The Lost Language of Cranes (38 page)

Winston shook his head. "Actually, I should probably be going soon. I've got to get ready for my classes tomorrow." He looked at her, worried, and she said, "You're a charmer, Winston Penn," and smiled, and blew her nose again.

He smiled back. "You are, too, Rose," he said. "You are, too." And suddenly, swiftly, he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

Then Owen and Philip re-emerged, drying their hands on their pants. "I'm afraid I've got to go," Winston said, putting on the coat Rose held out to him. "Philip, could I give you a lift somewhere?"

"Sure," Philip said, and also put on his coat. "Goodbye, Mom." Then he bent to kiss her cheek, and to her own astonishment Rose found herself reaching out her arms and pulling him toward her, into an embrace he at first resisted out of sheer surprise, then gave in to. "Goodbye, Philip," she said, and looked at Winston.

"Goodbye," he said.

And now Winston turned to Owen, who stood, his hands still balled up in a towel, a look of vague disappointment in his eyes. "Goodbye, sir," he said in a tone of mock formality. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

"Are you sure you have to go so soon?"

"Afraid so."

"Well, I'm glad you could come tonight, Winston, certainly glad you could come."

"I am, too. Thanks for inviting me. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," Owen said.

Together the young men walked out the door. Rose closed it behind her, did up the locks. When she turned, Owen was sitting on the sofa, his eyes shut, his hands on his forehead.

"Your mood certainly changes fast," she said.

"I'm just tired, that's all."

She took a cloth and began sponging the kitchen table. In the table, her face emerged, clear as in any mirror: a face on the verge of panic. Winston was nothing. It was Owen she had chosen, Owen she would always end up coming back to, no matter how far awry things went. He was her husband.

He got up now from the sofa, and walked over to her. He was himself again, quiet, slightly absent, and he said to her, "Rose—"

She smiled. Unexpectedly she reached up and touched his face. He had aged well. This man in his fifties was really not so far from the boy she had loved. They looked at each other, each holding back for the sake of affection the words that must now be spoken, each desperate to prolong this last moment of innocence.

Then it was over. He sat down on the sofa, and she followed him, walking on to the window, looking out.

"Well," he said. "How much have you figured out?"

She closed her eyes, let the silence stretch out as long as she could bear, and then she turned to him and said, "Everything."

O
UTSIDE
, on Second Avenue, pieces of garbage clung to the corners of the building before being swept downtown by the wind. The doorman was helping an elderly woman get out of a cab. One hand clinging to the hat on her head, the other to his arm, she warily stepped into the wind, as if she were afraid it might blow her away. "So you really have a car?" Philip asked.

"Sure," Winston said. "Remember, I live in Hoboken."

"It's very nice of you to offer me a ride," Philip said. "But I really don't want to take you out of your way."

"No place is out of
my
way," Winston said, and Philip laughed, not sure what he meant. They walked down Forty-third Street, where Winston's car, a small red Toyota, was parked. "This is a nice car," Philip said, and Winston nodded. "It's little—but once you let her rip, this fucker could beat any Jaguar going around curves." He turned the key in the ignition, let the car warm up. "Where do you habitate?" he asked.

"I live on the Upper West Side," Philip said. "But I wasn't actually planning on going straight home—I was going to visit a friend of mine, in the East Village."

"That's cool," Winston said, pulling out of the parking space.

"You're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. Like I said, I love to drive, and I don't get enough of a chance to, now that I'm living here in the greater New York metropolitan area."

He honked like a taxi driver, maneuvering the car through the tight side-street traffic, "Are you in a big hurry?" Winston said. "I think I'll take you on the scenic route."

"No, I'm not in a hurry," said Philip.

"Good," Winston said. They turned onto Park Avenue. Winston dodged through a red light, and Philip settled back, grabbing onto the armrest for support. There was a stack of student papers on the back seat, a box of cassettes, and several copies of Milton. Above Philip's head, taped to the sunvisor, a pretty, dark-eyed girl smiled out of a snapshot.

"Who's she?" Philip asked.

"My girlfriend, Nancy," Winston said. "Or, I guess I should say, my ex-girlfriend, Nancy, at the moment." He laughed.

"Why at the moment?" Philip said.

Winston shrugged. "Mostly because I'm here and she's in Dallas," he said. "Long-distance is hard, you know?"

"I know."

"Well—Nancy's a nice girl. But I don't know—Hey, fuck you, you asshole!" he shouted to a taxi, which was attempting to cut in front of him.

"What's wrong?" Philip said.

"Yeah?" said the taxi driver, a thin, scraggly-bearded man wearing a bandanna. "Well, fuck you, buddy, you can just go fuck yourself far as I'm concerned."

"And you can eat shit, you shit-wiping moron!" Winston closed the window and put on the gas. "You've got to learn to speak the local language," he said to Philip. They edged in front of the taxi, zooming through a yellow light. "Anyway, as I was saying, Nancy's a nice girl, but we've been together since we were fifteen. Fifteen! That's a long time. I don't know; I'm ready to meet someone else, maybe."

Philip, still a little dazed from the shouting match, simply nodded. This man-to-man confidence made him uncomfortable. It had been a long time since he'd been in the company of someone who didn't know or assume he was gay, and he wasn't sure how to behave. Was it deceptive of him not to tell Winston outright? Would it be construed as a seduction tactic?

"If you ask me," he said finally, "I think you're lucky. A lot of people would like that kind of permanence, a relationship to last their whole lives. I certainly would."

"I guess," Winston said. "But Nancy and I—we were just kids when we started going out. We've been together so long I don't think we could even say what it was we see in each other. See, we're very different. She's not really an intellectual at all. Tennis is her thing."

