The Fuck Up (19 page)

“How’s tricks?” I asked casually.

Pointing expressionlessly toward the office, he wanted to talk in seclusion. Could I have shut off a wrong circuit? Did I accidentally permit school children entry? Perhaps the cantankerous projectionist had complained.

When we finally sat together in that cramped office with the door closed, he began, “Do you feel it?”

“Do I feel what?”

“It’s lying between us like an age-old sequoia, look at it! Can’t you see it?” He pointed to the empty safe. He had discovered that I had participated in a crime that he had exclusive rights to.

“You mean the fact that we’re both stealing money,” I replied.

He snubbed his cigarette and sat so silently that all I could hear was the buzz of the fluorescent lighting overhead.

“Look, I don’t find it shameful. You shouldn’t either,” I said offering him a way out. He sighed and smiled and laughed.

“All right.” He looked up at me and included, “Honor between thieves. You’re not pissed are you?”

“Why should I be pissed?”

“Because I would’ve been pissed if you confronted me with it. I mean, I didn’t know that you knew about me. I was about to fire you, but now I feel like a regular Judas.”

“Well, I’ll always be straight with you,” I said, not intending any puns on my sexual preference. “If you ever find it otherwise, just prove it to me and hey, I’ll quit.”

“Thank you,” he said almost spiritually. Leaning over in his chair, he gave me a gripping handshake. Then, leaning back, he looked unblinkingly at me. I sensed he was struggling to bring all this to a graceful conclusion, so I decided to give him a hand.

“By the amount Ox pays us, all he buys is my presence. Loyalty costs a lot more.”

A smile broke on his face. “I felt bad before, ’cause I was going to fire you just to preserve my own facade of honesty. But now I even feel like more of a hypocrite. See I never have been entirely honest with you, but maybe I can make it up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, let me first ask you, how did you figure that I was stealing?”

“By comparing the amount the theater made on the days you did work with the days you didn’t.”

“I figured that would be the only way that I could be discovered, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Because the old manager who I used to work with was such an asshole. But now you’re here, and I need a partner,” he said.

“What are you proposing?”

“Let me present a speculative prospectus.” The hippie had collapsed away to the businessman. I leaned back and listened. He talked about raising capital. Then he talked about leverage, interest rates, credit rating and finally investments; the future. I had no idea what he was getting at. He sounded like one of those sleazy guys who buys time on syndicated TV to hype something. Finally, though, he started talking about specifics.

“Hoboken is dying as a blue-collar community. But it is slowly returning as a white-collar, yuppie neighborhood. Now I located a place, an old garage that could easily be converted into a theater. I’ve got an independent contractor who already has plans. I’ve even got two used thirty-five millimeter projector heads. All I would need are lamp houses, and I’ll have the projectors.”

He talked suspense fully for another two hours, telling me about everything from the fold-down chairs and emergency lights to the hiring of ushers. But he kept me wondering about where I entered in this picture. I think he wanted me to approach him, but I decided to sit back and let him make the offer; he wouldn’t take the chance of telling me about all this if he didn’t want something. Deciding to show him that I was no school boy, I started arguing about all the possible bugs. “How about the projectionist wage? How long could you sustain that if you don’t break even quickly?”

“Hobokens a non-union town. We can exploit some kid.”

“How many other theaters are there?”

“Just one duplex in the entire town, the real competition will come from the five or six video stores.”

“How about a distributor?”

“If it can be done,” he said, “we can do it.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said ‘we.’ What do you mean, ‘we’?” I’d have done anything for the chance of getting in on the ground floor of any kind of deal.

“Here’s where you come in. If I can scrape together ten grand by this June, then this place will soon be ours. But we have to keep on a rigid payment schedule.”

He wouldn’t involve me in this if he didn’t absolutely need to. “Who exactly owns this place now and why won’t they let you just put something down and extend the payments?”

“We can make the amount together by June,” he said, not volunteering anything else. “But we can only do it if we do it together. How about it?”

