Seventh Avenue (4 page)

Jay went over to his mother, put an arm round her shoulder, and hugged her.

“I was so worried about you that something happened.”

“He’s a loud mouth,” Al said.

“When he gets married it’ll straighten him out.”

“Or he should join the army,” Al added, confident that he himself could never pass the medical examination.

“Plenty time for marriage,” Celia said.

“He’s twenty-three and strong as a horse,” Morris replied in one of his infrequent verbal exchanges with his wife.

Celia kissed Jay on the cheek, and he held her tightly in his arms; his father and brother looked away angrily.

“It’s a disgusting way a grown man carries on with his mother.”

Al nodded and stretched his legs on the windowsill, beating Morris to his familiar retreat by a second; Morris scowled at him, and Al removed his legs.

“You always picking on him,” Celia said. “If not for Jake we’d be on the street.”

“And you defending him?” Morris spiritedly shook a fist at his wife. “Against me all the time. No respect . . . in Poland he would have respect. Honor thy father and mother it says.”

“And thy brother,” Al added.

“That’s right . . . for an older brother respect too. The way that boy talks it shames me. And that’s what I kill myself to bring to America.”

“Poppa, you never killed yourself for nothing, not even yourself.”

“It’s not a mouth he’s got but a garbage can.” “Garbage can.”

“One more word out of you, Al, and it’ll be lights out.”

“See the way he threatens your own son,” Morris groaned.

“A career he’s got as a murderer. Why don’t you join your friends in Brooklyn, they get paid for killing people.”

Celia touched Jay’s hand affectionately.

“You had breakfast?”

“Yeah. I met this girl at a wedding that Barney took me to.”

“Whose wedding?”

“Dunno. And I took her home.”

“And you stayed all night? What kind of a girl . . . ?”

“A nice one. It was snowing too hard to come home, and I slept in her sister’s room.”

“A filthy boy . . .”

“She was nine years old, Poppa.”

“Nothing do I put past you, brother.”

“Honest, Mamma, don’t listen . . . she’s a nice girl and her father’s a
businessman.”

Morris sprang to his feet, the bones in his legs cracking, seized his newspaper, rolled it up truncheon fashion and slammed it on the table so hard that a cup and saucer, as though on a trampoline, flew off and smashed on the floor. As a prelude to a morose spell of impotent, silent rage that could last as long as three days and which curtailed his activities so that he would leave his bed only to go to the toilet, he would always grind his teeth with such rancor - his jaw white and terrifying from the exertion - that blood would appear on his gums and he would rush to the bathroom and gargle salt water for an hour before taking to his bed, his post at the window ceremoniously guarded by Al.

“Insults! Insults . . .” he raged. In his haste to leave the room, one of his slippers fell off, and he flung it against the wall. Celia followed him to the bathroom.

“Always have to upset him, don’t you? A man who does no harm,” Al said.

“He has no feelings for anything or anybody,” Jay said.

“Someday when you’re a father, just remember how you treated him.”

“He’s never been a father to
me.”

“You’ve never allowed him to be one.”

“Look, let’s stop the bullshit. Sylvia told me what he did to Momma when she was pregnant with me.”

“I wouldn’t believe anything Sylvia told me if she swore on a stack of Bibles.”

“Well, she’s your sister too, and she’s got no reason to lie. She was twelve years old at the time. Don’t look at me as though I was nuts. Why do you think she married Harry when she was fifteen - a man she hardly knew? Because she wanted to get away from Poppa.”

“Honest, Jay, what’s the point of all this old crap?”

“Because it was
me
not you that Momma was pregnant with when the old man pushed her down the stairs, that’s why. Why do you think she hates him?”

“Momma doesn’t hate him . . . she just loves you more - that’s what’s caused the trouble. That’s what’s made him bitter.”

“I may as well talk to the wall. Momma loves all of us and if not for her we’d be dead and buried somewhere in Poland.”

“I don’t know why Sylvia tells you these stories. Rosalee hasn’t got any bad feelings against him. She never mentioned . . .”

