The Last of the Wise Lovers (22 page)

   Have I mentioned that I really liked
her mother?  The fact that she'd talked to her actually made me hopeful.

"And what did she say?"

   "She thinks you're ill with
something called `mythomania'.  She read about it in
Readers' Digest
.
 It means that fame is so important to you that you're not satisfied with
who you are, so you add all sorts of false details, like for instance that your
father is a secret agent, or that all sorts of strange cars and detectives are
hiding in wait for you...” she peered around the corner anyway, "and now
it's getting worse," she said in that low, intense voice people use when
they've decided the person opposite them is hopeless and
that they're essentially talking to themselves,
"because you don't just tell these stories, you actually believe them, and
then you get all worked up about any old Chevrolet parked on the street."
 She turned her back to me and gazed at the rain.  "Your
strangeness scares me.  Every time I think I'm beginning to know you, I
find out I've just scratched the surface...”

   "... Because every time I try to
open up to you, you get bored or frightened, and treat me as if I'm some sort
of freak."

   "D'you mean that time you wanted
to make love by the river, with all the mosquitos, in the mud; or do you mean
all those times you get philosophical - you can be such a bore; or do you mean
now, with this cock and bull story about a Chevrolet following you?"

   "Please," I grasped her
arm, "even if you don't believe what I'm saying...”

   "If I believe the story about
the Chevrolet, then things look even worse, because then it means you didn't
really want to go on a picnic with me, you just wanted to use me to get out of
here in my parents' car...”

   "I didn't mean to use you.
 I was going to tell you on the way to the picnic.  I was just trying
to put it off.  After all my previous attempts, I could guess how you'd
react...”  All of a sudden - I don't know why - I felt the tears well up
in my eyes.  "I wish I could come to you and say: Look, this is
what's going on, help me; I wish I could talk to you like that - and not just
to you, to everyone: to my Mom, to my Dad, to someone."  I couldn't
hold back the tears any longer.  I held them in as much as I could, so as
not to make too much noise.

   She looked at me
as-if-sympathetically, the way people do when they feel like they ought to be
sympathetic, but they really have no desire to help.  I calmed down and
tried to collect my thoughts.  It was 4:30.  I could assume that Mom
was already on the way to her meeting, and all I had left to do was shake the
guy in the Chevrolet.

"All right," I said, swallowing the last
of my tears, "no picnic.  Let's just drive around for half an hour,
take me up north and drop me off somewhere on the road.  I'll manage on my
own from there."

   She took a deep breath, and shook her
head.

   "Not even as a favor to a
friend?"

   She didn't answer.

   I ducked out from under the porch and
walked slowly along the wall, keeping out of the rain, still hoping she would
run after me or call out to me.  I passed the bay window.  Debbie's
dad had dozed off, beer in hand, and her mom was sitting in the chair opposite
him.  She turned toward me.  The look on her face made me realize
that Debbie wouldn't be coming after me.  How I longed for a mother like
that, just then!  A fat, unpretentious mother who would give me strength
and good advice!

   The Chevrolet was waiting for me on
the street.  I say `waiting' because it had already left its spot between
the two cars, as if the guy in the driver's seat had understood from the way
I'd walked, hugging the wall of the house, that we were continuing on our way.

   He waited patiently until I'd reached
the end of the street, and only then began to drive.  That's undoubtedly
the technique they learn in detective school - if there is such a thing as
detective school.  He drove after me like that down the next street, and
the street after that. And so on we went, him hanging back, then jumping ahead
like a cat to close the distance between us, until we reached the sign that
says "Welcome to East Neck".

   I stopped at the intersection with
the highway, a little disappointed by the quiet and the emptiness.
 Despite the rain, I'd expected a little more activity on Palisades
Parkway on a Sunday afternoon.  The man in the car allowed himself to come
a little closer.  I could have run left, toward Washington Bridge, or
right, all the way to the Canadian border.  Neither option would have
helped me much; within a few miles he would have realized I'd tricked him.

   I heard a familiar groan from the
intersection below me: the bus to Manhattan.  What was the chance he'd
stop for me, far from the bus stop?  As he neared me I began waving both
arms wildly.  He passed by me in a stinking cloud of exhaust and kept
going.  I kicked the ground, hard, in frustration; and then he stopped.

   I threw a last glance at the
Chevrolet and then broke into a run.  At that moment I must have weighed
several tons, my feet heavy with water.  When I reached the door of the
bus the driver smiled.

