Max (6 page)

Max paused in the act of smearing his face with pancake makeup and said, ‘What? Are you nuts?'

‘Not me, buddy. You're the guy who's gone loony over this skirt.'

‘Hey – don't call her that!'

‘Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, forgive me!'

‘I can't ask her.'

‘Why not? Ain't she a skirt? O.K., I apologise. She's a dame, ain't she?'

‘Yeah.'

‘So?'

‘She's older than I am.'

‘Maxie baby, ease up. I never fucked a lady wasn't older than me. Otherwise, what have you got? Jailbait.'

‘She ain't that kind of a girl.'

‘Oh.'

‘Look, I don't want to talk about it. Forget it.'

The first time Max went to the school after his visit on behalf of Ruby, at exactly ten minutes after three
P.M.
, and hid himself inside the hallway of a tenement across the street, he proposed to himself that he did so to make certain that Ruby was attending classes. But if so, why at ten minutes after three, when most of the students had already left the school? Why not at ten minutes before three? The hell with it, he said to himself. I'm here, ain't I? So I'm late.

It wasn't until ten minutes to four that Miss Levine emerged, flanked on either side by a lady teacher, and so flanked proceeded down the street and out of sight. Safely concealed in the darkness of the tenement hallway, Max could watch her through the glass pane in the door that led to the street. The following day, Max admitted to himself that he went there to watch her come out of the school, but that day and the next two days, Miss Levine was securely protected by the two lady teachers who walked on either side of her. Not until the fifth day of watching did Miss Levine emerge from the school alone and unescorted.

It was not until she was halfway down the school block that Max screwed up his courage sufficiently to follow, taking long steps, half running, and then blurting out, ‘Hello, Miss Levine!'

But his voice came forth a quavering squeak, and Miss Levine paused to turn and regard him with astonishment. He stood foolishly, smiling.

‘Mr Britsky.'

He nodded.

‘Were you coming to the school? It's much too late, you know. It's after hours.'

‘No … well, yes. I mean, how is the kid acting?'

‘The kid?'

‘My brother Ruby.'

‘Oh. Yes. Yes, I think he's trying.' She looked at him strangely. ‘Yes, he's trying. It's nice to have met you.' And then she started to walk off.

Walking alongside of her, Max said, ‘Is it all right if I walk along with you?'

Again she paused, looking at him thoughtfully.

‘I guess it looks to you like I'm acting crazy,' Max said.

This time Miss Levine was at a loss for words.

‘Yeah, I know, because I guess I am acting crazy, because I couldn't think of any other way to get to meet you.'

‘But you have met me, Mr Britsky, and if you wanted to see me again, all you had to do was to send a note into the class.'

‘That ain't what I mean. I mean that isn't what I mean, not exactly.' He noticed the shadow of a smile when he replaced ‘ain't' with ‘isn't,' and somehow it reassured him. ‘I mean meet you – just meet you – not because some kid I'm connected with acts like a little bum. Do I make any sense?'

‘Yes, I think I understand.'

‘So can I buy you a cup of coffee? Can we sit down somewhere and talk?'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘Why not?'

‘For one thing, I'm on my way home, where I have things to do.'

‘Are you married?' he demanded.

‘That's really none of your business, is it, Mr Britsky?'

‘Yes, it is.'

‘Well, I would dispute that,' she said. ‘But if you must know, I am. not married.' She stared at him again, her dark brown eyes searching his face. ‘Do you always do that, stop people on the street and ask personal questions?'

‘You know I don't. You're making fun of me, aren't you?'

‘No, but you invite it, you're so nervous and frightened.'

‘Me?' Max demanded indignantly. ‘Me frightened?'

‘I live on Tenth Street in Greenwich Village,' Miss Levine said. ‘It's a long walk, but when the weather is good I do like to walk home.'

‘Can I walk with you?'

‘Yes, if you wish. If you have the time.'