“How the hell could she? She was four, you were two, and Momma was pregnant with me, so how could she know a goddamned thing?”

Celia came back into the room and sat down heavily on a chair at the kitchen table.

“Please boys, no more arguing. Poppa’s not well.” She handed Al and Jay glasses of tea, and they sat for some moments in uneasy silence.

“Jake, I don’t like to ask . . .”

“All I’ve got’s a dime.”

“The Relief don’t come till next Wednesday.”

“I get paid tonight and I’ll bring home some vegetables.”

“I’ll make a soup. A nice thick one like you like with marrow bones.”

“Oh, Momma. Don’t worry, you’ll be all right as long as I’m alive.”

It snowed again that night, a thin, powdery, sugar-fine snow that concealed the heavy glazed underseal of ice on the sidewalk and glinted under the street lamps. The streets were dark and deserted, except for the drone of a lonely car skidding on the road. Jay tried not to think of the cold and walked slowly. He flexed his toes with every step he took to keep the circulation going, and he felt tired and hungry. A long night of unloading fruit crates and sacks of onions and potatoes awaited him and the thought of it almost defeated him. He passed row upon row of darkened shops of all kinds: delicatessen, butcher, jewelry, clothing, and he wondered if he ought to risk a robbery. A jewelry shop, with a mound of zircons parading as diamonds, caught his eye; a sign in the window announced: BEST PRICES FOR OLD GOLD, ALL PAWN TICKETS MUST BE REDEEMED IN THIRTY DAYS. Then in the corner of the window a statement of policy: CREDIT MAKES ENEMIES, LET’S BE FRIENDS. He had to have a car with a driver if he smashed the window; there was probably an alarm in the shop, and there were police patrolling every few minutes. It was too icy to try to make a run for it.

The snow suddenly changed to hailstones, and he moved his muffler up to his face, but the hailstones got through and cut into his skin. He reached the market about half an hour later than usual and saw that the night shift had begun. He entered an office where a checker was busily comparing invoices against the goods the men unloaded. A slow, joyful smile irradiated the checker’s face whenever he came upon a shortage, and he would shout for the boss’s son to report the discovery. A mutated scutcheon in embossed brass revealed a hand holding a scimitar over some amorphous melon-like object; a legend written in the style of a penmanship textbook proclaimed the firm’s motto: “Buy from Solomon Bell, the man who knows his onions.”

“Late tonight, aren’t you?” the checker said without looking up.

“No money for carfare, so I had to walk.”

“Yeah, well the boss’s sure to be understanding. Here” - he handed Jay a stained brown envelope – “your pay.”

Jay opened the envelope and counted the money three times.

“There’s a mistake. I’ve been shorted two dollars.”

“Shorted?” A voice rang out from the backroom. It belonged to a tall, broad-shouldered man, wearing a torn green sweater, who was Jay’s cousin.

“That’s right, Artie,” Jay said to the man who came towards him. “There’s a mistake.”

“Here, let’s see that,” he said, taking the pay slip out of Jay’s hand. “Mistakes are possible, but we don’t short people.” He studied the slip of paper for a moment. “No mistake. Eight dollars and twelve cents.”

“But it should be ten dollars and twelve cents.”

“Lookit, it says right here, that you worked Monday through Saturday.”

“What about Sunday?”

“You didn’t work, and you don’t get paid.”

“I was out sick.”

“Glad to see you recovered.”

“C’mon cut it out. I haven’t ever been paid for overtime, and I haven’t been out sick one day in a year.”

“You got a beef. Put it in the hands of a lawyer.”

“I’ll take it up with the union.”

“You’re really a smart guy, aren’t you, Jay?”

“I just want what’s coming to me.”

“A rap in the mouth’s coming to you. That’s what’s coming to you.”

“Don’t threaten me, Artie, okay.”

Artie turned to the checker who pretended not to hear.

“Did you ever hear such shit, Harry? I mean if my father hadn’t given him a job as a favor to his mother, would we ever’ve taken him on?” He glared at Jay. “You got complaints, you can fuck off right now. I don’t have to stand here listening to a schmuck like you asking for pay he didn’t earn. You wanta work” - he peered at his watch – “you start right now, docked an hour on next week’s pay, ‘cause you’re an hour late.”

