We'll Always Have Paris (11 page)

‘And if you go back, he’ll kill
you
.’ Kirk took a
deep breath and let it out in a sigh. ‘God, I feel like someone’s drowning and I’m throwing him
an anvil.’

Willy-Bob’s fingers toyed with the door handle. The door sprang open. The man
standing in the Blue Parrot doorway saw this. Again, the toppled move of his body, again the
return of balance, as a grim line formed around his death-rictus mouth.

Willy-Bob slid out of the car, the bones in his body dissolving as he went.
By the time he stood full on the pavement, he seemed a foot shorter than he had been ten
minutes ago. He leaned down and peered anxiously in through the car window as if talking to a
judge in a traffic court.

‘You don’t understand.’

‘I do,’ said Kirk. ‘And that’s the sad part.’

He reached out and patted Willy-Bob’s cheek. ‘Try to have a good life,
Willy-Bob.’

‘
You’ve
already had one. I’ll always remember you,’
said Willy-Bob. ‘Thanks for trying.’

‘Used to be a lifeguard. Maybe I’ll head
down to the beach tonight, climb up on the station, be on the lookout for more drowning
bodies.’

‘Do that,’ said Willy-Bob. ‘Save someone worth saving. Good night.’

Willy-Bob turned and headed for the Blue Parrot.

His friend, the man with the now-restored mask and flamboyant cape, had gone
inside, secure, certain, without waiting. Willy-Bob blinked at the flapping hinged doors until
they stood still. Then, head down in the rain that no one else saw, he walked across the
sidewalk.

Kirk didn’t wait. He gunned the motor and drove away.

He reached the ocean in twenty minutes, stared at the empty lifeguard station
in the moonlight, listened to the surf, and thought, Hell, there’s no one out there to be
saved, and drove home.

He climbed into bed with the last of the beer and drank it slowly, staring at
the ceiling until his wife, head turned toward the wall, at last said, ‘Well, what have you
been up to,
this
time?’

He finished the beer, lay back, and shut his eyes.

‘Even if I told you,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t believe it.’

On the way to the cemetery Menville decided they needed to pick up
something to eat, so they stopped the car at a roadside stand near an orange grove where there
were displays of bananas, apples, blueberries, and, of course, oranges.

Menville picked out two wonderful, big, glossy apples and handed one to
Smith.

Smith said, ‘How come?’

Menville, looking enigmatic, just said, ‘Eat, eat.’ They stowed their jackets
in the car and walked the rest of the way to the graveyard.

Once inside the gates, they walked a great distance until at last they came
to a special marker.

Smith looked down and said, ‘Russ Simpson. Wasn’t he an old friend of yours
from high school?’

‘Yeah,’ said Menville. ‘That was the one.
Part of the gang. My very best friend, actually. Russ Simpson.’

They stood for a while, biting into their apples, chewing quietly.

‘He must have been very special,’ Smith said. ‘You’ve come all this way. But
you didn’t bring any flowers.’

‘No, only these apples. You’ll see.’

Smith stared at the marker. ‘What was there about him that was so
special?’

Menville took another bite of his apple and said, ‘He was
constant
. He was there every noon, he was there on the streetcar going to
school and then back home every day. He was there at recess, he sat across from me in homeroom,
and we took a class in the short story together. It was that kind of thing. Oh, sure, on
occasion he did crazy stuff.’

‘Like what?’ said Smith.

‘Well, we had this little gang of five or six guys who met at lunchtime. We
were all different, but on the other hand, we were all sort of the same. Russ used to sort of
pick at me, you know how friends do.’

‘Pick? Like what?’

‘He liked to play a game. He’d look at all of us and say, “Someone say
‘Granger.’” He’d look at me and say, “Say ‘Granger.’” I’d say “Granger” and Russ would shake
his head and say, “No, no. One of you others say ‘Granger.’” So one of the other guys would say
“Granger” and they would all laugh, a big reaction, because he said “Granger”
just the right way. Then Russ would turn to me and say, “Now it’s your turn,
you say it.” I would say “Granger” and no one would laugh and I’d stand there, feeling left
out.

