J R

  —Yes well I don’t know about all that Coen . . . he sat tapping the empty cup for a moment, and then stood pushing the chair back and the jacket off to the floor.—You see you got to remember he was pretty upset by all this, I just met him that once out there that night and I’ve tried to call him since but I never can get him at home, his one aunt there even told me one time he was off on a business trip but . . . he paused, pouring, and turned,—there’s just something about him you like, something you kind of like and trust about him that you want to help out. Now right now he’s maybe a little mixed up but I think I could talk some sense to him and maybe . . .

  —That may all be quite true Mister Angel but I don’t quite see the precise relevance to . . .

  —Well put it this way then. I don’t exactly want to go into details here but put it this way. If instead of Stella holding twenty-five shares against my twenty-three it turned out that her and Edward split that twenty-five I’d, well I guess you see what I mean . . . and he raised the cup again before he came down behind the desk.

  —Oh. I see.

  —Yes you see it’s not hardly the question of the money here it’s, it might even sound to you like I’m just trying to step in and grab all I can but . . .

  —No you make your position quite clear Mister Angel but, excuse me, there is a point regarding this nephew you may have overlooked. Now even assuming that half the residue of the estate should fall to him and that he is as ah, as appealing a young man as you find him, it is still not established whether or not he is a minor and should that prove the case of course, his aunts or his father, or rather his Uncle James it would be if his claim on the decedent’s estate proved valid, one of them at any rate would in all likelihood be named his guardian in this matter with the right to exercise the rights of his twelve and a half shares added to their aggregate of twenty-seven. Now . . .

  —Well but I wouldn’t mean to . . .

  —No but please let me finish because I shouldn’t want you to misunderstand me. While his aunts did express a rather impatient interest in seeing some return on their investment in the form of dividends I don’t for a moment wish to accuse them of being particularly venal, in fact it seems quite a normal attitude for anyone apparently living in somewhat straitened circumstances. But even on my brief visit with them I did feel that their grasp on reality seemed somewhat ah, tenuous at times, they do appear to have occupied that Long Island residence for some time yet what they refer to as the local paper is a weekly they have mailed to them from the Indiana town the whole family apparently left a good generation ago. The attorney they referred me to there has never answered any of my correspondence and I almost feel his very existence may be open to question, and very frankly the figure of James Bast himself seems so ephemeral that when they tell me he is abroad somewhere accepting an award there is the sense that they may be referring to the Paris Exposition of nineteen eleven. The only point I wish to make is that if these ah, if they exercised anything approaching control in an enterprise I was trying to conduct in a rational, businesslike manner, I believe I would be rather uneasy.

  —Well that makes enough sense but . . .

  —Now and so, excuse me, from your point of view even though you may have reason to regard the prospect of your, of the decedent’s daughter holding this larger number of shares as a threat to your position, it still might be somewhat safer than the alternative I just outlined if you can explore the possibility of these five remaining shares, added to yours of course they would give you the bare majority you . . .

  —Yes well I can add Coen, he said looking up from the long narrow ellipse constricting Gibbs 5 that had taken shape under the blunt pencil,—the problem is so can she, so can Stella.

  —But I oh, oh I see, I wasn’t aware this Gibbs person might be someone you both had access to, in that case of course the sooner you can . . .

  —Well I don’t know who in hell she has access to as you put it, Jack Gibbs, I lost track of him a few years ago but, this may sound funny but I thought I saw him not too long ago right out here a few blocks away, that first minute I saw him it couldn’t have been anybody else but him and then ljust wasn’t sure, playing ball with a little girl there and he had a bad limp that Gibbs never had and what the hell he’d be doing out here next to nowhere in the first place. And then he was gone and when I asked the little girl after she said that was her father, I’d heard someplace he’d got married that didn’t last but just a few months, right after him and Stella stopped seeing each other and he got to drinking there for a while . . .

  —Yes, well of course the sooner you . . .

  —See he worked here for a while just before I came, just real brilliant but, I don’t know but just to give you an idea, one time when we’d all three had lunch and he’d taken a few drinks a bum came up to us on the street with his hand out and the wind blowing his torn coat, a whole wreck of a man that couldn’t hardly see us anyway but Jack all of a sudden reached out and gave him a dollar and that really, well you know a long time after that I said something about it once to Stella and all she said was, she said he did it because what he saw coming toward him was himself. And I just always remember the way she said that . . . he broke off, returned to the figure before him to fringe its edge with heavy strokes and stand abruptly, reaching his cup as he passed toward the cabinet.—See Stella, he said from over there bent to tug at the door again,—sometimes she’s just got no real understanding of just how the way things are, that this idea you can fail will just build up inside a man . . . he tugged it,—or you know maybe she does, he tugged sharply,—better than anybody can guess . . .

  —No be careful!

  —There . . .! He stood with half the door off in his hand,—now look at this thing, look at it! That’s a wood cabinet I had put in here, did that split like wood with no grain to split along? There isn’t any. They press sawdust and glue together and paint on a grain . . .

  —Yes I, I see it is Mister Angel but I wouldn’t let it upset me this much, after all it’s only a . . .

