t seem too mysterious.
“Listen, I’m not worried,” he said.
“Me neither.”
“If anything goes wrong, you know where to find me.”
“We’ll take care of everything, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, you’re at home here.”
“Come by anytime, Eddie.”
