First Person Peculiar (2 page)

“What difference does it make?” he responds. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“You know you were,” I say. I stare long and hard at him. “Did you set the fire?”

“Of course I didn’t,” he says. “We’re not going to be friends if you say things like that, Jake.”

“
Are
we going to be friends?” I ask rather pugnaciously.

“Absolutely,” he replies. “I don’t do favors for just anyone, you know.”

“No,” I say. “They have to pay you.”

He almost winces. “Did I charge you a penny?” he asks in hurt tones.

“Why me?” I say.

“Because there’s enough pain in the world,” he answers. He stares at me. “I do you a service, I save you from second-degree burns, and I don’t charge you a thing. Why should that bother you?”

“Second-degree burns?” I repeat.

He nods his head.

“Not first-degree or third-degree?” I say.

“No,” he answers mildly but with absolute certainty. “Second-degree.”

“You’re sure?”

“I never lie,” he says.

“So you saved my life …” I begin.

“Not your life,” he answers. “But a considerable portion of your skin.”

“And you didn’t charge me a thing,” I continue. “But you charge people for giving them winners at the track, or telling them what stock to play.”

“Oh, I do more than that,” he says. “I tell actors which plays to try out for and which ones won’t run a week. I tell fishermen where they’re biting and where they’re not.” A sudden smile. “I even tell Tootsie La Belle when to tone down her strip routine because a couple of cops are waiting to arrest her if she goes too far.” He takes another sip of his beer. “It’s much more than stocks and horses, Jake. I’m not a tout or a prognosticator. I’m the Wiz.”

“What else can you do?” I ask.

“What else do you want?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” I admit. “I should be thanking you for saving my life—”

“Your skin.”

“Okay, my skin. But instead, I’m getting more and more frustrated because I don’t understand you.”

“What’s to understand?” he says. “I’m the Wiz. I see suffering, now or in the future, and I do what I can to cure it, or at least alleviate it. People come to me with their problems, just like they go to a doctor or a dentist.”

“Or a priest,” I say.

He smiles. “Well, in this neighborhood, it’s more likely to be a rabbi.” He stares at me. “So what is it that troubles you?”

“You can pick winners. You can pick stocks. You can pick hits and flops. You can probably pick political races. So why aren’t you worth billions?”

“What would I do with billions?”

“You could start by getting a shave and haircut, and maybe taking a bath. You could dress a little better, and live a lot better,” I say. “Hell, you could buy the Empire State Building.”

“Probably,” he agrees. “But what would I do with it?”

“Didn’t you ever want to be something else?” I ask, and the second the words are out of my mouth I realize what a damnfool stupid question it is. After all, he’s the Wiz.

And suddenly there’s a very wistful smile on his face. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

“Well?” I say.

He utters a deep sigh. “It’s not as easy as you think or I wish.”

“Why not?”

“There’s your friend Milton, and a thousand other Miltons,” he answers. “Where would they go if there wasn’t a Wiz?”

“That shouldn’t be your concern,” I respond.

“Oh?” he says curiously. “Whose concern is it?”

“Theirs, of course,” I say.

He shakes his head sadly. “They’re not up to it, Jake,” he replies. “That’s why they come to me.”

“So the noble Wiz saves them all,” I say.

“No, Jake. I can hardly save any of them,” he says. “Look out the front window.” People are walking past, and he starts pointing at them. “Heart attack. Cancer. Cancer. Mugged in the subway. Alzheimer’s. Aneurism. Cancer.” He turns back to me. “I can’t save, or even help, more than one of them, and only if he asks me.”

“There are rules to being a saint?” I ask sarcastically.

“I’ve no idea,” he answers. “But there are rules to the Wizard game.”

“So am I going to read about those seven people tomorrow?”

He shakes his head. “Some of them will live another twenty or thirty years. The man in the blue coat won’t make it past the end of the week.”

“You’re sure of all that?” I say.

“I’m sure.” He lights another cigarette. “I’m sure of something else, too.”

“What?” I ask.

“No matter how it appears to you, it’s not a blessing.”

I check my watch. “I’ve got to get back to the office.”

“Stop by again, Jake. We could become friends. I’d like that.”