  —Coen God damn it can’t you see what I mean? Can’t you see this is what’s going to happen right here, after all it took to put all this together? Can’t you see you go public and all these people owning you want is dividends and running their stock up, you don’t give them that and they sell you out, you do and some bunch of vice presidents some place you never heard of like the ones that turned this out, this wood product they call it, they spot you and launch an offer and all of a sudden you’re working for them trimming and cutting and finally bringing in people to turn something out they don’t care what the hell it is, there’s no pride in their work because what you’ve got them turning out nobody could be proud of in the first place . . . He broke the piece over his knee and stood up with the bottle,—if they’d just understand I’m not just trying to grab this whole show for myself but to keep it doing something that’s, that’s worth doing . . .

  —Yes and of course the sooner you can . . .

  —You know it’s funny, I look back sometimes and I think if it hadn’t of been for Stella in there, sometimes I think we could have done something here, me and Gibbs, really done something.

  —Yes of course the sooner you can reach him . . . the unemptied cup was placed carefully aside for a sharp squaring of papers on the corner of the desk,—the sooner the status of these five shares can be clarified and . . .

  —I know, I’ve been keeping my eye on the time here, I thought I’d just walk over about now where I saw him playing with that little girl if it was him, if it really could have been him I saw . . . He’d put the bottle down on the desk and stooped behind it to pick up his jacket from the floor and shake it, and he dropped it over the back of the chair again.

  —I thought you might want to ride back into Manhattan with me, the day’s practically over . . . and the briefcase came up for papers squared smartly on the desk,—I could wait for you if you . . .

  —No you go ahead, he said without looking u
p from the pad on the desk before him as though reading something in the heavy shadings of pencil for the first time, tore off the page and crumpled it as he sat down again,—I wanted to try to get a word with Terry later anyhow, don’t want to bother her now but I thought I’d get her aside after we close up shop here, just something I want to clear up . . . he reached for the blunt pencil and sat back picking it clean with a thumbnail.—That’s her plant over there, she was helping out on the decorating, I thought she might have some ideas for bringing it back to life a little.

  —Oh yes, well we’ve given up on them in our offices, all bamboo now, a Japanese miniature bamboo, of course the initial outlay for these plastic varieties runs somewhat high but eventually . . . the briefcase snapped closed and then paused in its swing toward the door.—I’m just leaving this to be typed out and, Mister Angel if you don’t mind my, if you just got your mind off all this for a little while and did something to, went somewhere and had a good time . . .

  —That’s funny you’d say that right now Coen, you know when I was a boy we were brought up pretty strict, I had a kind of asthma problem that made it kind of rough sometimes. You see we grew apples up there and my brother and I had to work packing crates, and we’d get a chance to read the funnies down there in the papers we used packing apples because funny papers just weren’t allowed in our house. We weren’t real close at all but in a way you look back maybe we were, we used to hunt rabbit together with twenty-twos and I still have that old octagonal barrel Winchester in a closet somewhere. I remember it seemed strange to me then, before he got killed in the war what he always wanted to be was a geologist.

  —I, I see yes, well I’ve left those papers there to be typed and as soon as you . . .

  —I’ll get Myrna to knock them right out . . . he leaned forward, hand searching the button under the desk, and reached the unemptied paper cup.—Anyhow every year in the spring the circus would show up, but with the animals and all the hay they’d have around I never could go to it with that asthma I had, I couldn’t even go near the parade. So the night it would come to town, there was a hill right up outside the town you could look down from and my father would take me up there in the old open Reo we had, and we’d sit up there and watch the whole thing, just the two of us up there. You couldn’t see everything too clear because it wasn’t all that close and the evening was coming on, but you could see the wagons and horses and the elephants and hear the band playing, you’d get a sudden little breeze that was almost warm and bring the music right up with it, and the lights coming on all along the way, I don’t think we hardly talked at all, and you know? he said, chair tilting back and the jacket gone to the floor again.—Maybe those were the best times I ever had . . .

  —Excuse me Mister Angel did, did you buzz? She paused there behind the figure backed to the door, briefcase shifting from hand to hand.

  —I think he just wants you to type up that material there Myrna, and send me a copy?

  —Sure okay Mister Coen . . . she came across for the papers neatly squared on the desk.—Is it okay if I type these out front Mister Angel? where we just got coffee . . .? pausing, for what might have been a permissive shrug under the clinging shirt, before she retreated to the door and down the cement block green where her discrete walk rose and fell to the eyes fixed discreetly upon it as far as a rail of golden oak, flattened there with no intent apparent but to let him pass, pursued with a wave and—Goodbye Mister Coen, come see us again now . . .

  —I just broke a nail.

  —I got this Nu-Nail back in my desk but I don’t want to go back in and get it, you know?

  —I know, did he say anything?

  —I don’t mean that, he just seems sort of far out, you know?

  —I know see what I meant? like you have this feeling he’s looking up you only you look up and he’s looking off someplace like he’s not even there.

  —I know, anyway I have to type this up before we go, wait for me?

  —I want to go to this sale on sweaters maybe, okay? and the emery board took up briskly,—what, you meeting somebody? and the emery board stopped as she looked up with no answer.—I still didn’t get used to your hair black, she said pushing back red,—he still like it?