"Jesus, you look like something the cat
dragged in!"  There were only four other passengers, and all of them
laughed.  When I thanked him he asked, "You ride with me every day,
doncha?"

"Sure," I answered, and hurried down the
aisle to the back seat.  The Chevrolet was a small, blue dot vanishing in
the distance.

   For a while I felt immensely
relieved.  I leaned my head back and dozed off until I was awakened with a
start.  The bus had stopped.

   We weren't in Manhattan yet; just on
the George Washington Bridge.  I looked outside at the sky, which was now
the color of worn asphalt.  In the lane next to us, near the toll booth,
there was an old pick-up truck.  A guy with purple hair was trying to pass
a fistful of coins to the man in the booth.  All the cars behind him
started honking their horns.  I looked at them.  The first was a
black limo.  The second was the Chevrolet.

   That means he must have made another
one of his feline leaps - this time over half of Rockland County.  Not
only was he right beside me, but he had given me the advantage of seeing
without being seen: Though his windshield was swept clean by windshield wipers,
the back window of the bus was veiled by a film of rain and dust. I milked my
advantage for all it was worth. I studied every line on his face, I learned
every detail that I could see or imagine: light eyes; full, light, curly hair;
a thin mouth; a large nose; glasses.  He looked nice, completely
non-threatening.  He brought his hand up to his face - probably to cough
his wheezy little cough, I thought - but he only spit a pink piece of chewing
gum into his hand, then chucked it out of his window.

   The guy in the pick-up truck found
finally drove on.  So did the bus.  The limo passed us in the
parallel lane, and so did the Chevrolet.  On the bridge, he changed lanes
so as to stay with the bus; this abruptly aroused my anxiety.

   It began to rain harder.  Port
Authority wasn't far now, but even that short distance must have seemed long to
him.  First he vanished behind a truck and then he went down an alley that
leads - I think - to 7th Avenue.  I was sure we'd lost each other forever,
but as the bus pulled into the station I caught a glimpse of the other end of
the alley and of him coming out of it and pulling into a parking lot.  I
realized he was smarter than I'd thought, that he intended to meet me as I got
off the bus.

   And that's what happened.  I was
the only passenger who had someone waiting for him.  He stood under the
clock in the main hall, watching the stairs.  It was my second opportunity
to get a really good look at him.  It was hard to know whether Debbie had
actually seen him or my Dad that night, but it would have been easy to confuse
the two.  They were the same height, had the same backward-tilt, as if
they were leaning on something, and - either because of their profession or
because they were Israeli - the same habit of keeping their hands in their
pockets.  Other than that, everything else about them was different -
especially their facial expressions.  Dad was tense when he didn't know
what was about to happen, but this guy stared at me the way one stares at a fly
that has lost a wing: with curiosity, but without concern.

   I left the station and started to
walk down 41st Street.  He was right there behind me.  When 41st
Street ended, we continued down 8th Avenue.  8th Avenue was so empty you
could see clear to the end of it.  I crossed the street, and he crossed
after me.  Again I stood at a crosswalk, waiting until all the other
pedestrians had crossed.  He waited patiently, too, some distance behind
me.  As soon as the traffic light turned green and the cars began to move,
I ran across the street.  For a moment I thought I'd succeeded; he stood
on the curb where I had been a moment earlier, looking for me.  A second
later he spotted me on the opposite sidewalk and crossed the street.

   He wove dangerously, if cleverly,
among the cars, estimating the distance between the cars in each lane and
moving accordingly.  I was so captivated by the way he did this that I
didn't take proper advantage of the chance to get away.  Only when he had
made his last leap and landed on the edge of the sidewalk did I begin to run.

   He didn't chase me; he chose a pace
that kept a constant distance between us.  The professional way he
followed me made me respect him, but also made me despair.  It seemed he
would stick to me forever.

   But I had one advantage over him: I
knew the area like the back of my hand.  A few streets later we came to an
empty lot where I used to take a leak sometimes, on the way home from the
library.  About twenty cars were parked there, side by side.  A
little girl stood staring out of a window in the adjacent apartment building.
 I ducked behind one of the cars in the middle of the row.  The girl
giggled.  The guy stopped outside the lot and stared.  The girl
started hopping up and down gleefully.  I put my forefinger up to my lips,
then pressed my palms together in a pleading gesture.  The girl quieted
down.