“I still want my two dollars.”

“Want all you want. But what you get’s another story.”

“Two dollars!” Jay put out his hand. Artie stared at his hand for a moment then spat on it. Jay wiped his hand on his trouser leg. “Give me my two dollars and I’ll forget what you’ve done.”

“Look, shitass, outa here, right this minute,” he said, pushing Jay out through the open door and following him out. He had the collar of Jay’s sweater in his hand and shoved him into the gutter. A number of men with sacks on their shoulders stood watching. Gray shafts of frost came out of Artie’s mouth. “If I catch you around here again, I’ll personally break your head and you can forget about working in the market altogether because I’ll shitlist you with everybody. You’re a troublemaker.”

He was about to release his hold on Jay’s sweater when Jay swung out. He hit Artie right below the armpit above the ribcage, and he fell back slightly, more surprised than hurt. Jay came towards him slowly and feinted slightly to his left, letting Artie throw a punch that glanced off the top of his head. Jay had allowed for this and it enabled him to throw a short left that caught Artie in the pit of the stomach and straightened him up, but he did not follow up.

“Finish him,” one of the men shouted.

Jay refused the advice and waited for Artie to get set. For a moment, he forgot what they were fighting about and then he was hit on the bridge of the nose, and his nose began to bleed. Artie came in close, and his arms moved like pistons into Jay’s stomach. Jay took a short, quick step back and swung out a looping left that caught Artie on the side of the jaw and dropped him. He got up quickly and rushed Jay. When they were close he lifted up his knee to kick Jay in the groin, but Jay turned his body to the side and blocked it with his hip. He crouched low, weaving from side to side, Artie over him punching him on the ears and the back of the neck. Jay bobbed his head suddenly to the left, then swung a sharp right that caught Artie between the eyes and sent him reeling back. Jay came after him patiently and just as Artie had pulled up his guard, Jay caught him with a left to the right eye, which closed it almost immediately. Artie retreated into the gutter and Jay followed. They were between dozens of sacks of onions and potatoes, and Jay was satisfied that Artie had to go through him to escape. Artie rubbed his eye in terror, trying to force it open. When he realized that it was closed, he ducked his head low and rushed Jay again. Jay waited. When Artie was on top of him, he leveled a left to his stomach, opening his guard, then dropped him with a right hand that went to the point of his jaw. Artie lay quietly in the gutter and Jay walked up to him, put his hand in his pocket, peeled off two dollar bills and returned the rest of the money to Artie’s pocket. Then, almost as if it were an afterthought, he cradled Artie’s head in his arm and Artie opened his left eye. Jay stared at him for a moment, then spat into his face.

For some hours, Jay drifted through the market streets; dazed and uneasy, several times he lost his way. His hands were numb, and he could not clench his fists without causing a long grinding pain that traveled from his elbow to his spine. A clock in the meat market, some miles away from where he had started, showed him it was now three in the morning. He watched from a doorway a butcher’s helper unload a great side of beef with a thin layer of frost on it. Gelid and blood-red by turns, as though the colors and shape were created by the man’s struggling rhythm, the beef was carried to a shed where it was hitched onto a long swaying hook. At the front of the stall, boxes of trussed chickens lay unattended. Jay moved out of the shadows quickly, seized a chicken, and ran down the street. He increased his speed when he heard the sound of clattering feet pursuing him. Finally, almost half a mile away, he stopped, fell heavily against a lamppost, and waited stoically for his pursuers. There were no sounds apart from the thumping of his heart and the groan of the unrelenting wind coming from the north side of the embankment; he peered across the river, which was black and tumid with ice blocks, and he knew that the only hope he had existed beyond the lights, beyond the swaying, dank dock tenements that lay across the waterfront like a festering sore. The hope was Rhoda.

Somehow he found his way back to Rivington Street, crawled into bed with his clothes on. The chicken squirmed out of his jacket and fell with a thud on the floor. Jay struggled out of bed and took the chicken into the kitchen and placed it on the wooden draining board. A dead, idiotic eye, glazed and passive, stared back at him. He picked its wobbly neck up from the board and shook it.