‘There was a trick to the whole thing but I was so stupid, so naive, that I
could never figure out that it was a joke, the sort of thing they played on me.

‘Then one time I was over at Russ’s house and a friend of his named Pipkin
leaned over the balcony in the living room and dropped a cat on me. Can you believe that?! The
cat landed right on my head and clawed my face. It could have put out my eyes, I thought later.
Russ thought it was a great joke. Russ was laughing and Pip was laughing, and I threw the cat
across the room. Russ was indignant. “Watch what you’re doing with the cat!” he said. “Watch
what the cat was doing with me!” I cried. That was a big joke; he told everyone. They all
laughed, except me.’

‘That’s some memory,’ said Smith.

‘He was there every day, was in school with me, my best friend. Every once in
a while, at lunchtime, he’d eat an apple and when he finished he’d say, “Apple core.” And one
of the other guys would say, “Baltimore.” Russ would then say, “Who’s your friend?” They’d
point at me and he’d throw the apple core–hard–at me. This was a routine; it happened at least
once a week for a couple of years. Apple-core Baltimore.’

‘And this was your best friend?’

‘Sure, my best friend.’

They stood there by the grave, still working at their apples. The sun was
getting hotter and there was no breeze.

‘What else?’ said Smith.

‘Oh, not much. Well, sometimes at lunchtime I’d ask the typing teacher to let
me use one of the typewriters so I could write, as I didn’t have a typewriter of my own.

‘Finally, I had a chance to buy one real cheap, so I went without lunch for a
month or so, saving my lunch money. Finally, I had enough to buy my very own typewriter so I
could write whenever I wanted.

‘One day Russ looked at me and said, “My God, do you realize what you are?” I
said, “What?” He said, “You’re a stale fruitcake, giving up your money to buy that damned
typewriter. A stale fruitcake.”

‘I often thought later that someday when I finished my great American novel,
that’s what I’d call it:
Stale Fruitcake
.’

Smith said, ‘Better than
Gatsby
, huh?’

‘
Gatsby
, sure. Anyway, I had the typewriter.’

They were quiet then, the only sound the last bites into their diminishing
apples.

A distant expression came over Smith’s face and he blinked and suddenly
whispered, ‘Apple-core.’

To which, quickly, Menville said, ‘Baltimore.’

Smith then said, ‘Who’s your friend?’

Menville, looking down at the marker near
his feet, eyes wide, said, ‘Granger.’

‘Granger?’ said Smith, and stared at his friend.

‘Yeah,’ said Menville. ‘Granger.’

At this Smith raised his hand and threw his apple core down on top of the
gravestone.

No sooner was this done than Menville hurled his apple core down, then
reached and took it up again and threw it a second time so that the gravestone was so littered
with shreds of the apple core that you couldn’t make out the name on the marker.

They stared at the mess.

Then Menville turned and began to walk away, threading through the
gravestones, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Smith called after him. ‘Where are you going?’

Menville, not looking back, said in a hoarse voice, ‘To get some more apples,
damn it to hell, more apples.’

After a while you will get over being afraid. There’s nothing you can do;
just be careful to walk at night.

The sun is terrible; summer nights are no help. You must wait for cold
weather. The first six months are your prime. In the seventh month the water will seep through
with dissolution. By the eighth month your usefulness will fade. Come the tenth month you’ll
lie weeping in sorrow without tears, and you will know then that you will never move again.

But before that happens there is so much to be finished. Many likes and
dislikes must be turned in your mind before your mind melts.

