Epitaph

The box opened and almost everything came spilling out of it.

And that's how it happened, the way most things happen-not by design, but by simple, stupid accident-that William finally discovered what the numbers meant.

It was so simple, so ridiculously obvious, that for a good half minute or so he thought he must be mistaken, that it would dissolve like a thirst-induced mirage as soon as he gave it a second look.

But it didn't.

And he remembered again how there's two kinds of seeing, just like there's two kinds of reading. By rote, where every letter's letter-perfect, every word sounded out just the way Webster's tells you, but with just the most rudimentary understanding, without any real comprehension at all. And the second kind of reading, which is like reading with a third eye, like reading between the lines, where you suddenly understand everything. And William had been reading things the first way, not the second, so though he'd gone through Jean's box and made note of everything, he'd seen nothing. And he hadn't been listening either, not really. What had Weeks said? For a long while he did nothing, really nothing. That's right. He did nothing. Because he didn't read or have a television or even an interest. He didn't read. Or have a television, or an interest, or a hobby, or maybe even a friend. But he did have something. A baseball program, a little black book, two salt and pepper shakers, a couple of flyers. And a library card. He didn't read. But he had that. 'Mr. Brickman,' William said, 'could you do me a favor and pick up that library card for me.' Mr. Brickman, still smarting from his previous blunder, smiled meekly and picked up the card. 'Does it have a date?' 'A date?' 'A date of issue?' 'Oh… let's see…' Mr. Brickman peered at it. 'Yep… March, of this year. Expires in 2000. Made out to-' 'So it's a new card,' William said, 'brand-new,' cutting him off, but not so much speaking to Brickman as to himself. 'Yeah. It's a new card. So?' 'So…?' So. So we stay in bed, so we turn on Teenagers Who Marry Their Fathers, so we bet the OTB, so we stay put. Or so we start over.

'Want to go to the library, Mr. Brickman?'

Mr. Brickman said okay.

Why the Flushing library, Mr. Brickman wanted to know, once they caught the bus on Northern Boulevard- William waving hello to his old friend, the black woman driver. Why the Flushing library when there was a perfectly good one right in Astoria-no more than ten blocks from them? And-if he hadn't noticed, it was hot outside, and-if he hadn't noticed, he could still hardly walk, so why then go all the way to Flushing?

'Because that's the library that's got what I want,' William said.

That shut Mr. Brickman up-but only temporarily. He began, instead, to point out all the probable muggers among their fellow bus passengers-which was every man between fifteen and fifty who exhibited the slightest signs of antisocial behavior: not talking to the person next to them, or talking too much to the person next to them, or rolling their eyes, or dropping their chin, or cracking their knuckles, or biting their nails, or sleeping, or, more ominously, pretending to sleep-which just about, ladies and gentlemen, convicted each and every man on the bus. Muggers all.

And ladies and gentlemen, here's the amazing thing. William might have dismissed it with a condescending smile, he might have, all things being equal, but all things weren't equal; Mr. Brickman was old and they weren't, Mr. Brickman was old and so was he. And now that he'd been suitably reminded of that, he found himself scanning the would-be Murderers Row right along with Mr. Brickman, listening to his commentary with a judicious ear, and wondering if maybe that one did look a little suspicious, if that other one did have some bad intentions hiding somewhere behind his seemingly harmless demeanor. The problem with the younger ones was they all looked like that now-like hoods, they all had the hood look. Looking dangerous was in fashion-even your face had to look dangerous, you had to have the sneer. The problem was, some of those sneering delinquents were grade A honor students, but okay, some weren't- some of them were the Puerto Rican kid who'd spit in his face. The problem was, the only way to tell them apart was to wait until one of them knocked you down and the other one picked you up and walked you across the street. No doubt about it, this getting-old thing was tough-you had to be able to see a little keener just when your eyesight was walking out the door.