The living room in Rhoda’s house was warm and furnished in a medley of periods that came under the general heading of fire auction sale. It bore all the marks of pilgrim taste: from its chintz drapery, its dog-eared love seat - which if taken at its word, could at best only accommodate half-grown pygmies and would have been a Procrustean bed to anyone suffering from even incipient steatopygia - to its veined fuchsia sofa, and its beige stippled walls. It was, in short, a room that any lunatic asylum might be proud of. In a chair that was in conflict with the natural arch of his spine, Jay’s eye level was in perfect line with Rhoda’s kneecaps.

“You seem surprised . . .”

“Do I? Well, to be honest, I was afraid my father scared you off,” she said.

“Me scared? No, nothing like that.”

“It couldn’t’ve been you wanted to see me again. After all, I made it clear I wasn’t what you boys call a hot number.”

Not much, Jay thought, taking a nibble from a piece of cake before it dispersed on his lap.

“Hot number? Where’d you get that idea?”

“I mean, I’m human too, but nothing more than necking. And when you had me by the throat, I said to myself: ‘This guy’s a crazy.’ What with Poppa two doors away, Miriam in the same room, and Momma liable to use the bedpan any time at night? You were panting.”

“No, I was cold. Chills.”

“Some chills. They probably have to lock you up when you get a cold . . . with chills like that.”

Jay finished his cake, did a quick inventory of the room for more cake, and finding none, slumped deeper into the innards of the chair.

“Still hungry?”

“No, I’ll just have something simple like a steak.”

“No weddings this week?”

“I’m wanted dead or alive in every catering hall from Eastern Parkway to Tremont Avenue. They’ve got posters up with my aliases.”

“You’re not kidding. If food gave you brains, you’d be a genius.”

“The fire’s going out.” He got up and looked in the coal scuttle.

“There’s some more down in the basement. First door on your right,” Rhoda said.

Bemused, Jay opened the second door on the right and came upon Myrna posing in front of a mirror, her naked breasts uplifted in her palms, in an attempt to defy the natural gravity of her body.

“Hey, you some kind of nut or something? Don’t you knock?”

Jay covered his eyes with his free hand and backed away slowly.

“Sorry . . .”

“You know this isn’t a boardinghouse.”

“. . . Said I was sorry. I thought it was the basement.”

“I’m sure. It says Basement in big black letters on my door, doesn’t it?”

“What? Where?”

She had covered herself up with a pink chenille bedspread, a study in the variations of nobbles any fabric could ever be subjected to. She turned around. She had blackish-brown hair, parted on the right side - a homemade bob, he’d seen a million of them - liver-brown eyes surprisingly limpid, sleek pubescent calves, thinnish arms, a small almond-shaped face and a fleshy nose that hooked slightly. A born spinster, Jay thought, and probably a fabulous lay going to waste. He made a mental note to get around to her in due course.

“You Miriam’s boyfriend?”

Snotty and embittered, but good teeth.

“Not exactly. More like Rhoda’s friend.”

“Oh, love without sex, that kinda friend?”

“Can I put my hand down?”

“Where’s Rhoda?”

“In the living room.”

“She shouldn’t let you roam about by yourself,” she said smiling.

An offer?

“You must be musical Myrna.”

“Go to the head of the class.”

“You play instruments or just sell them?”

“I’m the Garbo of the guitar.”

“Oh, a comedian, huh? I’ve met a few.”

“You’re Jay?”

He paused and surveyed her figure: “Yeah, I’m Jay.”

“Are you a boxer, Jay?”

“When I have to be.”

She came towards him, the bedspread blowing in the stiff breeze from an unplastered crack, and stopped when she was very close to him. Her face almost touched his, and she kissed him on the tip of the nose.

“Hello, Jay, the boxer. You roll yourself into a little ball when you sleep. Like a baby.”

“Errrrrrrr . . .”

“I covered you the other morning.”

