Ralph repressed an impulse to hail him with a “Morning, Mr Sutherland!” John Sutherland was frowning a little, keeping his eyes straight ahead. Now that was nice to see, a healthy young man exercising before most of the city was up, keeping his muscles firm, lungs clear. John Sutherland’s fair hair looked darker than Ralph remembered it, but there was no doubt the man was Sutherland. Ralph turned to watch the blue figure disappear on springy, silent feet around the corner into Morton, going west. Sutherland didn’t run every morning, Ralph supposed, otherwise he’d have noticed him before. Ralph had been on his present schedule for two weeks now.
Ralph walked into Grove Street in the direction of Bleecker. Was Sutherland’s wife still asleep? Probably. He knew what she looked like from the photographs in the wallet, but did not recall ever having seen her in the neighborhood.
The grocery store on Bleecker was just stirring, doors open, Johnny in an apron tugging out wooden stands on which his wares would be displayed in a few minutes. Ralph went in. God walked in a circle on his leash, sniffing the aromas of mortadella, liverwurst, salami and cheese.
“Morning, Mr Linderman!” said Johnny, coming in. “You’re the first customer. Gettin’ to be a habit.”
Ralph smiled a little, pleased, and stood taller. “Morning to you, Johnny. How’s the liverwurst today?”
“Same as ever. Not suffering sellin’ fine.”
Ralph bought some, also some salami and cole slaw, and took a couple of cans of cat food off a shelf for God. Cats were fussier than dogs, so catfood was of better quality than dogfood, Ralph reasoned. God had still some liver and rumpsteak at home. Butter too, Ralph needed. Johnny totaled it all up on his calculator. He was a rather nice boy, Johnny, though Ralph in general didn’t trust Italians, because they were Catholics, and because the Mafia was still mainly composed of Italians. Ralph remembered when he had hated Italians, as he had hated and still hated and mistrusted the blacks, as they called themselves. “Coons” Ralph called them to himself. Negroes certainly, with a capital n, but no, they preferred to be called blacks, a depressing word and color. Many hard-working Italians had made their way up in America, but he could never forget the Mafia, that family business, rich and tough, the epitome of evil, murderers and blackmailers, caterers to vice. The Jews had not changed, in Ralph’s opinion, and by and large he didn’t like them with their ingrown cliques, their money which they used to buy people, but the men who took their money were even worse, of course. Ralph paid, eight dollars and seventy-three cents.
“And how’s God?” Johnny asked, leaning over the wooden counter to peer at the dog. “Howdy, God ol’ pal!” Johnny laughed.
A pimple over Johnny’s upper lip seemed to spread as if to bursting point. The down was turning to darker hair there. Johnny was perhaps seventeen, having quit highschool, but at least he was working for his parents, who were probably still asleep, Ralph thought, and well they deserved it, as they’d been minding the store until nearly midnight.
“God’s fine, thanks,” Ralph replied, taking up the brown paper bag. “See you soon, Johnny.”
“Bye, sir. Have a nice day, God!” Johnny said, still grinning.
Ralph Linderman had a lovely day. At noon, the newsstand man at Sheridan Square had saved his Times for him, and he changed five books at Leroy Street, renewing Thomas Mann’s Last Essays, because he liked to read something like that slowly. He read everything, or nearly everything slowly, letting it sink in, though some books that he borrowed he found had been a mistake, they bored him or they were worthless. Ralph liked to read fiction as much as non-fiction. He had wanted to read 1984 again, but the waiting list had been so long, he bought the paperback. He adored Robert Louis Stevenson, for pleasure. He took out a book on semeiology, because it looked interesting. And a novel by Iris Murdoch, whom he enjoyed because the English world she described, though contemporary and evidently realistic, was fantastic to Ralph, making him think of the plots of Richard Wagner’s operas, somebody in love with someone impossible to attain, someone else hating someone for the slightest of reasons which became magnified. Ralph had never been to England, and he wondered if a fair number of English people kept falling in love like that, seldom if ever showing it under their calm exteriors?