He took a sharp left, carrying them west into Harlem. On either side of the street, bits of life glowed from the shadows—a child's face staring into a garbage-can fire, an old woman doubled over with shopping bags—all in sharp contrast to the sedate East Side streets, which were chill and empty by nine.

"My secret route," Winston said, "is New Jersey. I go over the George Washington Bridge and down the other side of the river. That way you not only get the best stretches of driving, you get to see New Jersey. I love New Jersey. I've discovered most New Yorkers don't know the first thing about the wonders of the Garden State. But when I met you, Philip, I said to myself, here's a guy who can appreciate New Jersey."

"Why'd you think that?" Philip asked.

Winston shrugged. "I could just tell. New Jersey's not sights. It's not Ho-Ho-Kus or Lake Hopatcong or the Paramus Mall, though those are all awesome places. No," he said, "New Jersey is a
state of mind."
He revved his throat like an engine. "Just to be in New Jersey, to feel New Jersey, is to experience... true cosmic oneness with the universe!" He laughed loudly. "So now," he said, "I've told you all about Nancy—it's your turn. Come on, 'fess up."

"My turn?" Philip said.

"Yeah, your turn. Come on. Tell me what
your
relationship status is, as they say out west. It's no fun if you don't too."

Philip looked out the window. "Well," he said, "I
was
seeing someone very seriously for a while. But it ended."

"Oh yeah?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay," Winston said, "come on. Tell me about it." Again, he revved his throat.

"Not much to tell," Philip said. "He broke it off and went to live in Paris."

"They do that sometimes," Winston said. "What was the guy's name? I'll beat him up. Hey, eat shit, asshole," he shouted to another taxi that was trying to wriggle by him onto the approach to the George Washington Bridge.

"So go on," Winston said.

Encouraged, Philip went on. They were passing over the George Washington Bridge now, a rage of lights suspended high above the dark river. "Maybe I drove him away," Philip said. "Or maybe he was just sick of the relationship. Or maybe he really was a selfish jerk. I don't know."

He sighed loudly, and Winston shook his head. "You can never tell," he said. "Stupidly, somehow, you both end up being right and wrong, in different ways, every time. "Now," he went on, "now, we are
in New Jersey."
Like a man possessed, Winston looked around himself, his eyes aflame with what they were absorbing, but in the dark Philip could make out not a single detail. He guessed they were driving through trees.

"You just feel better in New Jersey," Winston said, pushing hard on the gas pedal. "And you can drive like an American—fast." Again he laughed. Reaching behind himself, he pulled a tape cassette from a box on the back seat and plugged it into the stereo. Bruce Springsteen sang "Born in the U.S.A."

They sped up, coming dangerously close to the back of a truck. Casually, at the last minute, Winston swept past it, and Philip closed his eyes and grimaced, prepared for death. Winston chuckled. "Did I scare you?" he said.

"A little," Philip admitted.

"Sorry. I get carried away when I listen to the Boss." They were slowing to a red light. It seemed they had reached a more populated area now—an ugly strip of motels, coffee shops, discount shoe worlds. "Here's where I eat dinner most nights," Winston said. "Now you can understand why I enjoyed your mom's spaghetti so much."

"She makes a mean spaghetti," Philip said. He was silent for a moment. "I hope you had fun tonight," he said finally. "My parents can be—to say the least—a little strange."

"I thought they were great," Winston said. "Anyway, I think your dad's great to start with. He's really one of the awesome bright lights of the Harte School."

Philip smiled. "Really?" he said. "You know, I went to Harte for a while."

"Oh yeah?"

"I hated it."

"Socially, it's a tougher place than anyone probably guesses,"

Winston said. "The kids are mean and smart, which is worse than mean and dumb, because they play tricks. And almost always it's the older against the younger."

"Do they still tell that story about the kid locked up in the basement?"

Winston smiled. "Every year. And it's hard to punish them. Because unlike most schoolkids, they do not believe in the God-given, terror-inspiring authority of the teacher. They're all so rich, they've been raised by their dads to know they're going to run the world, so what's a schmucky little peasant of a teacher got coming down on them? They just sit there and don't say anything, like they aren't even listening to you, like they own the world. And you know what? They're right. They do own it. That's the terrible irony of the place. They really do own the world." He shook his head.

"Do you like teaching there?"

"It's okay. I'm not planning to make it my life's career. But they're smart kids, and if you approach them the right way, they'll do good work for you. I figure I'll stay a year or two more, then probably go back to Austin and get my Ph.D. It's good for the moment. For a Southern boy like me, it's a real trip to be living in New York, let me tell you."

They were now descending into the greenish depths of the Holland Tunnel. "Isn't this unreal?" Winston said. "Isn't this totally unreal?" Philip nodded. Once, he remembered, as a small child, coming back from Gabrielle's, he and his mother and his father had gotten stuck underground in traffic for a half an hour, and when he had asked when they'd get out, his father had said ghoulishly, "We'll never get out. We're trapped forever." Philip had believed him and started crying right then and there. "Philip, honey, what's wrong?" his mother had asked, turning, alarmed, reaching her hands into the back seat to comfort him. But he did not want to be comforted. This time there was no delay. They sped through the tunnel, emerging suddenly from the green brightness into the dark, cool Canal Street night. "Back in Manhattan," Philip said, and Winston smiled. "Yes," he said. "I could tell. That great New Jersey feeling"—he snapped his fingers—"just like that. Gone." He sighed. "Now where did you say you were going in the East Village?"

"Tenth Street," Philip said.

They turned uptown. The wind seemed less violent down here than it had in his parents' neighborhood. Outside an unmarked nightclub, a row of white Mercedes limousines hummed, while a crowd thronged to be admitted. "I'm really glad you came to dinner, and that we got to meet," Philip said to Winston. "My father was very eager for us to get to know each other, you know. He thought we could be friends."