Not enough time, not even for a quickie.

“Thoughtful.”

“I loved you from afar.” She giggled, and he realized that she was amusing herself.

“Uh . . . we’ll be friends, Myrna.”

“You can rely . . .”

“Rhoda’ll be wondering . . .”

His hands were grimy when he returned to the living room - no shovel - and his face was flushed.

“Where’ve you been, down a mine?”

“Getting the coal.”

“I was going to ring the alarm for a cave-in.”

“Met your sister on the way . . .”

“And you were nearly attacked?”

“No, nothing like that.” Rhoda had her number. “I just said hello and she said hello.”

“Interesting conversation. Didn’t she tell you about her music?”

“Not much.”

“Oh, well, she’ll get around to it.” Rhoda laughed maliciously. “She plays the clarinet. She played in the school band for four years and then she tried out for Paul Whiteman’s. Wanted to be the only female clarinetist in America.”

“Sounds like she’s a talent.”

“They told her to get a job in a music shop. Never got over it.”

Myrna, fully clothed, even coated in the community black fur affair that Rhoda had worn, poked her head through the doorway.

“I’m off.”

“Home late?”

“No, when the concert’s over. Nice to have met you, Jay.”

“Feeling’s mutual.”

When she had gone, a little bell tinkled from a room above, and Jay wondered if another family occupied the top floor.

“It’s Momma. I’m on duty tonight. Won’t be a sec.”

Minutes later Rhoda returned, informed him that Momma wanted to meet him, and showed him into the upstairs bathroom so that he could wash his hands.

“Said she heard your voice and liked it. She’s got chronic arthritis.”

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. She’s been bedridden for about nine years, and nothing can be done. It happened after Miriam was born.”

“Hard on your father . . .”

“He doesn’t make demands, know what I mean? As long as he’s got soup and chicken on Friday night he’s happy.”

“Um, yeah, I can understand that. Soup and chicken . . .”

In a room of heroic proportions, Jay stood, his mouth agape. Mrs. Gold peered at him over pince-nez, a vestigial remnant of the Tsarina’s court. She wore a lace cap, which looked like a converted doily, her pallid face was rouged on both cheeks in perfect circles; it was evident that she had taken the rouge pot, wet it, and impressed it on her face without bothering to spread it out. A magenta line around her mouth created the illusion of lips, contrasting violently with her limestone complexion. It was a face capable of a variety of expressions, none of them human, and it was clear to Jay why her husband lived for chicken soup.

“Your name?”

“Jay Blackman.”

“Formerly?” Her voice had the metallic timbre of clock chimes.

“Jacob Blaukonski.”

“You will stand up straight when you talk to me.”

“Momma doesn’t have many visitors.”

“Yeah, I can see.”

“Speak up.”

“Nothing.”

“What kind of talk is nothing?”

“That’s a pretty bedjacket,” Jay said.

“Momma knits them herself.”

“You like it?”

Jay was afraid she might offer it to him.

“Yes . . . nice colors,” he replied cautiously.

“Occupation?”

“Momma, I thought you just wanted to meet Jay? He’s not applying for a job.”

She considered this for some moments, then waved Jay to a chair by her bedside. A host of home remedies from witch hazel to Geritol stood like minions on her table; silent witnesses of her battle with failing health.

“At Court we always asked these questions, you will understand,” she said, pointing a reedlike finger at him.

“I’m not sure . . . ? Isn’t this Borough Park?”

“When an Officer asked for a Lady’s hand, interviews were held.”

Protestingly, he turned to Rhoda:

“She thinks I’m a cop. I’m in fruit and vegetables, Mrs. Gold. At least I was.”

“A man without a job is like a soldier with no gun. That’s why interviews . . .”

“Momma, you’re tired. You’re not well,” Rhoda said.

“Interviews, you will understand me . . .”

“I had my interview yesterday and they said I could go on Relief.”

“C’mon, Jay, Momma’s exhausting herself,” Rhoda said, yanking him out of the chair.

“Nice to have met you, Mrs. G. Hope you feel better.”