Then too, there was the way they looked at you. Or didn't. William had become aware of that only gradually, the way you gradually become aware that you've grown fat-one article of clothing after another growing tighter till suddenly they're all tight, too tight to wear, and you have to stop blaming it on shrinkage, on that stupid Chinese cleaners down the block, and face facts. That's sort of the way William discovered that he'd grown invisible. That he'd become, without the slightest help from Claude Rains, the Invisible Man. No doubt about it. He'd walk down the street and no one saw him. No one. And the older he got, the more invisible he became. To pretty girls, attractive women, to homely women, to just about every variety of woman there was, he'd suddenly ceased to exist. That's what he'd noticed first. Then he noticed men weren't seeing him either. Most men. They saw through him, around him, behind him, but not him. Which is just the way most people see the old-they don't, and the ones that do generally have something bad on their minds, like rearranging your face.

Back to Mr. Brickman's fear then; it was a real fear. William felt it, and being old, he caught it, and catching it, he was forced to sit with it for the entire twenty- minute ride into Flushing. Right now they were passing over Flushing Bridge, the river beneath them so pumped full of pollutants it resembled one of those tar pits, handy graveyards for numerous woolly mammoths. This one had swallowed cars though, cars and washing machines and garden hoses and rusted train tracks. There was a sandpit warehouse right at its edge, but the river refused to reflect it, or its clock, which was frozen, had been frozen for years, at precisely 2:17. It was like a reminder, that clock-that the only way to stop time was to drop dead.

The library was dim, and considering the lack of working air-conditioning, surprisingly cool. It had the look and feel of a church-the same portentous quiet, the same expression of serene contemplation on the faces of the adults there. The non-adults looked about the same too-they looked like they'd rather be somewhere else. Mr. Brickman looked like he'd rather be somewhere else too-back in Astoria on his home turf. William felt a little like a transgressor here himself-he hadn't been to a library in years, or, in fact, to a church either. The sound of his cane echoed through the rows of books causing reader after reader to look up at him as if he'd made a particularly rude noise. Once they'd seen him though, or not seen him, it was back to the books in a flash.

The librarian, a long-haired young man who seemed imprisoned by his tie and jacket, walked over to offer his assistance-either that, or to tell him to get out. It was hard to tell from his expression, which was decidedly neutral. But courtesy won out.

'What can I do for you?' he asked.

Everything, William was tempted to say. Only everything. But he restrained himself. Instead, he took the list of numbers that was folded in his hand, Jean's numbers, and dropped it onto the counter, flattening it out as if it were a road map and he was in need of directions. Which, as a matter of fact, he was. For I'm lost, he might have said. I'm lost and I need to know where I am and where the place is that I'm looking for. And I have to know how to get there, that too, I have to know the route.

But what he actually said was: 'These are call numbers. Do you think you can tell me where they are?'

Mr. Brickman, who was peeking over his shoulder said: 'What are they… novels?'

'Periodicals,' the librarian said. 'I'll have to look downstairs. Take a seat.'

So they sat. Mr. Brickman drumming his fingers on the table, William doing his own sort of rat-ta-tat-tat in his head, Shankin to Waldron to Ross, wondering exactly what periodicals Jean had been so interested in, and why.

Then the librarian was back upstairs, two magazines in his hand and an apologetic expression on his bemused face. No doubt about it-if it was possible to be both, both amused and sorry, he was.

'One magazine isn't here anymore,' he said.

Okay, William thought, that took care of the I'm sorry part.

'Here's the other two,' he said, dropping them on the table.

Which took care of the I'm amused part.

The first magazine was called Tattoo and had some sort of biker chick on the cover. The second magazine was called Healthy Skin and had some sort of Swedish chick on the cover. Those were the periodicals he'd asked for. He'd have been amused himself, if he hadn't been in pain and hadn't been in need of answers and hadn't been at the short end of the rope. He'd have smiled too-the way Mr. Brickman was smiling, or trying not to.

'What gives?' Mr. Brickman said.

Yes, what gives? The Table of Contents-that gives. It gives the contents. The contents it gave of Tattoo were 'Biker Babe of the Month-Inside Foldout.' 'Snakes, Scorpions, and Scythes-The Tattoo Artists of San Fran.' And 'Getting Your Last Year's Girlfriend Out of Your Heart and Off of Your Chest-The Off and Ons of Tattoo