   The guy entered the lot and peeked
behind the first car.

"Cold, cold, cold...” the girl called.
 He went on to the second car. "Cold," she said.  He went
on to the third car, and then to the fourth, and the fifth.  The little
girl kept instructing him, "Cold."   He stopped for a
moment and looked at her.  Then he continued on to the sixth car - the one
behind which I was hiding.  "Freezing!" the girl cried,
"really freezing."  He passed on to the seventh and eighth cars.
 I started to crawl back toward the street, past the fifth, fourth, and
third cars.

   By this time the guy had reached the
tenth car.

"You're getting warmer," the girl
announced.  He lingered near the eleventh car, peering in the windows and
jostling the chassis. "Hotter," the girl pronounced when he'd reached
the thirteenth car and I'd moved back to the first, the one next to the
sidewalk.  When the girl cried "burning" (he had reached the
fifteenth car) I waved goodbye and went out into the street.  I glanced
around the corner of the building one last time.  The guy was pressing one
foot on the fender of the next-to-last car as the little girl yelled,
"You're burning up, mister, really burning!"  I crossed the
street and broke into a run.

  
It's 7:00 p.m.  I've been here for eighteen hours now, and I've spent
most of them writing.  There's not much left.  Actually, maybe there
is.  It's hard to tell.

  
Your guys are watching TV.  I'd escape out the window, no sweat - if I
didn't think you were the only one who could help us.

I walked west.  The farther I went, the fewer
lights and the more people there were.  Guys were selling crack in the
stairwells; girls with black stockings and bras, pressed against the sides of
the buildings, winked with the tips of their cigarettes.  The opaque door
to the Patrician Club looked like the back entrance to a warehouse.  The
light that glowed above the door made it seem so mysterious and threatening
that I doubted whether I should go in without telling someone first.

You were the only "someone" I could
tell.  There was a pay phone on the corner.  I tried it.  It was
out of order.  I walked on.  I went three blocks before I found a
working telephone.  I only had one quarter, and I didn't feel like
investing it in your answering service and its annoyingly polite operators.
 I dialed your apartment.  I got the answering machine.

"I wish I could talk to you," I said to
the machine, "all this stuff has happened, and I'm in the city now...”

   "Ronny?" you broke in over
the recording.

   I started to tell you how happy I was
to be talking to you, at last, but you cut me off impatiently.  

"What's going on?"  Then, perhaps
to explain your
rudeness, you said you were
just on your way out and that you'd been very worried when you'd gotten my
previous message, the one I'd left from the pay phone in East Neck about the
Chevrolet that had been following me.

   I told you how I'd managed to get rid
of him.  I must have overdone it on the details a bit, because when I got
to the part about the vacant lot and the little girl, you again showed your
impatience.  "Where are you now?"

   I told you the street number and said
that I had something I was going to take care of at the Patrician Club.

   "What are you doing in a place
like that?" you asked, appalled.

   At that point I knew nothing about
the club, so I assumed you were referring to the neighborhood.  I reminded
you of my promise to K. and explained, "After all, Mom went out, and there
was no sense in my staying home to guard an empty house...”

   I hoped that you'd see the logic in
this and thereby also justify - in retrospect - the other things I'd done
without telling you.  But you were silent.  Your dissatisfaction shot
through the receiver like an electric current.

Suddenly you said, "I don't want you to stay
there."

   Again I explained my promise to K.

   "Sometimes in an emergency
you're allowed to break your promises," you said.

   Boy oh boy, was that ever a relief.
 But this was a promise I felt obligated to keep.  I had another
reason, one I was certain would sound more convincing to you.

"I think my slide is there."

   You said nothing.  As the
silence continued, I said: "Uncle Harry?"

   This time you didn't remind me to
use, "Harry without the `uncle" like you always did, and you didn't
say anything about the slide; you just repeated your request that I go home.

   The thought of that empty house made
me miserable.  The idea of the hotel didn't thrill me anymore, either.
 I could picture your study and the other rooms with their colorful
objects and mementos, the smooth leather of the armchairs and the scent of the
sample spices and medicinal herbs.  Weakly I asked whether I could come
sleep at your place.

   "What a shame," you said
regretfully.  "Actually, tonight I'm going out.  Dorothy won't
be here either.  It's her night off...  maybe some other night, like
Erev Rosh Hashanah, after I get back from Temple...” There was another option:
you could have left a key for me with the doorman; but you didn't offer and I
was too embarrassed to ask.  So I went back to the subject of Mom.  I
asked whether you'd managed to arrange something.