“Tchekov himself attended my mother and myself. Today they send a general practitioner who writes notes to himself in Latin. I don’t call that literature. He was a poet, that one.
Bongkiss,
he prescribed in those days, and he cured people. The general practitioner laughs when I tell him about it. If I had my Hussar here, I wouldn’t be in bed. He’d take me riding across the steppes, and we’d have the
season . . .”

“It’s only the season for carrots and potatoes. You don’t get greens till the spring.”

“What? He’s mad - your young man, Rhoda - but I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

Outside, Rhoda whispered:

“She liked you, Jay. Oooh, I’m so glad.” She squeezed his arm affectionately. He turned her towards him and kissed her on the neck.

“Oooh, you better stop. Wait till Poppa’s in bed.”

“Clever woman, your mother.”

“Oh, she’s read, and read, and read.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Intellectually above him, he’d better watch his step.

Rhoda took the love seat when they got back to the living room, and Jay was assigned the comfy club chair, favored by her father. Definitely a bird’s nest, he thought, sliding into it. She stretched out an arm that revealed nice pink, healthy, hairless skin, and touched his hand.

“We’ve come into each other’s lives.”

Jay agreed that they had indeed come into each other’s lives. He kissed her fingertips to prove the point.

“It’s like history, well, two different countries, you Poland and me Russia, coming together. I think it’s absolutely marvelous.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.” The conversation was taking a serious turn.

“You like me? I mean really?”

“Would I be here?”

“I guess that proves something,” coyly.

“Haven’t I shown that I like you very much?”

“You’ve made a few grabs at me.”

“That’s not normal?”

“If you do like me, then tell me what happened - to your face.”

“Fight. Someone tried to steal money from me. My boss . . .”

“So that’s why you told Momma you were on Relief. And he fired you?”

“He didn’t get around to it.”

“Then what are you gonna do?” Her face expressed concern, and he was curiously moved. “It’s important what you do. Work for yourself and be your own boss.”

“I never thought of it. I haven’t got any money. If I did, I’d get myself a pushcart . . . fruit, I know.”

“How much would you need?”

He grew pensive. Economic problems always fascinated him. Working for himself would make him independent.

“About fifty dollars. But where would I get it? Tell me that?”

Her brow ruckled, and his momentary elation vanished. Hopeless situation. For someone on Relief, the idea of starting up a business was preposterous. He couldn’t buy himself a cup of coffee.

“Funny, I’m twenty years old, and I’ve worked for seven years,” she said with a faint hint of despondency. “Seven years . . . not much fun when you’re a kid. Yeah, we’ve all got sad stories. Must’ve been tougher on you than me. We’ve always had what to eat and decent clothes, but not much else. Everything goes on paying doctor bills. And in all that time I’ve only saved seventy-five dollars.”

He grew more uncomfortable and decided to say good night. Awkward position to put her in - a comparative stranger. Either a sense of decency or anything that might be described as principles constrained him; it was rather a sense of depriving himself of his manhood that made him get up and put on his jacket. He coiled the scarf around his neck and rolled a cigarette before leaving: too windy outside.

“I’ll give it to you,” Rhoda said.

He dropped the tobacco on the carpet and in a dream swept it under the sofa with his shoe, then he bent down to scoop it up, stopped, not remembering what he intended to do in the first place. She handed him a cigarette, lit it for him, and he stood in the center of the room puffing. He picked up a knitting magazine and leafed through it, then began reading an article that he did not understand on crocheting tablecloths. After a minute he put the magazine down, strode to the mantelpiece, shook the cuckoo clock, and smelled some wax tulips.

“Good night,” he said.

“You’re going?”

Halfway out of the door, he stopped again and remembered that he had not rolled a cigarette, and he stood in the darkened hallway with his pouch of Bull Durham.

“It’s ridiculous,” Rhoda said. “I’ve saved for the dowry that Poppa can’t afford to give me. And it’s seventy-five dollars. It’s no money. Either you come to a man with a proper dowry or you go to him with just the clothes on your back. Seventy-five dollars is so stupid. I’ve been kidding myself for seven years. It’s yours . . .”