  Paper rolled into the typewriter.—Are you kidding?

  —He sounds like a real character . . . and typewriter and emery board paced time unbroken by looks to the clock where a good portion had fallen away when they stopped, paper pulled from the typewriter carried down the empty hall to the empty office, left on the empty desk.

  —He’s not even in there Terry, did you see him go out?

  —Maybe he went out by the shop, come on . . .

  —Did you see my comb . . .? Drawers slammed, coathangers rattled on the rack, they came out arm in arm, down one curb and up another, rounding a corner in step past brick and fieldstone sham, down that curb and—Terry look!

  —What’s the . . .

  —Didn’t you see him? The Boss, didn’t you see him up there running? chasing somebody?

  —Are you crazy? What would he . . .

  —No I swear it, right around that corner up there . . . and they moved on again, past fence penning aprons of dead grass and on around that corner up there toward the elevated limb of subway, rummaging in purses as they reached its steps, looking behind them and both ways on the elevated platform waiting pressed against a telescoping loaf of bread surcharged Astoria Gents Suck until the train came.—Don’t look now, he just got in the next car . . .

  —Did he see us?

  The seats filled, so did the aisle, feet kicking aside torn newspaper, flattening candy wrappers and they sat closer, faces lowered from that hung over them agape through rimless glasses down into their tops, knees nuzzling theirs confining a briefcase of Gladstone bag design upright on the filthy floor. Lights dimmed, came up, and they roared underground.

  —He’s up the other end now, right past that woman with the green, it’s like he’s following us you know?

  —Why should he do that, wait, wait I’m getting off here with you and change for the express . . .

  —Don’t look back, is he getting off too . . .?

  Elbows found ribs, heels unprotected ankles,—ay coño . . . where strange hand cupped briefly strange skirt,—hold the door . . . and the lady in the green raincoat dug an elbow hard.—Sorry . . . he got by her to the platform, the flaunt of red hair gone that moment behind a post, newspapers streaming Mata a sus niños, shopping bags and wives’ umbrellas clutched like staves in a relay race with no course and no finish as the scream of steel wheels on steel rails left the teeming concrete shore opposite where suddenly he stared arrested, waved and shouted—Edward . . .? Bast! Edward . . .! off balance as the flaunt of red reappeared alone from behind stairs, sheltering to draw breath for the cry—Ed . . .! smashed on the roar of a train from the other direction leaving Bast halted there on the far platform hit before and behind like an invalid in a hotel fire, looking, one way, the other, finally dropping his shoulders and his eyes to dead rivulets leading toward stairs, up them catching breath at the top against uneaten frankfurters turning with venemous patience on a counter grill, more stairs and the street, where the sole of his shoe took up its flapping cadence windblown past ranked garbage cans capped at merry angles down the hill to a doorway lighted, like the rest, by a bulb so dim he cast no shadow as he entered, pursuing a broken refrain up the stairs and down linoleum worn through by fatigue, pausing to move mail with his foot before fitting the long iron key and lifting the door on the sound of running water.

  —Hi.

  —What . . .? he held the door, turning to the shadows in the stairs rising behind him.—You, you startled me I didn’t see you there.

  —You live here?

  —Yes I, well I mean I’ve been staying . . .

  —Like what’s going on with that back apartment.

  —I don’t know it’s, no one lives there right now but . . .

  —Look man I know nobod
y lives there right now, there’s some stuff of mine in there I want to get out, okay?

  —Oh, yes, yes but I don’t have a key . . .

  —I mean I’ve been sitting up here in the dark just waiting for somebody to show up, you know?

  —Yes well I, I’m sorry I can’t help you, I don’t have a key but . . . he lifted his door open and held it balanced there,—if you want to come in here and wait for, for whoever you’re waiting for . . .

  —Look man I just told you I’m not waiting for anybody, okay? Like I just want to get my stuff out of that back apartment. What’s all this, mail?

  —Yes that’s all right, I’ll get it as soon as I lean this door . . .

  —What were you like away for a month? You want me to bring it all in?

  —It’s just today’s I’m afraid, if you would yes . . .

  —Except the package, I mean you don’t expect me to lift that.

  —No no I’ll get it, if you can get the door here, it just hangs on one hinge and . . .

  —I mean like somebody sent you a box of bricks, like man I mean you really get mail.

  —Yes if . . . you can just . . . he got the box in over the sill,—put it in there on that sofa . . .

  —You left the water on.

  —Yes I can’t turn it off, he said fittifig the door back into place behind her,—something’s wrong with the . . .

  —Man I never saw such a, like I mean what’s in all the boxes, mail?

  —No just, I don’t know just papers, books and papers I think, he said following her in past 24-One Pint Mazola New Improved, 36 Boxes 200 2-Ply as she dumped the mail on the armless sofa and stood to pull off the long raincoat.

  —Hyman Grynszpan, that’s you? she said sitting beside the heap, picking up the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

  —No I’m, my name is Bast, Edward Bast. Are you, I mean . . .

  —Am I what.

  —No your name, I just meant your name . . .

  —Rhoda, okay?