The Fuck Up (26 page)

“Can you speak?”

“Yes, and I’m so happy. Ternevsky’s proposed to me. We’re going to Europe and there we’ll be married.”

“Just tell me one thing,” I interrupted. “Am I still being hunted by the cops?”

“No, not anymore. When Sergei calmed down, I reexplained it. I told him we both got drunk, but he threw out your clothes just the same. He made me take an AIDS test.”

“All my clothes are gone?”

“Yeah, then we both cried and he proposed to me. Isn’t it wonderful? I’m now Mrs. Ternevsky. God, I am so pleased. I wanted this all along.”

“All along?” I asked.

“Sure, I now feel some legitimacy.”

“But he’s old enough to be your father, and you said yourself that he’s a horrible lover and he just uses you.”

“I said we use each other.”

“How about us?” I asked.

“We had a wonderful time and now it’s over.”

“But if I had the same amount of money and all …”

“Shit,” she suddenly whispered, “I just heard the elevator, I’ve got to go.”

“Good luck,” I replied, and hung up slowly.

I searched through my pockets for another quarter in order to call Miguel and see what developments had occurred in the last four days. But I couldn’t find another quarter. After the conversation with Janus, I had this overwhelming fear. In my back pocket, crumpled up, I found the legal document he signed stating my interest in his company. With cane in hand, and pain in back, I went over to Columbus Circle and caught the IRT number one to Fourteenth. I then hobbled down the long uriney tunnel to the L, which I took to Third Avenue. Walking up to the box office window, I saw the face of a young white lady, which was a race we’d never hired before in filling this post. I smiled at her.

“Four dollars,” she commanded rather aggressively.

“Be careful,” I replied. “You never know when you might be talking to an employer.”

“Four dollars!” she repeated with added hostility.

“I’m the other manager,” I replied and tried to grin. “Is Miguel in?”

“Who?”

“Miguel?”

“Miguel, oh yes Miguel. Yes, I was told about you, one second.” Miguel had hired a dope I decided as I walked through the center door and down the corridor to the office. Opening the door was a two-way shock. I jumped back a bit and a nerdy guy leaning back in the manager’s chair bolted upright. Miguel replaced me, was the first thought that entered my head.

“Where’s Miguel?” I demanded angrily.

“Oh yes, Miguel. One second, I’ll get him.” He rose. “Please take a seat, I’ll be back in a moment.” He dashed out and I leaned back in his swivel chair. But immediately I felt something strange. The surroundings had been altered. Where
the hell was the Yin Yang calendar? Gone too were the refrigerator and the TV. A lot of little things were missing, items that epitomized Miguel’s personality. There were neither granola crumbs along the desk top, nor herbal cigarette butts rubbed out in an improvised ashtray. Who the hell was the new box office girl? Where was everybody?

In front of me, piled up high on the desk, was a stack of files and the theater’s financial records spanning the last five years. Pushing them to one side, and seeing the wall behind it, only then did the mystery vaporize. A new digital dial system was encased in recently packed plaster. They must have caught Miguel, and I was next. I noticed that one of the buttons on the business phone was lit up. The nerd was probably notifying Ox on the extension in the box office. I slipped into the darkness of the theater. I was being captured by the new manager and his white box office woman standing near the exit. The only way out was across the roof. I limped up the steps to the projectionist booth and banged quickly.

“Who the fuck is it?”

1 announced myself and she opened. “We went through this before. You’re supposed to call up in advance.”

“Sorry, I forgot.” I entered quickly and shut the door behind me.

“What do you want?” she said. And then inspecting my enfeebled state, asked, “What the fuck happened to you?”

“I slipped while breakdancing,” I replied. “What happened to Miguel?”

“I think that he was ripping off money. All I know is that there were a bunch of police cars and they closed the theater yesterday and apparently fired everyone. They even requested a new projectionist, but the union stood behind me all the way. I’m surprised they didn’t fire you.” Poor Miguel, was all I could think.

“You didn’t turn him in did you?” she asked me.

“Of course not.”

“Then why didn’t they fire you?”

“They’re probably going to soon. I think they just want me to break in the new managers.”

“Why then did you have to ask me what happened to Miguel?”

