Christian entering this drugstore. Glass cabinets jammed from floor to ceiling. Smells of soap, pastes and powders in all their glossy wrappings. Mustached man in his white jacket. Smiling behind his glasses. Happy at his little counter where he mixes the cures. From his storehouse of knowledge. Come in looking yellow and he gives you a blue pill and you go out green. Helps you soak up the sunshine. Now tells a woman examining a toothbrush that last year dentists said brush up and down and now this year they say brush back and forth so maybe it's better to brush in a circle till they make up their minds.
Christian in the telephone booth passing a finger up and down the names. Write the number on the back of a Vine business card. Pop in the coin, hear it go clink and bing down into the black box. Bell ringing far out over the tenement cliffs of the Bronx to where on the northern borders of the city it's wooded and green again. At the other end of all the miles of wire. Hello.
Hello. Hello.
"May I please speak to Miss Graves. Charlotte Graves."
"Speaking."
"This is Cornelius Christian."
"O hi, how wonderful to hear from you. You know, really amazing only a minute ago I was thinking of you. Of my first date I ever had. It was with you.''
"Could I take you out. Again. Tonight."
"Gee, I'd really love to but I'm sorry I've got to go to a party."
"O."
''But wait, why don't you come.''
"I'd be imposing."
"O no. You wouldn't be. Please. Come. I can bring someone if Like."
"O k."
"Why don't you call for me. It's on the way. You remember where I live."
"Fine. What time."
"Eight."
"Gee I'm really looking forward to seeing you Cornelius, gosh so good to hear from you, just out of the blue like this.''
''Well fine. Tonight then.''
"Yes."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Walk now a street. Empty houred. Till eight o'clock. Fill it with Fanny. She'll be waiting. For me to come back. To lie twinging a little in fear. As I did when she said again about all the pricks up her throats at once. That she wanted all the guys to blow their tops together. And in her own hysteric rapture she would supremely shudder. The white soft liquids pouring over her hands. Gently up and down into her throats. That strange sad tired look brooding over her elegant face. Two darkened eyes afloat on her placid sperm silkened skin.
Cornelius Christian crossing the street into Central Park. Look down and see all the bottle tops embedded in the asphalt. Pair of fat grey squirrels running up a tree chased by a dog. This whole massive country. One vast incitement to the appetite. One monstrous insult to the delicate spirit. Go up to every seemly lady on a bench. And ask. Awfully politely. May I make use of your service entrance madam. Deliver you a catastrophic fuck. From your local supplier.
Saunter up the winding path to the top of this stone hill. Hands folded behind back. Sun warm on my face. Silent men cluttered around the concrete chess tables. Fingers tapping, lips pursing over the death and slaughter drenched chess boards. And sitting there ready to checkmate a sour opponent, the man who valued me as a gentleman as I sat in the automat. Enveloped in my doom. In a sea of silent suffering. One little word of comfort saves you drowning.
Down beyond another little rocky hillside, mothers fathers and kids on the merry go round. Boys and girls lifted on the wooden ponies. Big platform turning to the trumpeting music. Few sneaky parents trying to get a ride too. Stand here, out of the funeral business forever. Done enough to Vine already without asking him to take me back on the job. Walk here homesick. With a hard on. For the soft carpets upon which sadness treads. The cool skinned mounds of Miss Musk's arse floating by two cheeked. Where in there between them I had so hornily deeply planted my pole. With nothing else to say after orgasm. Except let's do this again real soon.
Four o'clock by the bronze glockenspiel in the zoo. Musky smells and random roars of the big cats. Keeper looking so god damn confident in his faded dark green uniform, leaning against the wall. Finished hosing away all the shit. After the tiger's meat dinner. The clock tower bell chiming its tune for an audience of balloon toting kids. Stand with them alive in peace. Till some new fucker comes gliding out of the shadows to tell you he's got some oral rapture for sale for five bucks. And as you rush that much poorer to consummate he trips you up, cuts your trousers off with a razor and lifts your wallet. Dear god. Got to fight. Claw my way up through all the grey brains and heads, shrunken cocks and shrivelled balls, flat asses and hanging bellies. Who say no to me. That you can't run wild across the plateau. Where the dollars swarm like autumn leaves. Deep under foot. And falling everywhere.
