Plexus

  “ ‘Ready, sir,’ he says, just as smooth as butter.

  “ ‘Come now, Eakins,’ said the officer, ‘you know better than to dress that way.’

  “ ‘But I’m not dressed,’ says Eakins blandly.

  “ ‘That’s what I mean,’ said the officer. ‘Now go back and put your clothes on. That’s a good fellow.’

  “Eakins didn’t budge, didn’t move a muscle.

  “ ‘What suit would you like me to wear?’ he asks.

  “ ‘The one you had on,’ said the officer tartly.

  “ ‘But it’s all torn,’ says Eakins, and with that he steps inside the bathroom. In a jiffy he’s back in the doorway, holding the suit in his hands. It’s in shreds.

  “ ‘That’s all right,’ said the officer, trying not to appear disturbed, ‘your friend here will lend you a suit, I’m sure.’

  “He turns to me. I explain that the only suit I’ve got is the one I’m wearing.

  “ ‘That will do nicely,’ he chirps.

  “ ‘What?’ I yelled, ‘What am I goin’ to wear?’

  “ ‘A fig leaf,’ he says, ‘and see that it don’t shrink!’”

  Just at this point there came a tapping on the window pane.

  “The police, I bet!” shouted O’Mara.

  I went to the window and drew up the shade. It was Osiecki, grinning that sheepish grin of his and gesticulating with his fingers.

  “It’s Osiecki,” I said, going to the door. “He’s probably lit up.”

  “Where are your companions?” I asked as I shook his hand.

  “They deserted me,” he said. “Too many lice, I guess.… Is it O.K. to come in?” He hesitated at the doorway, not certain if he were welcome.

  “Come in!” shouted O’Mara.

  “Am I busting in on something?” He looked at Mona, not knowing who she was.

  “This is my wife, Mona. Mona, this is a new friend of ours, Osiecki. He’s had a little trouble lately. You don’t mind if he stays a few minutes, do you?”

  Mona immediately poured out a glass of Benedictine and offered him a piece of cake.

  “What’s this?” he asked, sniffing the liqueur. “How do you get it?” He looked from one to the other of us as if we were in possession of some dark secret.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Right now, fine!” he answered. “A little too good maybe. Can you smell it?” He blew his breath in our faces, grinning even more widely this time, like a rhododendron in full bloom.

  “How are the lice coming along?” asked O’Mara in a casual tone.

  At this Mona began to titter, then laughed outright.

  “That’s his trouble…” I started to explain.

  “You can tell everything,” said Osiecki. “It’s no secret any more. We’ll get to the bottom of it soon.” He raised himself up. “Excuse me, but I can’t drink this stuff. Too much turpentine in it. Have you any coffee?”

  “Of course,” said Mona. “Would you like a sandwich perhaps?”

  “No, just some black coffee.…” He hung his head blushingly. “I’ve just had a tiff with my pals. They’re getting fed up with me, I guess. I don’t blame them either. They’ve taken a lot these last few months. You know, sometimes I think I am a bit screwy.” He paused to note the effect this might have on us.

  “That’s all right,” I said, “we’re all a bit screwy. O’Mara here was just telling us a yarn about a nut he used to live with. You can be as whacky as you like, so long as you don’t start breaking up the furniture.”

  “You’d get queer yourself,” said Osiecki, “if you had those things sucking your blood all night—and all day too.” He rolled up his trousers to show us the marks they had left. His legs were a mass of scratches and blood clots. I felt damned sorry for him, sorry I had twitted him.

  “Perhaps if you moved to another apartment…” I ventured to suggest.

  “No use,” he said, looking ruefully at the floor. “They’ll keep after me till I quit—or until I catch them redhanded.”

  “I thought you were going to bring your girl around for dinner some evening?” said O’Mara.

  “Sure, I am,” said Osiecki. “Right now, though, she’s busy.”

  “Busy doing what?” asked O’Mara.