“There’s probably a thousand men and women who
want
to be your friend,” I say. “Why me?”

“Because you don’t want anything from me.”

“No, I don’t,” I say, getting up from the booth. “Keep your millions. I won’t even envy you until I’m back at the office.”

“Never envy me, Jake,” he says seriously.

“Okay, as soon as I’m at my desk I’ll go back to envying LeBron James, or maybe Tom Cruise.”

“What floor is your office on?” he asks.

“The 27
^th
. Why?”

“Can I make a suggestion?” he says.

I just stare at him.

“Take the freight elevator.”

“Why?” I demand.

“Just a hunch.”

“Bullshit,” I say. “Whatever’s going to happen, you know exactly what it is.”

“I don’t want to rush you, Jake, but the lady who just came in is worried about her son, who’s seeing some action in the Middle East. She’s very distraught, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

So I go back to the office, and I take the freight elevator, and an hour later Milt enters and sits down at his desk.

“Long lunch?” I ask, though I knew it wasn’t.

“Circuit on the fucking elevators blew,” he mutters. “We were stuck in the damned thing for over an hour.”

* * *

On Thursday I find him sitting on an ancient wooden bench that’s been set up outside a small grocery story on Tenth Avenue, just around the corner from 34
^th
Street. It’s forty degrees and windy, and he hasn’t got an overcoat, but he doesn’t seem uncomfortable. He’s smoking a cigarette, and I sit down next to him.

“Those things’ll kill you,” I say, indicating the cigarette.

“No such luck,” he answers.

“Thanks for saving me from a couple of hours of being stuck in an elevator.”

He shakes his head. “An hour and ten minutes. Hour and a quarter, tops. Depends on which elevator.”

“Milt was stuck in one of them.”

“Poor guy,” says the Wiz, not without compassion.

“If you’re half as good as I think you are, you knew when he visited you in the deli that it would happen,” I say.

He shrugs. “Anything’s possible.”

“Then why didn’t you warn him?”

“He’s going to use up all his extra money just thanking me for putting him in the right commodities at the right time.” answers the Wiz. “And where would I be if I worked for free?”

“But you told
me
for free!” I yell.

“Keep your voice down, Jake. If we disturb enough people, Homer the cop will chase me back inside”—he indicates a grubby coffee shop three doors down—“and it’s too damned stuffy in there.”

“Then answer me!” I insist.

“It was an act of friendship,” says the Wiz.

“Why me?” I say, and realize I asked that the day before too. “What have I got that Milt and a thousand other supplicants haven’t got?”

He smiles. “For one thing, you’re not a supplicant.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Funny,” he says. “I could have sworn it was.”

“So all someone has to do to be your friend and get free use of your services is to not ask for them?” I say.

“No, Jake,” he says. Suddenly he stares intently at me. “I helped you because I have a feeling that we’re kindred souls.” His cigarette goes out and he pulls a semi-crushed pack from his pocket. “I take it you don’t want one?”

I shake my head. “I had a father and an aunt die from cancer.”

“You won’t die from cancer, Jake.”

“You can see
that
far ahead?” I ask.

“Just take my word for it.”

“What
will
I die of?” I continue.

“Most people don’t want to know.”

“I just want to know
what
, not
when
.”

“Let it go, Jake,” says the Wiz, and suddenly he looks very old and very tired. “I don’t like talking about the end of things.” He taps his temple with a forefinger. “I see enough of them in here.”

I stare at him for a minute. “I never thought of that,” I say at last. “I guess the Wiz business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“You see?” he says with a sad smile. “I
knew
you were a kindred spirit.”

A guy who’s dressed even worse than the Wiz approaches us.

“Go away,” says the Wiz.

“Goddamn it!” whines the man. “You help everyone else! I really need it, Wiz!”

“If you’re still here when I count to five, I’m calling Homer over and telling him you’re harassing me.”

The guy mutters an obscenity and wanders off.

“He looked pretty desperate,” I say.

“He is,” agrees the Wiz. “He’s panhandled enough money for a ten dollar bet at his bookie’s. He’s looking for a longshot, and if it comes in, he’ll just spend it on crack.” He grimaces. “Let him learn how to read a
Racing Form
, or maybe even work for it.”