Christian in the blue balmy splendor of this afternoon strolling eastwards. Stepping into a marble townhouse filled with paintings. Natty gentleman with a watch chain sporting the recent hot shit look. This picture gallery where folk come sniffing the profit lurking in the contours and colors. Drawn by innocent bastards looking for beauty. Sold to rich cunts craving esteem. Make a murmur in my best accent.
"Shit"
"I beg your pardon sir.''
"I said shit."
''I thought that's what you said, sir.''
"Yes that's right, that's what I said.''
"Might I ask are you referring to any particular piece sir. If you are, perhaps I might be of help. You see I quite agree with you. With one or two exceptions."
This smiling, chap steps forward on the marble. In a nicely tapered brown suit. To conduct Christian throughout the gallery. As if I had a platinum pot to piss in. Must think I'm in Who's Who. Or exdirectory in the monstrous volume of who aint. Opens mirrored doors into private enclosures. Treasures calmly leaning against tapestried walls. Awaiting my nod. A frisson of recognition. Gee what a swell painting.
Back on the street. New hope out of elegance. Man of a private female means. Socked in on Park Avenue. With the pale limbed Fanny Sourpuss. Calm eyed mother and daughter pass. Means a husband and father somewhere sweating. Heads of people wave along in swathes of sunshine rippling like fields of flowers. If you don't look too close. And see the vampire faces.
There it is. Vine's edifice goes up. Floor after floor. Six red hatted men. Stand round a long sixteen wheeled truck. In yellow tough shoes. They hold guide ropes in gloved hands. A huge tank hoisted. Clarance will use it to hold his formaldehyde. Down deep he'll be shaving the dead in barber chairs. As if life didn't matter at all. It doesn't. Once you blast your head off. And find out. Or wait awhile. Alive. And maybe someone will give you a smile. Shoot him dead instead. To keep the dying up. And the courtesy down.
Christian threading through the pedestrians. Who stop to look up. None of you realize I know Vine. Personally. And when God taps you on the shoulder. I'm ready. To christen his new building. Embalm a body right out up on that girder. Tubes hanging down like seaweed. And balance puncturing my trocar. What about you madam. Repose that arse. Face down, two cheeks up. Nude deceased. Revolutionize the industry.
Window of a delicatessen store. Caviars and cheese. Delights Fanny put out for my devouring. First hours I've had of utter peace in this new world. To watch a man with a dog going by. A canine breed I knew in childhood. Who jumped on my dog and bit him while he was still a puppy. And the dirty rotten owner laughed.
Christian stepping in a doorway. To peruse this man in his lightweight grey flannel toting his curly blue dog on a fancy braided leather lead. Waiting to cross the street. A woman sits just starting her car. Which roars suddenly into life and motion. Smashing another parked in front and bouncing backwards, engine racing, crashing into another behind. Step deeper into my doorway. Like any good New Yorker. Man with blue curly dog shaking his fist at her. Shouting abuse in the window. Driver already out of her mind with panic. As she begs silently for help. Man with his dog, his hand raised shouting, rushing to stand in front of the car she smashed, just as she tears forward again with screaming tires smokin
g on the asphalt and gives it another slam. Sending the light green empty vehicle rolling over the grey suited man. With his blue dog, both prostrate in their separate puddles of blood. After this automotive rampage. Fire engines come, ambulance and police. A group of strong citizens lifting off the car. Doctor shaking his head over the man and dog dead. Caught in the jaws of a random justice. In a few more months Clarance could handle them both. Right across the street. In a coffin for master and pet.
Suddenly gloomy afternoon. To go slamming punching bags in the athletic smells of the Game Club. The Admiral popping farts as he practiced his corkscrew left hook that paralyses. After a shower in ivory suds took a glass of beer. Walked east. Through the furred and gold plated men and women. Descended into the Lexington Avenue subway. The rush hour crush of tired silent faces. Breathing all over each other. Someone's hands trying to open my fly. Basing fingers in under the foreskin. All the way to the Bronx, didn't know who to punch. For borrowing my privates without permission.
The last stop overlooking the golf course and the wroods. Went down the shadowy iron steps and waited in the line of people for the bus. A face. Pair of blue eyes. A girl who sat in front of me at school. Loved her. For two solid months. Tempted myself thinking I could have her as a girl friend anytime I wanted. And all we ever did was smile. Now she stands nine years away.