  “I don’t know. I’ve learned not to ask unnecessary questions.” He gave us another big grin. This time his teeth wobbled a little. I notice that his mouth was full of braces.

  “I dropped in,” he continued, “because I saw the lights burning. I hate to go home, you know. (Grin: meaning more lice.) You don’t mind my staying a few minutes, do you? I like this place—it’s cheerful.”

  “It should be,” said O’Mara, “we’re living on velvet.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” droned Osiecki. “Drawing plans all day and playing the pianola at night is no fun.”

  “But you’ve got a girl,” said O’Mara. “That ought to give you a little fun.” He chortled.

  Osiecki’s ferret-like eyes grew small as pin points. He looked at O’Mara sharply, almost hostilely. “You’re not trying to pump me, are you?” he asked.

  O’Mara smiled good-naturedly and shook his head. He was just about to open his mouth when Osiecki spoke up again.

  “She’s another tribulation,” he began.

  “Please,” said Mona, “don’t feel that you have to tell us everything. I think we’ve been asking altogether too many questions.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, I don’t mind being grilled. I just wondered how he knew about my girl.”

  “I don’t know a thing,” said O’Mara. “I just made a simple remark. Skip it!”

  “I don’t want to skip it,” said Osiecki. “It’s better to get it off one’s chest.” He paused with head down, not forgetting however to munch his sandwich. After a few moments he looked up, smiling like a cherub, finished eating his sandwich, stood up and reached for his hat and coat. “I’ll tell you some other time,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

  At the door, as we were shaking hands, he grinned again and said: “By the way, any time you’re hard pressed, just let me know—I can always lend you a little something to tide you over.”

  “I’ll walk you home, if you like,” said O’Mara, not knowing how else to express appreciation of this unexpected kindness.

  “Thanks, but I’d rather be alone now. You never can tell…” and with that Osiecki took off at a trot.

  “What about that guy Eakins you were telling us about?” I said, soon as the door had closed behind Osiecki.

  “I’ll tell you some other time,” said O’Mara, giving us one of Osiecki’s grins.

  “There wasn’t a word of truth in it,” said Mona, tripping to the bathroom.

  “You’re right,” said O’Mara. “I just imagined it.”

  “Come on,” I said, “you can tell me.”

  “All right,” he said, “since you want the truth, I’ll give it to you. To begin with, there was no guy Eakins—it was my brother. He was hiding away for a while. You remember I told you once how we ran away from the orphan asylum together? Well, it was ten years—maybe more—before we met again. He had gone to Texas where he became a cowpuncher. A good guy, if ever there was one. Then he got into a brawl with someone—he must have been drunk—and he killed the guy.”

  He took a sip of Benedictine, then continued: “It was all like I told you, except of course he wasn’t batty. The man who came for him was a Ranger. He scared the shit out of me, I can tell you. Anyway, I undressed, like he told me to, and I handed the clothes to my brother. He was taller and bigger than me in every way, and I knew he’d never get into that suit. But I handed it to him and he went back to the bathroom to get dressed. I hoped he’d have sense enough to climb out by the bathroom window. I couldn’t understand why the Ranger was giving him such leeway, but then I figured being from Texas he had his own way of doing things. Anyway, suddenly I got the bright idea to dash out into the street naked and yell “Murder!
Murder!” at the top of my lungs. I got as far as the stairs and there I tripped on the rug. The big guy was right on top of me. He held one hand over my mouth and dragged me back to the room. “Pretty cute, mister, ain’t you?” he said, giving me a gentle cuff in the jaw. “Now if that brother of yours gets out the window he won’t get very far. My men are waiting for him right outside.”

  “At that moment my brother walked into the room just as quiet and easy as ever. He looked like a circus freak in that suit—and his hair all shaved off.

  “ ‘No use, Ted,’ he said, ‘they’ve got me.’

  “ ‘What am I going to do for clothes?’ I bawled.