He hadn’t taken God to the library, of course, so Ralph was able to walk home briskly. Good exercise. The coffee shop where Elsie worked was south of Leroy Street, but Ralph had no desire to drop in now. Maybe Elsie was not even on duty today.
Later that afternoon, Ralph cleaned out the two shelves under his sink, got rid of old rags, useless paper bags, discovered some steel wool and a spare bottle of window-cleaning fluid that he’d been unaware of, wiped the shelving paper, and put most of the items back. Then he wrote a letter to his mother. She was nearly eighty and living in a small apartment in a town in New Hampshire. Ralph sent his mother money once a month, and wrote her maybe every three weeks. He was the only child.
Sept. 15, 19—
Dear Mother,
Things are about as usual, weather pretty pleasant and the worst heat seems over. Am still working at the parking garage way west on 48th St. $6.50 per hour is good pay, as $7 is about tops. Remember when I was making the $5.50 minimum not so long ago? I don’t take such wages any more, as I don’t have to. My work record is sterling by the way.
How is your arthritis? Don’t forget to get your woolies handy with the fall coming soon. Not more than four aspirins a day, I hope.
God is fine and sends love to Tissy Cat.
Ralph paused for thought, and recalled black-and-white Tissy Cat, who had long hair like a Persian but was quite ordinary, a boring animal who looked at people from her pillow as if she detested them.
Bless you and keep you. From your loving son
Ralph
His mother was a devout church-goer, protestant. That was why Ralph had written “Bless you” to please her. Who and what was to bless her? Fate? Luck?
6
By half past 8 the apartment had begun to fill up, and it looked like a party. People talked more loudly in order to be heard, and Sylvia Kinnock’s laughter, a single shriek now and then, sounded muffled. Louis Wannfeld was here, and Isabel Katz, the old friend of Natalia’s who ran the Katz Gallery. It was Natalia’s twenty-eighth birthday, though she and Jack had not announced that fact when they extended the invitations, they had simply asked people to come for drinks after 7, and said maybe there’d be something to eat too. Only Natalia’s closest friends might connect the date with her birthday. Natalia liked to do something on her birthday, but hated the idea of people feeling that they had to bring a present.
Joel MacPherson had come, and Jack had showed him four more roughs for the Dreams book, plus two finished with the pale pink, blue and green he would use on all of them. Joel was extremely pleased.
“Let’s put ‘em up—put ‘em up all around the table like this.” He demonstrated by leaning one against the wall at the back of Jack’s worktable, daintily, as if it were precious, then his hands spread as he whispered, “We’ll ask the people in and see what they think.—Or don’t you like that?” Joel’s plump face beamed as if it were publication day.
Jack hesitated, not liking the idea. “But this is my private room, Joel!” he said with a laugh.
Joel’s face fell like a disappointed child’s. “I love the old grampa—looking like Jehovah or something. And his son—groveling.” Joel pointed, smiling again, at the diminutive figure of the middle-aged husband Caspar, crawling on the floor toward his somnolent but dominant father-figure. “And the sex scenes—well—” Joel seemed at a loss for words of praise.
Jack jerked his head. “Let’s go back.”
As soon as he entered the big living-room where more people were standing than sitting, Jack’s eye fell on Louis’ tall figure in his dark blue summer suit, white shirt, the terribly chic blue bowtie, as Louis handed a small object in white tissue paper to Natalia. She opened it. They were both standing by a front window. Jack
saw Natalia’s lips part in pleased surprise, and she held up what looked like a silver chain of some heaviness with a red pendant stone.
“Jack, where’s your drink?” asked Isabel Katz, looking at him with eyes whose upper lids were of a more intense pale blue than some in Jack’s drawings. “Mine’s fresh. I was going to toast Natalia’s health. Just us.”
Isabel’s made-up face was in contrast to Natalia’s, because Natalia had been doing something till the last minute, making the guacamole dip or simply shifting on her feet in feigned panic at the thought of “a party”, and hadn’t put even lipstick on before the first ring at the door. Isabel was smallish, slender, with dark hair done in a bun in back. She was at least forty-five, and needed some make-up, but underneath, as they said, she was not the made-up type. Isabel Katz was all art, not even business art or the kind that made money, just art. Isabel painted too, but was modest about her work. And what did she think of his stuff, his talent, Jack wondered, if she bothered to think about it? “I’m on white wine,” Jack said. “I’ll get some.” He did, and lifted his glass.
