That night, after sitting head in hands in the tall reading room of the library off Blossom Street, Franz thought he might turn on the gas and block up his doors and windows. But it would be weeks before they’d find him, and the indignity was too much. He thought of giving up his job. Before, he had always waited until he was fired. Perhaps he could go back to Europe. Instead, he went to the local bakery, down the steps, smelling the moist dough, crusts baking, and this Italian gentleman who always asked him questions.
And tonight this baker said, You know, mister, you always look important to me, and you never say a thing. Aren’t you ever going to tell me what you are. Franz said, yes, tonight I’ll tell you. I’m a comma. Franz, gathering the two long loaves in his arms, stepped up the steps, and the Italian gentleman shouted after him, hey, you’re a comedian.
Franz chopped up a mound of garlic and made a paste with butter. Slathering the long loaves, he put them in the oven. This lonely act of defiance. Reek tomorrow on the train. Pass by Lydia. Such an unlikely name. Perhaps she would tell him he was not only rude but reeking.
Lights out now in Elderberry Street. Twelve o’clock, when at last the voices stop squabbling out the windows in the alley. A quick roach kill and splash of water on the face. To lie back under the sheet and try to close the eyes. A bleary voice entering the alley. A woman with a customer. Franz still on this couch. Hearing her rap on his window. Hey, you in there, why don’t you ever talk. Too good for us around here. What are you anyway. Franz said from his cloister, I’m a comedian.
Peals of laughter as she pulled herself up the back stairs, tugging her customer, shouting, did you hear what he said, that bastard in seersucker. He says he’s a comedian. What a laugh. He’s queer, that’s what he is. Never seen him with a woman. You hear me, you God damn bastards in the rest of this house. Think you’re too good for me. He’s a queer.
In sleep there was an Autumn afternoon in Vermont, with all the woods red red gold. Tennis players and one was Lydia. She took his hand and said, not tonight. And he tiptoed and tiptoed to her door, rapping lightly as she said, you mustn’t, you mustn’t. Then as he slept she came and laid herself upon him, a smell of musk from her breasts. Waking now, a corner of swift blue high out beyond the alley in Elderberry Street, Franz begged the dream to come back.
All the way to work, he planned it. Walk up to Lydia, brief bow, and say, I want to apologise for my inexcusable rudeness the other day, and also for smelling of garlic this morning. Then spin on the heel and go up the stairs. But entering the open door. Franz passed her by, with a rigid fearful heart. Reaching his room, the bubbling of the water cooler outside the door, he silently pounded his fists on his table.
Each morning he had it planned, the mountain growing bigger and more impossible to climb. When suddenly she said, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but there’s a plot to intrigue you out of your job.
As his knees buckled and his face went ashen, Franz sent whispers into his mind saying over and over, play it cool, play it cool. To Lydia he said, why are you telling me this. She said, because you’ve got no one to help you. Franz said thanks, and so that she wouldn’t notice the moisture in his eyes he turned and went up the stairs.
This time always came. Like clockwork. Just when his life ticked temperately, they got together to oust him. Not because he had mixed the statistics. Or infracted a rule. But because he came to work neither late nor soon, that he bowed gently, dressed in his own fashion and regarded life with his gimlet eye. He did what they told him. Sometimes they will kill you for that.
But more than the token terror of dismissal was the curiosity of a woman with fine bones to her face and a gracious body, helping him. She was married and had nothing to fear. Each afternoon, a cartridge bag slung from her shoulder, she stepped up on the electric car and disappeared along Mount Auburn Street away under the trees of Cambridge. To go behind hedges and into a big white house because he had followed her one afternoon.
It seemed they had made peace. For she smiled once and even licked her lips as he smiled back. He could not engage in the battle to save himself because it was just one army after one man. Yours truly. And in these cases one could only skiddoo.
On a Thursday, Franz F packed up. Dusted and polished his office and took down his poem.
When the going
Is too good
To be true
Reverse course
And beat it.