  “ ‘I’ll mail the suit back to you when we get to Texas,’ he said. Then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some crumpled bills. ‘Maybe this will hold you a while,’ he said. ‘It was good to see you again. Take care of yourself.’ and with that they left.”

  “And what happened after that?”

  “They sent him up for life.”

  “No!”

  “Yep! And you can lay that to that son of a bitch of a stepfather too. If he hadn’t sent us to the orphan asylum it would never have happened.”

  “Jesus, man you can’t lay everything to that orphan asylum.”

  “The hell I can’t! Everything bad that happens to me dates from the orphan asylum.”

  “But you haven’t had it so bad, goddamn it! I really can’t see why you’re griping all the time. Shit, many people get worse deals and come out tiptop. You’ve got to stop blaming your stepfather for all your ills and failings. What’ll you do when he croaks?”

  “I’ll go on blaming him and cursing him just the same. I’ll make him miserable even in the grave.”

  “But listen, man, what about your mother? She had a hand in it too, don’t forget. You don’t seem to be sore at her.”

  “She’s a half-wit,” said O’Mara bitterly. “I can only feel sorry for her. She did as she was told, probably. No, I don’t hate her. She was a good-natured slob, in a way.”

  “Listen, Henry,” he said, suddenly changing front, “you’ll never understand the situation. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You’ve had it easy all your life. You’ve been lucky too. And you’ve got talents. Me, I’m nobody. A misfit. I’ve got a grudge against the world. … Maybe I could have been a writer too, if I had had a chance. As it is, I don’t even know how to spell.”

  “But you sure know how to figure.”

  “Naw,” he said, “don’t try to sweeten it. I’m all wronged up. No matter what I do I end up by hurting people. You’re the only guy I ever treated decently, do you know that?”

  “Come off it,” I said, “you’re getting maudlin. Have another drink!”

  “I’m going to bed,” he said. “I’m going to dream it off.”

  “Dream it off?”

  “Sure, don’t you ever do that—dream it off? You close your eyes and then you fix it like you want it to be. You fall asleep and you dream it true. When morning comes there’s no bad taste in your mouth.… I’ve done it thousands of times. Learned it in the orphan asylum.”

  “The orphan asylum! Man, will you ever forget it? I’s finished, done with… it happened centuries ago. Can’t you get that through your nut?”

  “It’s never stopped happening, you mean.”

  For a few minutes neither of us spoke. O’Mara undressed quietly and slipped into bed. I switched out the lights and lit a candle. As I was standing there at the table, reflecting on all that had passed between us, I heard him softly say: ‘Listen.…”

  “What is it?” I said. I thought for a moment he was going to sob.

  “You don’t know the half of it, Henry. The worst part was waiting for my mother to come and see me. Weeks went by, then months, then years. No sign of her. Once in a blue moon I got a letter or a little package. Always promises. She was going to come at Christmas or Thanksgiving, or some other holiday. But she never came. I was only three years old when we were packed off, remember that. I needed affection. The nuns weren’t too bad. Some of them were adorable, as a matter of fact. But it wasn’t the same kissing them as kissing one’s mother. I used to beat my brains out trying to figure a way to escape. All I thought of was to run home and fling my arms around my mother. She was a good sort, you know, but weak. Weak in an Irish way, like me. Easy come, easy go. Nothing bothered her. But I loved her. I loved her more and more as time went on. When I got the chance to make a getaway I was like a wild colt. My instinct was to rush home, but then I thought—maybe they’ll send me back to the asylum! So I just kept traveling—until I got to Virginia and met up with Dr. McKinney… you know, the ornithologist.”

  “Listen, Ted,” I said, “you’d better get to sleep and dream it off. I’m sorry if I seemed a bit insensitive. I guess I’d feel the same way if I had been in your boots. Shit, tomorrow’s another day. Think of what Osiecki’s up against!”