Isabel raised her scotch and water. “To Natalia.”
“To her,” Jack said, and drank.
“Canapes,” said a small figure suddenly beside and below them. Amelia held a plate of little hot sausages, each stuck with a toothpick. Amelia was diligent at parties, passing things around slowly and steadily, non-stop. “Pie-ease, Daddy.”
Isabel didn’t want any, and Jack took one to please his daughter. Amelia moved off to the sofa crowd.
“You look pale,” Isabel said.
“Pale?” Jack was surprised.
“In the last seconds.—You feel all right, Jack?”
“Sure I do.”
“Natalia’s looking well, don’t you think so? She looks happier—this last year.”
Jack was pleased by this comment. “You should know. I hope so.” Natalia was now working five or six hours a day, five days a week, at Isabel’s gallery.
“Who’s the girl with the long dark hair?” Isabel asked.
“Oh. Sylvia—Kinnock. Old friend of Natalia’s. School friend, I think. Don’t you remember, a couple of years ago, Natalia went away—well, to Europe—with Sylvia for a few months. I thought you knew her.”
“N-no. I remember when Natalia was away in Europe.—The girl’s got a wild face. Interesting,” Isabel said with a smile.
Jack looked at Sylvia with new eyes. There was something gypsy-like about her face or her manner, though Jack remembered Natalia saying her family was Catholic and rather strict. Sylvia was Natalia’s age, unmarried, and had a job that made her travel a lot, some kind of public relations. Odd that Isabel hadn’t met Sylvia in all these years, but Isabel kept to herself in the evenings, and saw her best friends singly for drinks or dinner usually.
“Would you—” Jack had been about to introduce Isabel to Sylvia, but Isabel greeted someone with a warm “Hello-o,” and Jack knew she was stuck for a while. Jack took a sip of his white wine, not wanting it now, even though it was excellent cool Frascati. Sylvia. Jack had not thought of her in maybe a year. He realized that he felt a faint resentment toward her, because Natalia had spent so much time with her on that trip when Amelia had been about two years old. It had been as if Natalia had wanted to kick over the traces of marriage, wanted to forget she was a wife and mother and feel independent again. Amelia had stayed with her grandmother in Ardmore, in the care of a nanny whose face Jack remembered but not her name. Natalia had been away for at least six months, and though Sylvia had come back to New York for a time, he remembered, Natalia had gone to Mexico and Sylvia had joined her there for a while. Natalia had come back in a more cheerful mood, but had been rather silent or laconic about her travels. It’s not the first time I’ve been either to Europe or to Mexico, after all. Jack could still hear Natalia’s voice saying that.
“Hello, Jack. You look thoughtful.” Louis Wannfeld smiled affably at him. He had a broad mouth with full, pink lips, large teeth, a bald head. “It’s a great party. I’m glad to be here.”
What did one say to that? Jack murmured something with equal affability, and asked Louis if his drink was all right.
“Yes, thanks. Looks like a Bloody Mary but it’s plain tomato juice,” said Louis. “I hear you’ve got some new drawings. For a book.” The spotlight behind Louis, focused mainly on the ceiling, made the crown of Louis’ bare head look as if he wore a silver halo.
“Well—yes. Not yet ready for publication. Or inspection. In fact—” Now Jack smiled. “The book hasn’t got a contract yet, but we have some strong interests, Joel and I.”
“Yes, Joel,” said Louis, and sipped. “You don’t even use a pencil starting these drawings, Natalia said.”
Jack replied. No, under ideal conditions, when he wasn’t working for money. Jack was thinking, the latest was that Louis did not have cancer, though for three weeks Natalia had thought he had, because of what Louis had said. The New York doctor had saved him with a new verdict. What did Louis have? Something that made him watch his diet, cut out coffee, and preferably alcohol too. Jack had an unpleasant feeling that Louis was talking to him now to be polite, so Jack steered him toward Sylvia, who was talking with Joel in the middle of the living-room.