They began to walk. For Max, it was a new experience, this sensation of deep satisfaction and great accomplishment flowing out of the simple act of walking alongside a young woman. Yet he realised that a moment or two before, she had been on the point of dismissing him out of hand. He couldn't help asking her what made her change her mind.

‘I told you. You were so frightened.'

‘That's crazy,' Max said. ‘I'm not frightened. I'm – I don't know how to even talk to someone like you.'

‘You are talking to me, Mr Britsky.'

‘Yeah, sure. You're not from here, are you?'

‘From here?'

‘Here – the East Side?'

‘No, I was born in Brooklyn. That's not so far away, but too far for a daily journey, and since I've been teaching, I do live here.'

‘Yeah, sure. I guess to you I look like some kind of hoodlum.'

‘No. Well, I am curious about you. You said you were an entertainer. But you're very young –'

‘Eighteen. That's not young.'

‘But you can't be out of high school more than a few months.'

He was silent for a while, then he told her that he had left school at the age of twelve.

‘Why?'

‘To work.'

‘I know children work, but you could have gone to school.'

‘My father died,' Max said flatly. ‘He left my mother and six kids. We had no relatives, nobody, nobody who'd lift a finger or care whether we lived or died. Someone had to take care of them.'

‘A woman and six children?'

‘Yes.'

Miss Levine paused, slowed her walk, and then stopped to stare at Max as if she were seeing him for the first time. ‘And you did that – at the age of twelve?'

‘I'm not lying,' Max said defensively. ‘Nobody else did it, and they're still alive, right?'

‘I didn't mean to suggest that you were lying. It's just so incredible, so incredible.'

That night Bert said to Max, ‘You mean after that you just walked home with her and walked away? Maxie, baby, you got brains – you know where you got brains, in your pants.'

‘All right. This is not tail. This is not a piece of ass.'

‘They're all tail, they're all a piece of ass. You introduce me to that twist, and I guarantee you that in twenty-four hours I'll have my hand in her bloomers.'

‘And I'd kill you, you bastard!'

‘Ah, the boy's serious. You're in love, buster.'

But Max's relationship to love, romantic or otherwise, was cloudy. He was knit to his family, but he had no love for them, and since leaving school he had not read a book, whereby his notions of romantic attachment were unembellished by literature. He read the newspapers only in a desultory fashion since he was uninterested in politics, racing sheets more frequently,
Cockfight Specials
, which dealt with dogfights as well as cockfights, throwaways on pink paper, and now and then,
Dirty Dillies
, which was a crude pornographic magazine; but reading played a very minor role in his life, and notions of love as projected in the music halls were hardly inspiring. Still and all, something moved him and compelled him as he had never been moved before, and once again he approached Miss Levine as she was leaving the school.

If Max's world was a very narrow one, he nevertheless knew it and explored it, and he accepted enlargement with a totally open mind. Max knew how the floozies dressed, he knew how girls from his own background dressed, and he even knew how uptown ladies dressed; and if Miss Levine dressed somewhat differently from any of those groups, Max could balance the lot and accept her costume and learn something from it. Her ankle-length gray worsted skirt was well cut and appeared to hang and flow gracefully with her movements. She wore a dark blue spring coat and under it a white blouse, the jabot of which was just visible, and she carried both a briefcase and a purse. This time Max ignored the fact that she walked with another teacher. He fell into step alongside of her and said, ‘Please, let me carry your briefcase.' And then he took it from her before she could properly protest.

She was taken aback and somewhat flustered as she introduced the other teacher: ‘Miss MacClintock, this is Mr Britsky.'

Max lifted his hat, nodded, and said, ‘Ma'am. How do you do?' He had never before in his life greeted anyone in precisely that manner, and he thought he brought it off rather well.

At the next corner, Miss MacClintock left them to continue across town while they turned uptown; and Miss Levine said, with some asperity, ‘Really, Mr Britsky, this can't go on. I will not be accosted by you whenever I leave the school.'

‘I only done – did it once before. This is only the second time. That's not whenever you leave the school.'

‘Twice is enough. What on earth do you want?'

‘I guess I just want to know you, to be your friend.'