“I wasn’t here yesterday—you were. I just said that they asked me to break this new guy in.”

“It’s all a damned shame. See what happens when you don’t have a union to protect you? By the way, be sure to fill them in on the union contract and my rights in dealing with them.”

“It’s already done. Listen, I’m a little busy right now and I’ve got a lot to do.”

“Like what?”

“They’re waiting for a report on the condition of the roof.”

“Oh, they’ve finally got around to wanting to fix that, and you’re probably going to take all the credit.”

“What credit?”

“I was the one that told you that roof was leaking. That’s what credit.”

“Calm down. I mentioned you in my preliminary report.” As I started climbing up the metal ladder, she kept hollering things up to me. While I undid the binding ropes and pushed the hatch free, I heard her nagging about the new manager looking like a repressed homophobe. What the hell did she want me to do, convert him? Despite my pains, I scrambled up and got beyond hearing distance. I wasn’t sure if eccentric people became projectionists or if the job made them that way. I supposed long hours in closed quarters would effect anybody. Looking out the front of the theater, under the flapping “Zeus” flag, I saw a cop car double parked. Next to it, another car pulled up and a fat little guy plopped out. It was Ox. Then the passenger door opened and a slim young male figure got out. He looked just like Miguel. Both of them quickly went into the theater. What the fuck was Miguel doing down there? He was supposed to be in jail.

Quickly I limped around old tar cans and other debris toward the back of the building. I slowly worked my way down the rusty, rickety fire escape. It ended in the pitch blackness of some alley. I tossed down my cane. It took too long to hit bottom; I estimated a drop of about eight feet. Stretching myself from the bottom rung, I released and hit the ground on all fours. I painfully started to move. The fall awakened pains that had been napping. I picked up my cane and slapped it against the ground like a blind man. Following the alley to a large cyclone fence, I realized that the street was over this wiry hindrance.

I tossed my cane over the fence and then started up painfully. The wire dug deep into my skin and when I got to the top I felt a tiny stab. The top was meshed with barbed wire.

Slowly working my way through the darkness, I went as far as I could go before having to commit blood. Grabbing onto barbed wire and cutting yourself wasn’t easy. It was one of those things that you simply couldn’t order yourself to do, like trying to hold your breath unto death. So I just hung there and made a bunch of false starts, until I heard those walkie talkies in the distance. That meant that the cops had combed through the theater and finally bumped into the obnoxious projectionist, who probably demanded to know, “What the hell is going on? This goes against all union rules.” And finally someone filled her in and she explained that the culprit was on the roof. In two minutes they would be here on this cyclone fence.

Pain upon pain, gash into scars into bruise through cloth and flesh. And then came the hope and then the chance and with strength, will, fear, anger—all I could muster—despite the barbs hooking into just-sealed scabs, I shoved everything into that puncture of a chance. I heard the sound of feet scampering down the fire escape so I dropped hard over the fence to the street. I grabbed my cane lying next to me and started limp/hop/running over to Fourth Avenue where I hailed a God-sent cab and was delivered.

“Where to?”
the cabbie asked after I sat silently as he drove for a couple blocks.

“Just away,” I replied quietly.

“But where?” the cabbie asked. The cab whizzed up Fourth Avenue until it turned into Park Avenue South.

“Thirty-eighth and Broadway.” I randomly picked the coordinates so at least the cab had somewhere to go. But where was I going to go? What was left? When I realized that three dollars and fourteen cents were left, I had the cabbie stop when the red digits on the meter came to two eighty-five and gave him all my money. I got off at Thirty-first and Madison.

All I had was a cane and a worthless piece of paper declaring that I owned one third of a theater in Hoboken. My entire life was one ridiculous mirage after another, and after all these surefire plans of success sitting on the back burner, all I could do was rip that fucking paper to tiny bits. I limped along those streets, cold and depressed, my clothes shredded, with paranoia setting in like rigor mortis. Did Miguel get out of the car with the Ox? If so, why?

While backtracking to remember how I happened to remember to call Miguel, I realized it was due to the
Harrington
party. By elimination, it was the last place to go. So I limped over to a public phone and called information and got the locale. The office was on Twenty-third and Third Avenue.