Christian pulling the cord to stop the bus. On the next corner a big gas station and bar. Horseshoe courts and shuffleboards beyond the trees. Fourth of July parades ended there. Took my little brother and bought him ice cream. Along this parkway. By the houses where I had friends. Grew up here in all my dreadful innocence. Tiny soul so beautiful, so full of fear. Stared down at by big mean faces. And you never forget. The courageous boys bigger than me. Who told bullies who kept me out of stickball and hockey games, that they would punch them in the eye. Gave me all the hope I had. Shipped back and forth between the foster homes. Waiting for a hand to snatch us away. With my sobbing little brother. To brand new cold hearts and strange bed springs. To people who want you to call them uncle and aunt. Because they think you're something the cat dragged in.
These same slate sidewalks. Scratched with marks hoboes made. In the cement on this street corner, my best friend's name is scrawled. All that's left of him. Since a Christmas in a hard frosty month. They said on the telephone he was dead. I went over to church and sat downstairs in the back in the singing and incense. I thought of summer and the maple leaves. And how they grow to make tunnels of the streets. And if you die you go away up somewhere in the sky where the airplanes are and it's white and blue. And it's red and gold. They had to bring him back from Florida and all the sunny months. Where the big bugs bang the windows and the golf courses have spongy grass. Loading him in the train on the lonely night north, wrapped in a flag. Over his cold blond smile. Same blue pavements then over the stone hard ground. And kids' marble holes worn shallow. As children here we were catholics come together. And altar boys trying to touch god. Stealing apples and cherries Saturday. Sunday adoring the holy ghost. Sat out nights on rivers, skating on lakes in the moon. And each summer getting black in the sun and chasing through the waves. He was on the train crossing Virginia through Emporia on that flat sea level land. Over Maryland and the dark green hills. And then Newark where beyond the swamps are the thin white sparkling things sticking in the night and how you go in that endless tunnel, the river crushing your ears and come out rumbling by the long platforms to a stop. Where they slid him down and wheeled him to a truck with a soldier standing by. The lights sad and the flag bright. Someone there to meet him. To take him north again to the Bronx. In the last month of the war. So many years ago. The woods where we trapped, shot squirrel and caught snakes by the tail. Tied a big swing high in the oak that I never dared try. Everything green then in a fat sun. Each girl friend was forever in talks through the night on some fence. When we washed ears and polished face, hair and shoes until they were health. And we went places where we said hi there, isn't it swell we all met like this. A game played with hearts and fingertips. And he had moved away during the war to where there were no trees and lives of people on top of lives and more beside more, in hallways holding grey tiles, footsteps of strangers and silence. On the hard sad day. I drove down the avenue under the roaring elevator train. And parked in a side street of gloom and grey. Asked the man at the door and he said softly the Lieutenant is reposing in suite seven to your right along the corridor. His name up on a little black sign with moveable white letters that slide on for the next and the next. I shook hands and nodded with these other friends. Some smiled beneath their crinkled eyes and say it's good to have you here. I knelt at the casket to pray. Always the holiest hearts are dead. Yet he had punched me in the mouth when I had braces on my teeth and crushed my model airplane. And I had loved his sister. He was under glass where I didn't want to look. Next morning mass and casket and people stepping out into the dreary cold. And a long line of black cars went north again to the cemetery they called the gate of heaven. I was the last car filled with his girl friends and sniffles. Off the highway and up the mountain road past a hot dog stand, a few last gold leaves wagging on the trees and white islands of snow spaced through the woods. The little green tent and fake rolls of grass they spread over the dirt. The diggers behind the gravestones putting on caps and jackets, a great heavy row of European hands hanging from the smooth covert cloth. Soldiers lined up and let go a sudden crack in the sky and the bugle with its death sounds down the valley and coming back again from the hills around. I stood behind some people and never saw him going down. His girl friends cried and one screamed and was held away and she knelt, her nylon knees sinking in the mud, and we all began to pray and say things to ourselves.
Like
I promise
I promise
16
Up three brick steps. A summer screen door. Warped through the winter. Darkness in there behind the Venetian blinds. Ring the bell on the house of Charlotte Graves. Lean to look in the window. See a memory of red walls and a black coffin. Screen door opens out and the glass and curtained mahogany door opens in. To her large smile.