It was a long trip back to Elderberry Street. And inside this address Franz let the roaches run wild. Friday morning he went down the street and straight across to the swimming pool where he clonked into the meter one penny. For an hour he lived like a seal. Some of the kids wanted to know why he wasn’t working. Their insolence was amusing.
A letter arrived. His resignation was accepted and herewith two weeks’ salary. Franz popped this blue-green check back in an envelope and returned it to that sunny building off Harvard Square. He took a sheet of paper and put down another poem. This he stuck over the sink.
When you’ve
Beat it
And the going
Is too desperate
To be true
Forge on.
Over the weekend Franz bought beer and let the man cheat him of the two cents. But as he turned out of the store, the man called him back and said, hey, what’s the matter. You upset or something. Franz said, no. The man said, don’t you know I’m robbing you two cents. Franz said, yes. The man said, I can’t help it, it’s a habit.
For twenty five cents on Tuesday Franz bought a pound of kidneys. And was frying these in olive oil. A balanced diet for the siege. And standing on a chair fanning smoke out the window, there came a knock on his door. On the steps handing him an envelope was Lydia.
She said, I have this for you. Franz took it and said, thanks. She said, so this is where you live. He said, yes. And she said, well aren’t you going to ask me in. Franz saw eyes and faces hanging out the windows. This was news for Elderberry Street. He said, sure, come in if you want.
Franz directed her through the smoke. In the sitting room she sat on his bed. She said, you’re such a funny and silly person, you’re going to lose all the way through life. Why didn’t you put up a fight. They thought they could fire you only because you ate your lunch on the steps of Widener Library. And then to send the check back was so silly.
In the hour evaporating away they had tea. Franz brought out the Peek Frean biscuits. Made a rose of them on a plate. She said, something seemed to have happened to you a while back. Suddenly you stopped talking to everybody. You were so grim. Franz said yes, he was grim. She said, that’s why I wanted to make friends with you, and you just snubbed me. Franz said that was true, he had snubbed her. And Lydia had another Peek Frean and rising, said she had to go.
Franz led her sadly into the kitchen. He pulled the light cord and Lydia stopped in the dark. Franz said, I don’t want you to see the roaches. She said, I don’t mind what I see. And as Franz put his arms around her she whispered, you mustn’t, you mustn’t. Franz said, you’ve said that to me before, and he pressed his lips on the scent behind her ear. And she said, will you be here next Saturday afternoon. I’ll come at three thirty.
Franz took the envelope and check and burned them over the stove. He took a pail of water and washed the store window. The kids crowded around, hey, what’s a matter, mister. You trying to make your place look good. Franz rolled a nickel down the street, quietly relishing as the kids wrestled in the gutter.
Each morning rising, beating fists on chest, touching toes, breathing God’s air. Tearing open the front door and smiling out into the street. Buy the paper and read it over a coffee and crumb cake in Charles Street. And then militantly to the Public Garden, where there was half an hour’s revenge on the circular bench around the tree.
Lydia was light-haired. And she would walk pigeon toed, her body curved in, passing by all the cellar entrances, dark alleys and broken windows and knock on his door. A
nd at twenty past three on this Saturday Franz had changed his underwear twice in the last hour. The weather report was cool. And the world light blue. And his hands trembling. This was a lonely station. A chair by the telephone, eyes glued on the door.
And the phone rang. Picking up this black talking instrument Franz heard a nearby muffled voice that said, this is Lydia’s husband, and I’ve got my gun and I’m coming round to shoot you.
The telephone fell out of Franz’s hand and lay on the floor making a gurgling sound. The little words of his office poem. When the going is too good to be true.
Franz got up and unlocked the door, leaving it slightly ajar. He returned to his chair, having made his decision. The afternoon was deep red. Save him the trouble of knocking. And now after all these years it would be a curious justice that would put him down. Franz sitting slumped forward facing the door, hanging his head and hands. Perhaps he would have the dignity of being shot by a college graduate.