By the time I limped over there it was ten o’clock, early for a Friday night party. I felt increasingly depressed with each limp. What was I going to do after the party? Where was I going to go? The offices were located in a renovated brownstone across from the School of Visual Arts and they must have been banking on some big bucks, because they hired an adorable little door/valet girl who for a single instant let me forget all my woes. She had an adolescent face and a body in full bloom, a unique distortion of perfection. She sat on a fold-out chair reading
Lolita
with a bored expression, just waiting to be devoured. My heart swelled to its bloody capacity as I got closer. But when filthy and broken old me finally hobbled up she scowled. Still holding the book she asked, “What do you want?”

“I’m a contributor.”

“Bullshit.”

I held my cane hard. There was only love at first sight, beyond that disillusion, pain, and death. I told her my name and she looked on the list, but couldn’t find it. Then I told her Miguel’s name, since Owensfield gave him the invitation, and apparently she located it.

“One second,” she said and addressing the intercom had Owensfield
paged. In a tux and with a longstem goblet of sparkling apple cider, Owensfield eventually arrived.

“What the hell happened to you?” He sounded so paternal.

“Well, Pop, I crashed the car on the way to the prom. I hope you don’t mind driving Mom’s car awhile.”

He led me in past the bored beauty. I could hear the music upstairs. It sounded like a live salsa band, but he led me to a side room downstairs. Flipping on a light switch, a bathroom was revealed.

“There’s a razor and a lot of nice-smelling things in the medicine chest. And also take a shower. If you need anything else …”

“Actually, if you can spare a shirt …”

He said he’d be back in a minute. Taking my coat off was like wrestling a cougar from my back. It was too painful to undress, and since my shirt was already shredded up, it was easier to tear it off. The shower curtains had an
I Love New York
motif, the temperature of water obeyed the commands of the knobs, and there were no sailors scrubbing their uniforms. But all the old pains were still in effect, and there was the same runoff of blood and filth. Owensfield knocked at the door and swiftly put some clothes on a hook. He told me to try them on after I was well cleaned.

“I’ll come down and check on you in a while.”

I thanked him and made use of all the hospitalities. A half hour later I was ready, but no matter how hard I washed I couldn’t wash away bruises. I was still stuck in the same battered body. I sat on the toilet seat and tried to control the pain until Owensfield appeared and looked me over. He applied some medication and some cosmetics and when he could do no more he said, “Okay, let’s go.”

He led me upstairs to a large open area, which was an office space during the day. It was filled with cavorting, money-heavy people who didn’t limp,
and had a place to go afterwards, people who had never been wanted by the police and always had a destination when they got into a cab.

I felt immensely self-conscious, a beetle in a beehive, only these drones had no stingers so I just kept to myself. To combat all the nervousness and irritations, I quickly located the bar. The bartender, some little preppie trying to make points in the real world, gave me one measured shot of vodka. When I asked him for a second, he gave me a nasty look. When I asked for a third, he took his time about it, and when I swallowed that and asked for a fourth, he said no.

I went behind the bar and poured myself a generous glass of vodka. He tried grabbing the bottle out of my hand, but I yanked it away.

“You are not permitted behind the bar,” he declared. In reply I downed the glass and opened a virgin bottle of Glenlivet. “You’re not permitted here. What are you, stupid?”

I was in one of those shit-faced moods that drunks get into when they suddenly see everyone equal in the eyes of God, and they realize that they were sent to distribute His wealth. I decided that the only way I was leaving from behind the bar was by being physically removed. Considering the condition that I was in, that wouldn’t have taken much. The novice bartender, though, approached Owensfield, who, in the middle of a conversation, swatted him away I stayed put, and soon the kid realized that there was no one else to appeal to. He returned, pissed and silent. I started drinking more heavily just to spite him.

After about twenty minutes, I could no longer keep balance, so with the use of the cane I tried balancing myself. But a cane is only as sober as its master. I flopped down on some people sitting on the couch. One lady got indignant and threw her booze on me. As I hobbled away a young lady with a beautiful face mumbled to me, “Good for you, serves the bitch right.” I nodded in agreement, but I didn’t want to talk to anybody.