The Main

Two girls sit in a booth near the counter. They are giggling and excited because a romance is beginning. One girl pushes the other with her elbow and says, “Ask him.” The other presses her hand over her mouth and shakes her head, her eyes sparkling. “Not me. You ask him!” She dares a quick look at the two grinning Hungarian boys in the next booth. “Go on!” the first girl insists, stifling her giggle. “No, you ask him!”

The Chinese waitress has found time to grab a cigarette. She mutters to herself, “For Christ’s sake, somebody ask him!”

Four young women from the garment factory walk briskly down St. Laurent, laughing and kidding one another about boyfriends. One tries to catch a snowflake on her tongue; another starts a bawdy folk song about a lute player who will fix your spinet for you like it’s never been fixed before, if you have a fresh new ecu to give him for the lesson. They link arms and walk four abreast with long energetic strides as they sing at the top of their voices. They overtake an old Chasidic Jew with peyiss, his shtreimel level on his head, his long black overcoat collecting snowflakes. Playfully, they split, two on each side, and link arms with the startled man who is pulled along at a pace alien to his dignified step. “Buy us a drink, father! What do you say?” one of them shouts, and the others laugh. The old man stops, and the girls continue on, linking up four abreast again, their butts tweaking merrily along. He shakes his head, confused but not displeased. Youth. Youth. He looks up to check the street sign, as he always does before turning down toward the house he has lived in for twenty-two years.

Snow slants against the darkened window of a fish shop in which there is a glass tank, its sides green with algae. A lone carp glides back and forth in narcotized despair.

The long wooden stoop of LaPointe’s apartment building is blanketed with six inches of untrodden snow. He holds the rail and half pulls himself up each step, tired, empty. Because his head is down, he sees first her feet, then her battered shopping bag.

“Hello,” she says.

He passes her without a word and opens the front door. She follows him into the vestibule, lit only by a fifteen-watt bulb. He leans against the banister and looks at her, his eyes hooded.

She shrugs, her lips compressed in a flat half grin. The expression says, Well, here I am. That’s the way it goes.

LaPointe rubs his whiskered cheek. What’s the use of this? He doesn’t need this. He is empty at last, and at peace. He wants to finish it off easily, cocooned in his routine, his chair by the window, his coffee, his Zola. It’s not as though she would stay. The first time she finds a handsome Greek boy to buy her ouzo and dance with her, she’ll be gone again. And probably she’ll come sniffing back when he gets tired of her. What is she after all? A stupid twit the age of his daughters, the age of his wife. And worst of all, he would have to tell her about this thing in his chest. It wouldn’t be fair to let her wake up some morning and reach over to touch him. And find him…

No, it’s better not to want anything, need anything. There’s no point in opening yourself up to hurt. It’s stupid. Stupid.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he asked.