“So it wasn’t that you
couldn’t
help him …” I say.

“I have an unwanted gift,” he explains. “I didn’t ask for it, and I don’t want it—but as long as I’ve got it, I’ll use it the best way I can. And that doesn’t include helping a guy cheat on his wife, or a druggie score with his pusher.”

“Did you just wake up one day and suddenly you were the Wiz?” I asked.

He smiles a wistfully sad smile, closes his eyes, and slowly shakes his head. “I asked a foolish question.”

“What question?”

“Better you should remain ignorant,” he says.

The wind starts blowing harder.

“You hungry?” he asks suddenly.

I think about it for a moment. “I could eat.”

We enter the coffee shop and sit down at a table.

“Where are the menus?” I ask, looking around for one.

“Have a burger,” he says. “That’s all they make until evening.”

“Then why don’t we go to a joint with a better selection?”

“This one suits me fine,” he says.

I see we’re not going to leave, so I order a cheeseburger with grilled onions and a beer. He doesn’t even order; the waitress just says she’s bringing him the usual and he smiles and nods at her.

“So how’s the world treating you, Jake?” he says.

“I’d tell you, but you already know,” I answer.

He smiles. “Just making conversation.”

“It makes more sense for me to ask
you
the questions,” I say.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“And none of these non-answers that don’t tell me a thing,” I add.

“I’ll answer as best as I can,” he tells me. “And I never lie.”

“How long have you been the Wiz?” I ask. “Surely you weren’t born this way, or everyone would know about you.”

“A long time,” he says with a bittersweet smile.

“Ten years?” I persist. “Twenty?”

“Seventeen years, six months, and eleven days,” he says, and then adds: “But who’s counting?”

“How did you become the Wiz?” I ask. “Is there some wizard’s school you went to?”

“It just happened one day,” he says.

I snap my fingers. “Just like that?”

“Almost.”

“Why aren’t you working for the government?” I ask. “I’ll bet the Defense Department would pay a pretty penny for your skills.”

“I’ve already got more pretty pennies than I need,” he answers. “And I help
people
, not
things
.”

“Does it make you happy—helping people?”

“It did once.”

“Not any more?”

He sighs. “Nothing ever changes. No matter how many people I help, there are always more—and even with the ones I help, like Milton, the fixes are almost always temporary, not permanent.”

Our sandwiches and beers arrive. I take a bite of my cheeseburger. It’s not bad at all.

“So who do you like in tonight’s game?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Like’s got nothing to do with it,” he replies. “The Bulls are gonna make the Knicks look bad.”

I stare at him. “You know,” I say, “it occurs to me that knowing everything isn’t exactly the blessing it seems to be. When was the last time something surprised you?”

“A long,
long
time ago,” he says.

“And it’s not just knowing the races and the market, is it?” I continue. “If some woman agrees to go to bed with you, you knew she would before you asked her. Maybe you didn’t have to ask at all.” I look across the table at him. “You never feel surprised or lucky, do you?”

“Or loved,” he adds. “Just …
inevitable
.”

“I’m sorry for you, Wiz,” I say sincerely.

“There are compensations,” he says. “I get to help people.”

“A lot of them would get through the day without your help,” I point out. “Maybe most of them.”

He grimaces and his shoulders seem to sag. “Probably,” he agrees.

“Is
everything
predetermined?” I ask.

“Hardly anything is,” he says.

“But—”

“You have free will, Jake,” he says. “I could warn you about Rosario’s and the elevator, but it was up to you whether or not to take my advice. When you get right down to it, what’s the difference between that and choosing to stop at a corner when there’s heavy traffic and you see a red light?”

“There are two differences,” I answer. “One is that you
knew
I’d take your advice. You could look ahead and see it. And the other is that the red light’s always there for everybody, and you aren’t.”

“Now you’re going to make me feel guilty,” he says, though he manages a smile.

“I don’t mean to,” I say.

“I know.”

“I’m just starting to realize what your life must be like,” I continue. “I wouldn’t have it on a bet.”

“You don’t bet once you’re the Wiz,” he says gently. “In fact, you
can’t
bet, because betting involves the element of chance.”