As the door opened Franz F closed his eyes and turning his head aside, raised his hands to block the bullets. The steps came near and a hand touched him on the hair and Lydia said, oh my God I phoned you as a joke.
A Fraternal Fraud
For the purpose of power or laughs or almost anything, I once made up a fraternity. Had a meeting every week and I was brother master and the rest were brothers. My best friend Jimmy, treasurer. To get in took six months. Pledges had to wear a black tie, carry a demerit book, and obey all orders from brothers. Also pay fifteen dollars which I counted with the treasurer. We were partial to rich boys.
And magic secret ceremonies like the ritual of the worms. Barefoot pledges step blindfolded into a pan of wet spaghetti. There is a cry called a screech.
For sixty bucks we got a station wagon and put Omega Omega Omega on the sides. Then parked it in an alley where it got stuck between the walls. Everyone bragging how they could drive. I’ll get it out, just watch me. Won a medal for this and my father’s got one too, so watch me. And we watched. It wedged tighter and tighter, tyres burning down to the tubes. We had to give up. I gave orders from the back seat to abandon ship and clear the decks generally. And couldn’t go out the doors. In the end we escaped through the roof.
Initiation fees coming in left and right and centre. Capital was considerable. Greed general. I got crazy for power. Touched by wildness. And the hammer of discipline.
“Say pledge I don’t like the way you wear your face when you look at me.”
“Gee brother, sir, I didn’t mean anything. I guess my mouth just slipped.”
“Give me your demerit book, pledge, that’s two demerits, you know what ten means?”
“Yes sir, blackball.”
“Well watch it then. From now on you wear your face with humility or better make that saint like. Get me? And chew this.”
“But that’s garlic, gee.”
“You hear what I said.”
“But what am I going to do during the rush hour they’ll all look at me.”
“Grind it. With the back teeth.”
“Holy mackerel this burns brother master.”
“Don’t be chicken.”
After meetings fights on the backs of pledges on front lawns. For body building. Get bored.
“O.K. pledge go over to that house and ask them if they want to buy a mountain.”
“Gee brother supposing a man comes to the door and slugs me.”
“Look pledge, if Omega Omega Omega doesn’t mean that much to you that you wouldn’t take a few slugs in the teeth I’d just as soon blackball you right now on the spot. No place for yellowness in this fraternity. Tell them there’s gold.”
“What if he hits me before I open my mouth.”
“Get over there fast or I’ll tell you to go without your pants.”
“Gee don’t. Sir. I’m going right now.”
“That’s better. Build up your nerve. And wipe off the hangdog look. If he gets tough start yelling maybe your neighbours ought to know what a cheapskate lives next door. If he asks where the mountain is tell him East Geek. Then you can run. I’ll be right behind that hedge listening. Make it good.”
Behind the hedge. The bell ringing to the tune of the “Bells of Saint Mary.” Maybe they’re not such bad people having a song like that attached to the bell. Feet. Heavy ones. Whoops. Must stick to my post. Lose face to retreat. Taking off the burglar latch. He’s big.
“Good evening sir. I’m from Omega Omega Omega …”
“We don’t want to buy nothing.”
“But …”
“Say you deaf. I don’t want to buy nothing that’s English ain’t it.”
“But there’s gold in this mountain.”
“What mountain, what are you crazy or something?”
“I’d like to talk it over with your wife.”
“Oh you would, would you.”
“And it’s a bargain only open for a week to people in this high class area who are big time and really out for a kill.”
“What do you take me for. I’ll give you just five seconds to get off this porch.”
“It’s in East Geek you big jerk.”
I thought maybe the range was a little close for the last remark. But the pledge went so fast that I stood up watching him. Until I felt a hand closing on an outer garment and I knew it was time to leave. Too.
I renamed this pledge the Streak and kept him near for messages. The months went by.
“Well how does it feel to have your time nearly up, Streak.”
“Gee brother, I’m a little tired of being pushed around. None of you had to pledge like us. And all that money you collect. Sir.”