“Louis,” said Sylvia, “are you a stuffed silk shirt tonight or a boiled owl?”
Louis laughed, his tall lean frame bent in a polite bow. “Not a boiled owl, anyway, I’m on the wagon.”
Jack had not known that Sylvia and Louis were so chummy. He drifted away to the kitchen to see how Susanne was doing. Susanne had come to help out, and she was busy, but not too busy—she had a wonderfully easy manner—slicing the ham now with a very sharp knife, arranging it on a platter with pickles and olives and chunks of pineapple. Amelia hovered, eager for Susanne to hand her another plate of something that she could pass around.
“Darling, we’re coming to the serious part now,” said Susanne. “You’ll get to put some of the stuff on the table.”
“And this.” It was Joel’s voice, distant but loud.
Jack went down the hall and saw Joel and a couple of other people in his workroom whose curtain was pushed half open. “Hey, Joel,” Jack said, advancing. “What’s up here?”
“I just wanted to show Louis. He asked me about—I just showed him the couple lying here.” Joel looked a little ashamed of himself, but not much.
And here was Isabel, smiling politely, Jack thought. And one other woman whose name Jack was not sure of. “Well, I did say—These aren’t finished drawings. Not quite.—Of course they’re not roughs either, I admit.”
“You don’t make roughs, I know,” said Louis in his soft and careful voice.
Just sometimes, Jack thought, and who cared?
Isabel Katz’ astute eyes narrowed as she gazed at the fine penline in the drawing Jack called, to himself, the masturbatory fantasies of the father.
“Well, that’s enough, folks. Got to wait for the book.” Jack wanted the people out of his workroom. “No more, Joel!” Joel had been reaching for more.
“Out! Out!” said Isabel, shooing people. “I like them, Jack.”
That was a remark that he valued. Jack looked at the floor and turned. They were all leaving his room. Take it easy, Jack told himself, as he drifted deeper into the crowded living-room. Don’t hold it against Joel, it was just Joel’s extrovert nature, wanting people to share everything, even before it was finished. Jack poured a Jack Daniel’s at the bamboo cabinet.
The serious eating had begun. Amelia was passing paper plates and napkins to everyone, looking like a little robot in her blue jeans and red-and-white checked shirt, moving among people without bumping, as if guided by radar. Natalia bent and squeezed Amelia’s shoulders for an instant, and they looked like duplicates, one large, one small version of each other, due mainly to their blondish lank hair.
There was a sudden crack of thunder. Some people said, “Ah-h!” meaning that with rain it was going to be cooler. Th
ey were in a crazy heat wave, at the very end of September. Out the window it didn’t look as if rain would come, it looked merely sullen, indifferent. Joel was getting a little high, Jack noticed, his face was pinker and he was talking a blue streak to a man who had arrived with Isabel, gesticulating. Joel was almost thirty, and he was still like a teen-ager, enthusiastic, optimistic for brief spells, downcast for longer spells, arguing with himself and aloud to Jack sometimes on the subject of “What am I doing with my life?” He wanted to quit his job and couldn’t afford to. The money was too good. Jack felt suddenly de trop—the term came to him—but he really wanted simply to walk, to move on his own. It would be rude to slip out, even though Natalia and Sylvia and Louis, all standing in a corner, seemed to be engrossed in their conversation. Some people would notice that he was missing, when it came time to say good-bye. And when would that be? Three or four had already left. Some would stay until very late.
Amelia elected to bring her own plate over to join him, for which Jack felt rather flattered. Jack sat at one end of the sofa, Joel next to him, and Amelia was happy on the floor, where Jack told her her plate would be much safer. The abominated TV tables were up, all three of them. Joel had brought a girl to whom he was paying little attention. The girl, named Terry, had reddish hair. Jack had never known Joel to be overboard about any girl. Was there something just a little bit wrong with everybody, making them less than happy, halfway unhappy even?