It is all new to you. You are reborn! And your birthplace is silk lined and
smells of tuberoses and linens, and there is no sound before your birth except the
beating of the earth’s billion insect hearts. This place is wood
and metal and satin, offering no sustenance, but only an implacable slot of close air, a pocket
within the earth. There is only one way you can live, now. There must be an anger to slap you
awake, to make you move. A desire, a want, a need. Then you quiver and rise to strike your head
against satin-lined wood. Life calls you. You grow with it. You claw upward, slowly, and find
ways to displace the heavy earth an inch at a time, and one night you crumble the darkness, the
exit is complete, and you burst forth to see the stars.

Now you stand, letting the emotion burn you. You take a step, like a child,
stagger, clutch for support–and find a cold marble slab. Beneath your fingers the carved story
of your life is briefly told: BORN–DIED.

You are a stick of wood, trying to walk. You go outward from the land of
monuments, into twilight streets, alone on the pale sidewalks.

You feel something is left undone. Some flower yet unseen, some place you
must see, some lake waiting for you to swim, some wine unsipped. You are going somewhere, to
finish whatever is still undone.

The streets are strange. You walk through a town you have never seen, a dream
on the rim of a lake. You grow more certain of your walking, you start to go quite swiftly.
Memory returns.

Now you know every lawn of this street, every place
where asphalt bubbled from cement cracks in the summer oven weather. You know
where the horses were tethered, sweating in the green spring at these iron waterfonts so long
ago it is a fading mist in your brain. This cross street, where a lamp hangs like a bright
spider spinning light across darkness. You escape its web into sycamore shadows. You run your
fingers along a picket fence. Here, as a child, you rushed by with a stick raising a
machine-gun racket, laughing.

These houses, holding their people and memories. The lemon odor of old Mrs
Hanlon who lived here, a lady with withered hands who gave you a withered lecture on trampling
her petunias. Now she is completely withered like an ancient paper burned.

The street is quiet except for the sound of someone walking. You turn a
corner and unexpectedly collide with a stranger.

You both stand back. For a moment, examining each other, you understand.

The stranger’s eyes are deep-seated fires. He is tall, thin, and wears a dark
suit. There is a fiery whiteness in his cheekbones. He smiles. ‘You’re new,’ he says.

You know then what he is. He is walking and ‘different,’ like you.

‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’ he asks.

‘Step aside,’ you say. ‘I have no time. I have to go
somewhere
.’

He reaches out and grasps your elbow firmly. ‘Do you
know
what
I am?’ He bends close. ‘Do you not realize we
are the same? We are as brothers.’

‘I–I have no time.’

‘No,’ he agrees. ‘Nor have I, to waste.’

You try to brush past, but he walks with you. ‘I know where you’re
going.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘To some childhood place. Some river. Some house. Some
memory. Some woman, perhaps. To some old friend’s bed. Oh, I know, I know everything about our
kind. I know.’ He nods at the passing light and dark.

‘Do you?’

‘That is always why we lost ones walk. Strange, when you consider all the
books written about ghosts and restless souls–never once did the authors of those worthy
volumes touch upon the true secret of why we walk. But it’s always for a memory, a friend, a
woman, a house, a drink of wine, everything and anything connected to life and…
living
!’ He makes a fist to hold the words tight. ‘Living!
Real
living!’

Wordless, you increase your stride, but his whisper follows:

‘You must join me later, friend. We will meet with the others, tonight,
tomorrow, and all the nights until at last, we win!’

‘Who are the others?’

‘The dead. We join against’–a pause–‘intolerance.’

‘Intolerance?’

‘We–the recently deceased, the newly interred–are a minority, a persecuted
minority.
They
make laws against us!’

You stop walking. ‘Minority?’

‘Yes.’ He grasps your arm. ‘Are we wanted? No! We are feared, driven like
sheep into a quarry, screamed at, stoned, like the Jews. It’s wrong, I tell you, unfair!’ He
lifts his hands in fury and strikes the empty air. ‘Is it fair that we melt in our graves while
the rest of the world sings, laughs, dances? Fair, is it fair, that they love while we lie
cold, that they touch while our hands turn to stone? No! I say down with them, down! Why should
we die? Why not the others?’