"Gee come in. You're early. I'm just half ready. Should I take your gloves."
"Sure."
"Gee they 're nice."
"French rat skin, the leather is exceedingly smooth and soft."
Living room with its blue carpet and brown sofa chairs. As it was all those years ago. When mothers said you come through here like it was a train station. Graduation picture of Charlotte standing among all the other white gowned girls. On the brink of marriage. Or near the downhill years of spinster doom.
"Gee let me look at you. You seemed to have lived. That sounds crazy to say I know. But I just haven't lived. Can I get you a beer."
"Please."
"Sure. Certainly. I'm so excited I don't know where to rush. Just washed my hair. And it's dried all wrong. Rinsed it in the wrong brand of ale. Hey Mom Cornelius Christian's here.''
Shiver at the sound of one's shouted name. That I'm here. Where I knew all these streets and houses. And the summer at eight o'clock each morning. Running down the sidewalk in pointed shoes with no laces. To cut my grass in the cemetery. Saving money. To date a rich girl I'd met. To climb up and be with her in her dazzling world. Far from my own, orphaned and poor. I was as good as anybody else. But I had no proof.
"Well hi you there Cornelius. Well what a sight. You haven't changed one bit."
"Thank you."
"Maybe that accent is a change. Charlotte's been getting me to wash and iron everything she owns. Think the girl never had a date before."
Mrs Graves's smiling kindly eyes. Made you want to be seen. Always wished she was my mother. What sorrow hit her. Made her hair go grey. She always welcomed me. Into the comfort of her friendly beauty. Everywhere else I stood in people's hallways. Waiting. But she invited me in. Gave me a glass of root beer and cookies on a plate.
Horn beeping outside the house. Ch
arlotte leading Christian. Introducing him. This is Cornelius Christian, Freda and Joan. That's Stan, that's Marty. As they sat hands draped over the backs of seats of this low blue purring streamlined automobile.
Softly groaning power and wheels squealing round corners. These easy carefree voices. Sons and daughters of lovely mommies and distinguished daddies. Talk about where everybody went to college. Majoring in gladness. And I look across the upturned nose of this girl's face and out the window at the light on the passing grass. Of another world. Delivering newspapers. Up and down these streets. When I thought I was going to be a millionaire. With moroccan bound books for looks everywhere. Every afternoon loaded down. Folding papers with a slight of hand and flicking them on the grey porches. And even in an open window for a laugh. Which I thought I needed.
Christian squeezed between these soft hips. This night in springtime. The musk of Charlotte. Deep and sweet. What you loved were all the dreams. A sound. The brand new world of snow on spruce. The light from a winter window when you held her hand. Carry it all to sleep at night. In confidential whispers. That a slate roofed gabled house amid the trees would be yours one day. And there's the grocery store where I fished a seven up from the floating lumps of ice and said hi to the rival newspaper boy. Along this frontier road picked berries, grapes and went stealing peaches. Friday I collected and most said come back tomorrow and I objected but turned my sad face away and mumbled it was only fifteen cents. You'd think it was a crime every time I rang a doorbell and even those with chimes and added up the weeks they owed. In there they sat warm and reading, with smells of steak and pizza pie. Stood dancing with my cold toes, lips chapped with frost. And thought I might die. But in the sun on these quiet roads under the trees near the river. The green grass, the cliffs and hills and bridges bent over the trains. Cool summer halls to click heels and spin down the stairs on my educated wrist. And now we pass that street. The big brick house with the side entrance. Where the lady opened the door a crack on pay day in her black bathing suit. Scared the shit out of me as she asked me in. Four o'clock in the wild silence of that afternoon. To stand in the hallway as she closed the door and went through her purse. She was wet and dripping. Said you don't have to go right away, I'll give you some cherry juice. She grabbed me by the arm and held me there, staring in my eyes, licking her lips. Kept saying she was forty years old. I kept saying you owe me thirty cents for two weeks papers. She gave me half a dollar. I took the big coin with the cracked bell on the back and fished out some change. She opened up my fly and pulled out my prick. Which pumped lotion all over her floor. And she said you dirty little boy, mess my carpet up, get the hell out of here. Once they get their own way folk are so god damned unfair.