   You said not to worry
, everything would work out fine, and asked again
that I go right home.  I said nothing.  Your preachy tone of voice
was beginning to get on my nerves.  I wanted you to be a
friend
,
not another father.  After a pause you again asked me to promise that I
would get out of there.

   I promised.  I didn't have any
intention of keeping the promise, but I was tired of arguing.  You sounded
a bit more relaxed, almost smug - and that made me uncomfortable.  As I
walked back toward the Patrician Club, I swore to myself that this would be the
last promise I'd break.  One more day, I vowed, just 24 hours later when I
knew that everything had turned out all right, I'd speak only the truth, I'd
make up with everyone I'd hurt in the last few days, and I'd straighten out my
life.

   Near the entrance to the club two men
were arguing out loud.  Carefully I skirted them, took out the card and
slid it through the slit under the sign "5:00 to 5:00".  I
didn't have to look at the rip in the lining where I'd scribbled the code.  I
remembered it: 1956.  I typed it in.  The lock clicked and the door
sprang open.  I pushed it and found myself opposite a red reception desk
behind which stood a kid not much older than me in a Roman soldier's getup.
 There was a sign on the wall: "Entrance forbidden to those under 18
- even if accompanied by an adult".  The kid narrowed his eyes and
peered at me.  I tensed up, thinking he was trying to guess my age, but he
was only trying to see what was written on the plastic card.  I held it
out to him.

"Thank you, sir," he said politely, as
if I weren't wet, dirty, and mangy-looking.

   He passed the card through a slot in
the computer in front of him. A few sentences appeared on the screen.

"No messages," he said.  It was
impossible to see what was written from where I was standing, but there was a
tension in his voice that alarmed me.  He gave me back the card.

"Where is the...” I started to ask.

   "Right this way."
 Mincing his steps, he danced around the counter, grasped my arm, and
pointed to a wide door.  "Over there."

   I went in the direction he'd pointed.

   "Sir," he called out.

   I turned back toward him.

   "You'll need this," he
waved a see-through, plastic pouch on a string.

   I walked back over and took the pouch
from him.  Awkwardly, I turned it over from side to side.  He smiled.
 

"The card," he said, extending his hand
with the same dance-like movement.

   I gave it to him, a little
suspiciously.  He opened the pouch with his long fingers and put the card
inside it.  Then he stood up on tiptoe and looped the string over my head.
 The flutter of his fingers over the hairs on the back of my neck tickled
pleasantly.  I took a hasty step backward.  He giggled and went back
behind his counter.

   I shoved the door.  A completely
different world stood behind it: A row of tropical trees made of rubber and
cloth had been placed around a shallow pool.  From the treetops came soft
music and the twitter of birds.  A picture of an ancient Roman city was
painted on the walls.  The play of light made it look almost real.
 Men were sitting in the water, on the edge of the pool, or in niches off
to the sides.  Some of them were dressed in short robes, others were
naked.  All of them looked relaxed and at ease, but there was tension in the
air - like the kind that hangs over the showers in the school locker room after
a baseball game.  Everybody horses around as if they're not
self-conscious, but inside they're hoping they look all right, compared to the
others.

   That's when I realized where I was.
 My first impulse was to run.  Then I considered that the lockers
might be someplace else, outside, and that I might not need to pass by the pool
and all those naked men to get to them.  I went back and opened the door.
 The kid behind the counter was conspiring into a telephone receiver
squeezed between his shoulder and his cheek.  I cleared my throat.
 He looked up at me and stopped talking.  Suddenly I recalled what
Debbie had said.  There was some truth in it.  When I'm under
pressure, I tend to see evil intent behind the most innocent actions.

   He said something short into the
receiver, then put it down.  The obsequious expression returned to his
face.

"Yes, sir?"

   "The lockers," I explained.
 "I just need to get something and get out of here."  My
voice sounded hard and gruff, maybe because I was trying to sound like I had
nothing to do with the place.

   He picked it up.  A look of hurt
flashed beneath his polite mask. "Through there," he pointed again
toward the pool.