‘Maybe…’

‘They slam the earth in our faces and carve a stone to weigh us down. They
bring flowers and leave them to rot, once a year–sometimes not even that! Oh, how I hate the
living. The damn fools! Dancing all night and loving till dawn, while we are abandoned. Is that
right?’

‘I hadn’t thought of it that way…’

‘Well,’ he cries, ‘we’ll fix them.’

‘How?’

‘There are thousands of us gathering tonight in the Elysian grove. I will
lead our army. We will march! They have neglected us for too long. If we can’t live, then they
won’t! Will you come, friend? I have spoken with many. Join us. Tonight the graveyards will
open and the
lost ones will pour forth to drown the
unbelievers. You will come?’

‘Yes. Perhaps. But right now I must go. I am looking for something…Later,
later I will join you.’

‘Good,’ he says. You walk off, leaving him in shadow. ‘Good, good, good!’

Up the hill now, quickly. Thank God the night is cold.

You gasp. There, glowing in the night, but with simple magnificence, the
house where Grandma sheltered and fed her boarders. Inside that grand, tall house, Saturday
feasts happen. Where you as a child sat on the porch watching skyrockets climb in fire, the
pinwheels sputtering, the gunpowder drumming at your ears from the brass cannon your uncle Bion
fired with his hand-rolled cigarette.

Now, trembling with memory, you know why the dead walk. To see nights like
this. Here, where dew littered the grass and you crushed the damp lawn, wrestling, and you knew
the sweetness of now, now, tomorrow is gone, yesterday is done, tonight you live!

And here, here, remember? This is Kim’s house. That yellow light around the
back, that’s her room.

You bang the gate wide and hurry up the walk.

You approach her window and feel your stale breath falling upon the cold
glass. As the fog vanishes the shape of her room emerges: things spread on the little soft bed,
the cherrywood floor brightly waxed, and throw-rugs like
heavily furred dogs sleeping there.

She enters the room. She looks tired, but she sits and begins to comb her
hair.

Breathlessly, you press your ear against the cold pane to listen, and as from
a deep sea you hear her sing so softly it is already an echo before it is sung.

You tap on the windowpane.

But she doesn’t turn; she continues combing her hair gently.

You tap again, anxiously.

This time she puts down the comb and rises to come to the window. At first
she sees nothing; you are in shadow. Then she looks more closely. She sees a dim figure beyond
the light.

‘Kim!’ You cannot help yourself. ‘It’s me! Kim!’

You push your face forward into the light. Her face pales. She does not cry
out; but her eyes widen and her mouth opens as if a terrific lightning bolt has hit the earth
beneath her. She pulls back slightly.

‘Kim!’ you cry. ‘Kim.’

She says your name, but you can’t hear it. She wants to run but instead she
opens the window and, sobbing, stands back as you climb up and into the light.

You close the window and stand, swaying there, only to find her far across
the room, her face half turned away.

You try to think of something to say, but cannot, and then you hear her
crying.

At last she is able to speak.

‘Six months,’ she says. ‘You’ve been gone that long. When you went away I
cried. I never cried so much in my life. But now you
can’t
be
here.’

‘I am!’

‘But why? I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘Why did you come?’

‘I was lost. It was very dark and I started to dream; I don’t know how. And
there you were in the dream and I don’t know how, but I had to find my way back.’

‘You can’t stay.’

‘Until sunrise I can. I still love you.’

‘Don’t say that. You mustn’t, anymore. I belong here and you belong there,
and right now I’m terribly afraid. It’s been so long. The things we did, the things we joked
and laughed about, those things I still love, but—’

‘I still think those thoughts. I think them over and over, Kim. Please try to
understand.’

‘You don’t want pity, do you?’