“Let me ask you two questions. First, where exactly will I stand in this Hoboken theater?”

“Well, this would really depend on how much you’re willing to participate. Would you like to work at the theater full time?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, a seventy-thirty split on what we clear, with possible options to a larger share when you have more money, that would be my rough estimate. What’s the second question?”

“How much will we have to steal from here each night, on the average, to reach the deadline date?”

“We’ll need to average a little more than a hundred-and-eighty a night.”

“We might be able to get away with it,” I replied, “if we don’t get caught by the checkers.” They were people hired by the production and distribution companies to check against what we were doing.

“Well, that’s the risk. How about it?”

I thought about it. I could discreetly take in half of the prescribed amount and still live high on the hog. Or I could agree to a partnership, steal an incriminating sum each night, risk getting caught and live on a pittance. More than any other word, America meant ownership and by that definition I was a patriot. “Okay.”

“Okay, fine. I’ve already arranged for another account at the bank we deposit the theater’s money. Every night, fill out a deposit slip to this other account and zip it into the same night bag, understand?”

“Isn’t that playing it a little close?”

“Everything’ll be fine.” Apparently one of the bank officers was in on the deal.

We both gave a final shake on the deal and then he left. While considering his offer, I’d scratched my calf. When feeling moisture along my fingertips, I noticed blood and quickly realized that I’d accidentally torn open the Angela bite scab. I cleaned the wound and taped a napkin to it. I then checked my arm wound, which seemed to be healing. I then thought about Glenn. She seemed so strong and infallible during the day of that hold up. I walked in on her life at a bad time, and watched her deteriorate. I, on the other hand, had remained consistently in shambles.

She was undoubtedly waiting for something better, so I decided at that moment to bring it to an end. Taking out a piece of paper, I wrote:

I signed it and then reread it. She wouldn’t mind breaking up with me as much as being dumped I figured. So I wrote the phone number of the theater allowing her the option of formally dumping me.

I then taped her house key and the car keys to the letter. I put it in a stamped envelope and sealed it. Glenn was actually quite a find, but the decision seemed noble and wise—occasionally those decisions also turn out to bring the most gain. It was only when 1 stuffed the letter into my jacket pocket that 1 remembered all of Helmsley’s books I had left in the Mercedes. What Helmsley would have liked me to do with the books was the next float in the parade of questions. I didn’t think he’d forgive me if I just sold them and bought leisure gear with the proceeds. I could probably donate the whole mess to the New York Public Library on Forty-second Street, Perhaps I could stipulate that there would be some established title honoring him: The Helmsley Collection. It had a nice ring to it. Anyway all this meant I couldn’t break up with Glenn yet, so I called her. Answering the phone, she sounded calm, “Where are you?”

“I’m at work. Why, what’s wrong?”

“I thought you promised that you’d be in the vicinity?”

“You said you wanted to spend the evening alone and 1 had to work.”

“I suppose so,” she said.

“The theater doesn’t close for another half hour or so. Would you like me to come by then?”

“Do you want to?” she asked.

“Sure,” I replied, lying. I had to take the books to the library tomorrow anyway. This way it looked like I was doing her the favor.

“See you, then,” she said and hung up. With jittery hands, I counted out the nightly sum of money and prepared Miguel’s cut. As soon as I had finished turning back the gauge, establishing Miguel’s cut, flipping off the lights, locking the theater, and dropping the money in the night drop, I hailed a southbound cab on Third Avenue. It went down the Bowery, over the bridge, right on Tillary, left on Court, and on Pierrepont it halted. I dropped a fivedollar
bill in the front seat, dashed up the brownstone steps, and knocked softly on her front door.

She opened the door. As soon as I entered, she hugged me and dissolved on my shoulder, crying, “It’s all a mess!”

“What happened?”

“I saw Adolphe.”

“You mean, like Hitler?”

She was too far in tears to reply. “What mother would name her son Adolphe?” Through sobs came broken phrases, “He’s so sorry…right now he needs…he says he loves me…he needs me so….” She couldn’t stop crying, and 1 couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was saying.