“Look me right in the eye pledge. What do you see there. Straight in. Now what do you see.”
“Honesty.”
“O.K. Remember that.”
I was sitting in the big brother master’s chair, legs crossed drinking beer with potato chips, tempted to get the pledge to open and close my jaws for me, dreaming of a dance with a fountain and aeroplanes landing on the lawn. Who’s that. Oh just an Omega brother arriving. Impress the Streak. Something wistful about him and believing. I think he looks up to me.
The letter came the morning of the Friday meeting. I told them to get ready for a grand council and something else as well. The meeting was in my house and I ordered a barrel of beer to wash some guilt away. I told everybody to take a seat.
“O.K. look, this is how it is. You’ve all been through quite a lot and you’ll probably think you’ve been taken for a ride.”
The Streak came half way to his feet out of the chair.
“Take it easy. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems, it’s always worse. I started this fraternity in good faith and was freely voted brother master and Jimmy treasurer. You’ll notice Jim’s not with us tonight. But he sent me a letter this morning and as a result the brothers and I have decided to disband and desist from further activity. This is what it says:
“Dear Brothers,
I went to a nightclub and got carried away with being a big wheel and was stuck for the bill which forced me to delve into the funds of Omega Omega Omega which I happened to have on me at the time. And there is not much change. Forgive me.
My cousin has invited me to Wyoming where I think I am lost forever in Yellowstone National Park.
Yours on vacation
or even longer,
Brother Treasurer.”
There were tears in the Streak’s eyes.
Pins and Medals
Sitting back here with flowers on the curtains, cologne in the air and tinkling music with all the comfort.
My first real girl friend I met not far from here by saying hello and she looked in my face for signs of disrespect. In her brown sweater and skirt and all I wanted was to know her to go for a walk up and down the paths around the school. Where spruce trees grew in their blue tips to touch the windows and there were little hills and mountains for miles around and lakes clear and magic. And I’ll never forget her or when
she touched me on the shoulder asking for company to come with her for cake and cola. I said sure. In her house I sat on the edge of my seat while she brought it in. She stood in the middle of the floor and yawned. I put my mouth deep in the chocolate cake, cream and soft eating. Otherwise I was shy worrying whether I said what she wanted.
I whistled going home that afternoon and jumped up to sit on a mailcart thinking of her looks and waiting for the train. And later in our little nipping at love I asked her with her handkerchief twisting in her hands to come to a dance. And arrived that evening in cool late spring, a bright tie to make my suit feel new. She was dressed in blue with pleats round her skirt a sort of endless thing I thought, her legs rich round and seventeen. With two dollars and a bath and my feelings tied up inside me we stepped out from the shaky car of a friend saying hello to all the others under the maple trees. Down steps between palms to where the band was playing. I danced better than ever before. She was looking up at my face and sometimes putting hers on my shoulder. While they dripped candle wax to make funny bumps I tried to be talkative and tell her what I wanted to mean. When the rest went to a bar for drinks we sat alone in the back of the car waiting till she took a cigarette, lit it and threw it away so that we were kissing.
I never kissed anyone like her before except just once quickly somewhere and the next day we rushed back to her house hand in hand stopping only for six cola for the cake. By days we saw each other in history class and lunchtime went to have milk and crushed egg sitting on the grass. I threw my feet up carelessly anywhere while biting my bread saying I failed everything last month but didn’t care. She said she wanted some sort of ring or pin of mine to wear. I gave her a medal I won throwing the weight. I was afraid to ask her for something. She showed me how nice my medal looked hanging around her tan neck. And going back through the breezy green corridors to class she said she couldn’t let me have her sorority pin because it was too expensive. I went to physics where the teacher was always doing tricks like making things jump or go the other way. He called me sunshine boy because I sat by the window with my shoes off and I thought that when he made these explosions and sent stuff flying round the room we were just supposed to get a good laugh. I didn’t hear him when he said it was magnetism and the atom.