‘What!' Her surprise and indignation hit Max like a severe slap in the face. Apparently she realised that she had struck home, because when Max stopped dead in his tracks, she walked only a few steps before she turned around and went back to him.

‘I'm sorry,' she said.

‘For what? For nothing. You got this East Side hoodlum annoying you and you tell him to buzz off. That's all right. It's a free country.'

‘That's not what I meant.'

‘Sure it is. Don't you think I know what I am? I'm Britsky, which is nothing to write home about. I got no education and I got no class, and with a puss like mine, I don't have any looks either.'

‘You're a very nice-looking young man, Mr Britsky, and you're just making too much of this. I am four years older than you, and I would think you'd be better suited to a young lady of your own age.'

‘I know. I get the message.'

Now Miss Levine smiled slightly and said, ‘You know, I was going to walk away a moment ago and leave you with my briefcase, and I guess that does indicate that I trust you. It's very kind of you to carry it. Would you like to walk home with me?'

‘Yes.'

‘All the way up to Tenth Street? It's a good-sized walk.'

‘You don't mind?'

‘I asked you because I'd like you to.'

‘Right.'

They walked on for another block in silence, then she said to him. ‘What is your first name, Mr Britsky? You do have a first name?'

‘You like to kid me, don't you? Sure I got a first name. Max.'

‘Max?'

‘That's right. And your name's –?'

‘Sally.'

‘So if you called me Max and I called you Sally, the world wouldn't come to an end, would it?'

‘I suppose not.'

‘So?'

‘So what?'

‘So would you call me Max and let me call you Sally?'

They had now reached Houston Street, and they turned west toward Broadway. Once again, Miss Levine paused and faced him. ‘To what end, Mr Britsky?' she asked him.

‘Damnit!' he blurted out. ‘I want us to be friends! I want to go around with you the way a guy does with a girl. I want to see you again without standing outside that lousy school like some total dumbbell. I want to take you out to dinner.'

‘That's quite impossible,' Miss Levine said primly.

‘Why?'

‘I don't think we ought to go into that. You're a very young man. I am much older than you, and I think we would have very little if anything in common.'

‘Yeah, if you count the years, you're four years older, but if you count what it takes to grow up in this rotten city, I'm ten years older than you, and maybe you figure I'm just a hoodlum, so there's nothing we got in common, because I left school and I don't speak the way you do, but –' He was grinning at her now.

‘But what?'

‘But I'll grow on you, I bet. Look, let me take you out to dinner tonight and I'll bet you twenty bucks you'll like me enough to do it again.'

‘Oh? All right. Not tonight. Tomorrow night.'

‘What? Hey, is that straight goods?'

‘Yes, I said you could take me to dinner tomorrow night. But I want you to understand that I do this with some trepidation. We have never been formally introduced.'

Max was not certain what trepidation meant, nor was he quite clear about the social meaning of a formal introduction. He was certain that she had agreed to a date on the following night. ‘O.K.! Great! Right now I'm introducing myself.' He bowed, removing his hat. ‘My name is Max Britsky. Right now I am nobody but I intend to become somebody. You can't go wrong with me, believe me. Max Britsky introduces himself!

His enthusiasm Was such that Miss Levine broke into laughter.

‘Sally?' he said.

‘Yes?'

‘You see – Sally. I am calling you Sally. Try Max.'

‘What?'

‘Try calling me Max. Just try it.'

‘Max.'

‘See, it don't hurt.'

‘It
doesn't
– She swallowed it.

‘Go on,' Max said.

‘No, I'm being dreadful. I'm correcting your speech.'

‘Do it. I got to learn.'

When they reached Washington Square, they were much more at ease with each other, and Sally pointed to the houses on the north side of the park. ‘When you become that great wealthy millionaire Max Britsky, you can buy me one of those houses.'

‘Oh?' Glancing at her sharply.

‘Just as a gift. We'll still be casual acquaintances, but just the way Diamond Jim throws his jewels around.' She had changed, thrown off the austere mantle of the teacher.