‘Pity?’ You half turn away. ‘No, I don’t want that. Kim, listen to me. I
could come visit you every night, we could talk just like we used to. I can explain, make you
understand, if only you’ll let me.’

‘It’s no use,’ she says. ‘We can never go back.’

‘Kim, one hour every evening, or half an hour, anytime you say. Five minutes.
Just to see you. That’s all, that’s all I ask.’

You try to take her hands. She pulls away.

She closes her eyes tightly and says
simply, ‘I’m afraid.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve been taught to be afraid.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Yes, I guess that’s it.’

‘But I want to talk.’

‘Talking won’t help.’

Her trembling gradually passes and she becomes more calm and relaxed. She
sinks down on the edge of the bed and her voice is very old in a young throat.

‘Perhaps…’ A pause. ‘Maybe. I suppose a few minutes each night and maybe I’d
get used to you and maybe I wouldn’t be afraid.’

‘Anything you say. You won’t be afraid?’

‘I’ll try not to be.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I won’t be afraid. I’ll meet
you outside the house in a few minutes. Let me get myself together and we can say good
night.’

‘Kim, there’s only one thing to remember: I love you.’

You climb back out the window and she pulls down the sash.

Standing there in the dark, you weep with something deeper than sorrow.

Across the street a man walks alone and you recognize him as the one who
spoke to you earlier that night. He is lost and walking like you, alone in a world that he
hardly knows.

And suddenly Kim is beside you.

‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘I’m better
now. I don’t think I’m afraid.’

And together you stroll in the moonlight, just as you have so many times
before. She turns you in at an ice-cream parlor and you sit at the counter and order ice
cream.

You look down at the sundae and think how wonderful, it’s been so long.

You pick up your spoon and put some of the ice cream in your mouth and then
pause and feel the light in your face go out. You sit back.

‘Something wrong?’ the soda clerk behind the fountain says.

‘Nothing.’

‘Ice cream taste funny?’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘You ain’t eating,’ he says.

‘No.’

You push the ice cream away and feel a terrible loneliness steal over
you.

‘I’m not hungry.’

You sit up very straight, staring at nothing. How can you tell her that you
can’t swallow, can’t eat? How can you explain that your whole body seems to be solid, like a
block of wood, and that nothing moves, nothing can be tasted?

Pushing back from the counter, you rise and wait for Kim to pay for the
sundaes, and then you swing wide the door and walk out into the night.

‘Kim—’

‘It’s all right,’ she says.

You walk down toward the park. You feel her hand on your arm, a long way off,
but the feeling is so soft that it is hardly there. Beneath your feet the sidewalk loses its
solidity. You move without shock or bump, as if you’re in a dream.

Kim says, ‘Isn’t that great? Smell the lilacs.’

You sniff the air but there is nothing. Panicked, you try again, but no
lilac.

Two people pass in the dark. They drift by, smiling to Kim. As they move away
one of them says, fading, ‘Smell that? Something’s rotten in Denmark.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t see—’

‘No!’ Kim cries. And suddenly, at the sound of those voices, she starts to
run.

You catch her arm. Silently you struggle. She beats at you. You can hardly
feel her fists.

‘Kim!’ you cry. ‘Don’t. Don’t be afraid.’

‘Let go!’ she cries. ‘Let go.’

‘I can’t.’

Again the word: ‘Can’t.’ She weakens and hangs, lightly sobbing against you.
At your touch she trembles.

You hold her close, shivering. ‘Kim, don’t leave me. I have such plans. We’ll
travel, anywhere, just travel. Listen to me. Think of it. To eat the best food, to see the best
places, to drink the best wine.’

Kim interrupts. You see her mouth move.
You tilt your head. ‘What?’

She speaks again. ‘Louder,’ you say. ‘I can’t hear you.’

She speaks, her mouth moves, but you hear absolutely nothing.

And then, as if from behind a wall, a voice says, ‘It’s no use. You see?’