“Space!” she finally barked. “The jerk needs space…”

“I can understand that,” I replied, trying to be understanding.

“Oh? So what are you saying. It’s okay to cheat on someone, long as you get away with it?”

“No, I just meant that everyone needs some space.”

“What are you saying? That I’m difficult to be around?”

“Not at all…”

“Do you feel uncomfortable around me?”

“No…no, I’m just saying that everyone needs some space. Of course I feel comfortable around you.” We talked some more along the same shaky and halting lines until she yawned and said she was tired. The nervousness was too much and I vowed that first thing tomorrow I would unload the books, park the Mercedes in the basement, and bail out of whatever I had gotten involved in. We lay together without touching. I could feel her fidgeting in the darkness and wasn’t certain what she wanted. She seemed very tense and it made me nervous and sweaty. Somehow, eventually, we fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I found myself alone again; I had been
awakened by the front door buzzing. I wrapped myself in a sheet and grabbed a note that Glenn had left for me. I read it as I headed for the front door:

When I finally went downstairs, I hesitated at the door. Suppose it was Adolphe wanting to scorch the earth. Peeking through the Venetian blinds, I checked out a youth standing on the front stoop with a knapsack that said,
Rolling Stone Magazine.
I watched him waving good-bye to a passing group of kids and then he rang the doorbell again. I figured that he was peddling subscriptions.

“We don’t want any,” I yelled though the door.

“Neither do I,” he yelled back. Opening the front door, he quickly marched in. He was in his early teens, wearing a Sid Vicious T-shirt, tight black pants, and combat boots. He didn’t seem surprised by my improvised toga.

“What are you selling?” I asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. I’m Tom, where’s Adolphe?”

“Glenn isn’t getting along with him just now,” I informed him.

“She’s getting along with you, isn’t she? My mom must have warned you about me.”

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“Glenn. Who do you think?”

“You’re lying,” 1 replied. There was no way that Glenn could have engendered this kid.

He dropped his bag to the floor, still retaining the straps in his fingers, “My mother is a young cutie named Glenda, she had me when she was just a teenybopper.”

“I never…she never even…”

“That Glenn’s quite a card, ain’t she?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked with a slight parental condescension.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” he replied. Then he tugged the bag back up to his shoulder and mounted the stairs, three steps at a time.

1 couldn’t deal with this, so 1 quickly got dressed and left. On the subway 1 realized that I had completely overlooked the purpose of the day: dump the books, the car, and the relationship.

By the time
I got back to Manhattan, I had calmed down. While looking for the key standing outside Ternevsky’s loft, I heard a high voice speaking against a musical beat. Looking toward the large bay window, I could see Janus exercising intensely before the TV, she was wearing a very scanty bathing suit. Her tanned body was glistening with sweat as she bent and stretched, unaware of my presence. Quietly I backed out the door into the hall and reentered making a deliberate ruckus. This time when I entered the living room, she was aware of my presence, but she didn’t break her pace. Bending in different directions, she exposed the most intimate parts of that wonderful body only
made more seductive by the scanty bathing suit. Finally she paused and calmly said, “I had to finish my ‘Jane Fonda Workout.’”

“Oh,” I replied while staring at the Napoleon bust to avoid staring at hers. The general’s eyes were chiselled permanently forward.

“I’m a wreck if I don’t do it at least once a day,” she said as she turned off the VCR, and then she stretched out on the sofa. Sunlight flooded over her and she made no effort to save herself from it. I retreated to the bathroom where I drew a bath. While the tub filled up I hunted up a towel, and I tried to keep to myself, but, whenever permissible, I looked hungrily at her. Since the house had virtually no walls, I saw a lot of her. Finally, just when I found one of those monogrammed towels, she spoke: “You probably think I’m odd trying to get a tan in the winter and all, but I’m always back in Nice when I feel the rays on my body.” She then peeked open one eye and glanced at me.