  “That’s exactly what I was doing. He’s a lonely bastard too. And wanting to lend us money! Jesus, he must be in a bad way!”

  I went to sleep that night with the determination to knock the bloody orphan asylum out of O’Mara’s head. All during the night, however, I was riding my old Chemnitz bicycle like mad, or else playing the piano. In fact, I would sometimes dismount and play a tune right in the street. In dreams it’s not difficult to have a piano with you while riding a bicycle—it’s only in waking life that you have difficulty managing such things. It was at a place called Bedford Rest, which I conveniently transposed in the dream, that I experienced the most delicious moments. This spot, the halfway mark to Coney Island along the famous cycle path which began at one end of Prospect Park, was where all the cyclists halted to take a brief rest either coming from or going to the island. Here, under arbors and trellises, with a fountain playing in the center of the clearance, we lounged about, examining one another’s wheels, feeling one another’s muscles, rubbing one another down. The wheels were stacked up against the trees and fences, all in excellent condition, all gleaming, all well oiled. Pop Brown, as we called him, was the grand arbiter. He was the oldest among us—double the age of most of us—but he could keep up with the best of us. He always wore a heavy black sweater and tight-fitting black stocking cap; his face was gaunt, lined, and so wind-burned as to be almost black. I always thought of him as “The Night Rider.” He was a machinist by trade and his passion was bike racing. A simple man, a man of few words, but loved by all. It was he who had induced me to join the militia in order to be able to race on the flat floor of the armory. Saturdays and Sundays I was always sure to meet Pop somewhere along the cycle path. He was my racing father, so to speak.

  I suppose that the delicious aspect of these reunions resided in the fact that we all shared the same passion. I don’t remember ever discussing anything but cycling with these fellows. We could eat, drink and sleep on the bike. Many a time, at unexpected hours of the day or night, I would encounter a solitary cyclist who, like myself, had stolen an hour or two in order to fly along that smooth gravel path. Now and then we passed a man on horseback. (There was another path for equestrians running parallel to the bicycle path.) These apparitions from another world were completely removed from us, as were the fools who rode in automobiles. As for motorcyclists, they were simply non compos mentis.

  As I say, I was reliving it all again in dream. Even down to those equally delicious moments at the end of the ride when, as a good wheelman, I would turn the bike upside down and clean and oil it. Every spoke had to be wiped clean and made to shine; the chain had to be greased and the oil cups filled. If the wheels were out of line they were trued. That way, she was always in condition to ride at a moment’s notice. This cleaning and polishing always took place in the yard, right by the front window. I had to lay newspapers on the ground in order to appease my mother who disapproved of grease spots on our stone flagging.

  In the dream I’m riding sort of nice and easy by the side of Pop Brown. It was customary for u
s to fall into a slow pace for a mile or two, in order to chat and also to get our wind up for the terrific spurt to follow. Pop is telling me about the job he’s going to get me, as mechanic. He promises to teach me all I need to know. I am amused at this because the only tool I know how to handle is the bicycle wrench. Pop says he’s been observing me lately and has come to the conclusion that I’m an intelligent guy. He’s disturbed because I always seem to be out of work. I try to tell him that I’m glad to be out of work because then I can ride the wheel more often, but he brushes this aside as irrelevant. He’s determined to make me a first-class machinist. It’s better than being a boilermaker, he assures me. I haven’t the slightest idea what it is to be a boiler-maker. “You ought to get in trim for that road race next month,” he then cautions. “Drink lots of water, all you can hold.” His heart, I learn, is giving him trouble lately. The doctor thinks he ought to give up the bike for a while. “I’d rather die than do that,” says Pop. We flit from one thing to another, homely little topics, just right for a rolling conversation. There’s a teasing breeze stirring and the leaves are beginning to fall; brown, gold, red leaves, dry as tinder, which make a most soothing crackle as we roll lightly over them. We’re just getting nicely warmed up, nicely unlimbered.