   I went back inside.  The floor
was wet and the soles of my shoes squeaked.  Even if they hadn't, I would
have been the center of attention, as if the colorfulness of my clothing made
me stand out against the uniform pinkishness of the others.  All around I
could hear the sound of conversation, even laughter, but I felt as if it were
intended to disguise the interest in me.  I tried to calm myself by
thinking that it was still possible for them to assume I was on my way to my
locker, to undress.  But I knew that something in my step, or perhaps in
my expression, gave away the fact that I wasn't one of them.

   I walked around the pool, through
puffs of steam that emanated from the open mouths of stone lions.  It was
hard for me to imagine K. in this place.  Had he been one of the ones who
sat on the stone steps swishing their feet in the water?  Had he been one
of the couples who sat naked, back to back, reading the paper?  Had he
lain alone in one of the niches, shrouded in steam, drowsing inside his pain?

   The lockers were arranged in rows at
the end of the room.  There was a number on each locker, and a sign
indicating the status of its owner.  Some bore the sign
"Member", and some the sign "Senior Member", while others
bore signs that said "Candidate".  Number 1956 was a member.
 The card was a bit damp despite the plastic pouch, but it opened the
door.

   When I saw the contents I was sorry I
hadn't brought a small suitcase with me.  Some of the stuff -
prescriptions and pharmacy receipts - I'd seen before in the pile that Miss
Doherty had gone through on K.'s desk in the library.  There were some
other, unexpected things there: a pistol in a leather holster, soft boots with
big buckles and steel-tipped toes, a mountain of old tricot shirts, a bomber
jacket that looked much too big for K., a towel, two or three bars of soap, and
thousands of little pill bottles of all kinds.  There were colored jockey
shorts, envelopes of photographs, and piles of letters bound by rubber bands.
 I laid the jacket out on the floor and pushed the rest of the stuff on
top of it.  I wondered whether to go home after all, to stash everything
in the garage, and how much a cab would cost. As I was tying up the sleeves,
someone behind me said, "Hi."

   I whirled around.  He was tall,
30-ish, with a pleasant face and a shy smile - the type that earns trust.
 "You're new here," he declared.

   I said, "Uh... yes... no... I
mean, sort of."

   He pointed to my clothes.
 "I walked around like that, too, the first time.  I was older
than you, but less in touch with my feelings...”

   I pushed the door shut with my foot.

"I've got to go."

   "Sure," he took a step
back.

   That's when I noticed the group of
men watching us.  They were all ages and all heights.  It took
everything I had not to stare.  I'd never before had a chance to examine
so many penises, and I hadn't realized they could be so different, so varied.
 I thought of K.  Under no circumstances could I picture him here.

   "The locker," he said
suddenly.  "It's not yours, is it?"

   "No," I clutched the card
tightly and swung the bundle over my shoulder.

   He looked at the overstuffed jacket.
 "Why hasn't
he
come?"

   "He's ill."

   A murmur passed through the crowd.
 I was afraid to turn my back on them.  I strode backwards.

   "What's he got?"

   My shoes were soaked through.  I
looked down.  I was standing in the middle of a puddle.  I turned
around and headed for the door.  The guy trailed after me, and behind him
all the others.

"Where is he?"

   I stopped once more.  Their need
to know aroused my sympathy, but I couldn't help them.

"I don't know," I said, and quickly
walked out.

  
The
outside seemed cold and dank after the warmth of that room. The kid behind the
counter studied the bundle slung over my shoulder, watching me as I walked
toward the exit.

"Sir,"
he said when I was halfway there.

   I turned around.

He hesitated.  "Someone asked that you
wait here a moment."

   "Who asked?"

   "The owner of the locker, he
called and asked that you meet someone who should get here any minute...”

   "
He
called?"

   "Someone called in his name.
 A woman."  He motioned toward a small cloak room.
 "You can wait here."

   I peered inside.  In the dimness
I could make out two armchairs, a forest of naked hangers, and a shoe shine
machine.

   "Five minutes," he cajoled.

   I took another step toward the door.

   "She said it was
his
request."

   How could I refuse?  I went into
the cloak room and plopped down on one of the armchairs, into the stench of
stale cigarette smoke and ancient dust.  The kid stood behind his counter,
shifting his weight from one foot to the other and glancing now and again at
his watch.  A few minutes later, just as my patience was beginning to wear
thin, someone knocked on the door.

   The kid behind the counter acted as
if he'd been expecting this.  He opened the door a crack and peered
outside. He didn't approve of whoever was there.