The Collected Stories Read online

  “That’s right.”

  A wooden front door with a window in it showed part of the shadowy lobby, mailboxes, and a second door. Beyond her building and down the next street were warehouses. Beyond them, the river. A meat truck started toward them from a packing house near the river. It came slowly, bug-eyed with power. The driver saw the lady standing in front of the boys. He yelled as the truck went past. Gears yowled, twisting the sound of his voice. She let her strength out abruptly: “Give me the glove, Francisco.”

  The boy shook his head at the truck, at her lack of civilization. “What you give me?”

  That tickled the hat. “Vaya, baby. What she give you, eh?” He spoke fast, his tone decorous and filthy.

  “All right, baby,” she said fast as the hat, “what do you want?” The question had New York and much man in it. The hat swiveled to the new sound. A man of honor, let him understand the terms. He squinted at her beneath the hat brim.

  “Come on, Francisco, make your deal.” She presented brave, beautiful teeth, smiling hard as a skull.

  “Tell her, Duke. Make the deal.” The hat lingered on “deal,” grateful to the lady for this word.

  The sun shone in his face and the acknowledged duke sat, dull green eyes blank with possibilities. Her question, not “deal,” held him. It had come too hard, too fast. He laughed in contempt of something and glanced around at the wings. They offered nothing. “I want a dollar,” he said.

  That seemed obvious to the hat: he sneered, “He wants a dollar.” She had to be stupid not to see it.

  “No deal. Twenty-five cents.” Her gloves were worth twenty dollars. She had paid ten for them at a sale. At the moment they were worth green eyes’s life.

  “I want ten dollars,” said green eyes, flashing the words like extravagant meaningless things; gloves of his own. He lifted his arms, clasped his hands behind his head, and leaned against the knees behind him. His belly filled with air, the polo shirt rolled out on its curve. He made a fat man doing business. “Ten dollars.” Ten fingers popped up behind his head, like grimy spikes. Keeper of the glove, cocky duke of the stoop. The number made him happy: it bothered her. He drummed the spikes against his head: “I wan’ you ten dol-lar.” Beans caught the beat in his hips and rocked it on the stoop.

  “Francisco,” she said, hesitated, then said, “dig me, please. You will get twenty-five cents. Now let’s have the glove.” Her bag snapped open, her fingers hooked, stiffened on the clasp. Monkey leered at her and bongoed his knees with fists. “The number is ten dol-lar.” She waited, said nothing. The spikes continued drumming, Monkey rocked his hips, Beans pummeled his knees. The hat sang sadly: “Twany fyiv not d’nummer, not d’nummer, not d’nummer.” He made claves of his fingers and palms, tocked, clicked his tongue against the beat. “Twan-ny fyiv — na t’nomma.” She watched green eyes. He was quiet now in the center of the stoop, sitting motionless, waiting, as though seconds back in time his mind still touched the question: what did he want? He seemed to wonder, now that he had the formula, what did he want? The faces around him, dopey in the music, wondered nothing, grinned at her, nodded, clicked, whined the chorus: “Twany fyiv not t’nomma, twany fyiv not t’nomma.”

  Her silk blouse stained and stuck flat to her breasts and shoulders. Water chilled her sides.

  “Ten dol-lar iss t’nomma.”

  She spread her feet slightly, taking better possession of the sidewalk and resting on them evenly, the bag held open for green eyes. She could see he didn’t want that, but she insisted in her silence he did. Tito spread his little feet and lined the points of his shoes against hers. Tomato noticed the imitation and cackled at the concrete. The music went on, the beat feeding on itself, pulverizing words, smearing them into liquid submission: “Iss t’nomma twany fyiv? Dat iss not t’nomma.”

  “Twenty-five cents,” she said again.

  Tito whined, “Gimme twenty-five cents.”

  “Shut you mouth,” said the hat, and turned a grim face to his friend. In the darkness of his eyes there were deals. The music ceased. “Hey, baby, you got no manners? Tell what you want.” He spoke in a dreamy voice, as if to a girl.

  “I want a kiss,” said green eyes.

  She glanced down with this at Tito and studied the small shining head. “Tell him to give me my glove, Tito,” she said cutely, nervously. The wings shuffled and looked down bored. Nothing was happening. Twisting backward Tito shouted up to green eyes, “Give her the glove.” He twisted front again and crouched over his knees. He shoved Tomato for approval and smiled. Tomato shoved him back, snarled at the concrete, and spit between his feet at a face which had taken shape in the grains.

  “I want a kiss,” said the boy again.

  She sighed, giving another second to helplessness. The sun was low above the river and the street three quarters steeped in shade. Sunlight cut across the building tops where pigeons swept by loosely and fluttered in to pack the stone foliage of the eaves. Her bag snapped shut. Her voice was business: “Come on, Francisco. I’ll give you the kiss.”

  He looked shot among the faces.

  “Come on,” she said, “it’s a deal.”

  The hat laughed out loud with childish insanity. The others shrieked and jiggled, except for the wings. But they ceased to sprawl, and seemed to be getting bigger, to fill with imminent motion. “Gimme a kiss, gimme a kiss,” said the little ones on the lowest step. Green eyes sat with a quiet, open mouth.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “I haven’t all day.”

  “Where I go?”

  “That doorway.” She pointed to her building and took a step toward it. “You know where I live, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want no kiss.”

  “What’s the matter now?”

  “You scared?” asked the hat. “Hey, Duke, you scared?”

  The wings leaned toward the center, where green eyes hugged himself and made a face.

  “Look, Mr. Francisco, you made a deal.”

  “Yeah,” said the wings.

  “Now come along.”

  “I’m not scared,” he shouted, and stood up among them. He sat down. “I don’t want no kiss.”

  “You’re scared?” she said.

  “You scared chicken,” said the hat.

  “Yeah,” said the wings. “Hey, punk. Fairy. Hey, Duke Chicken.”

  “Duke scared,” mumbled Tito. Green eyes stood up again. The shoulders below him separated. Tito leaped clear of the stoop and trotted into the street. Green eyes passed through the place he had vacated and stood at her side, his head not so high as her shoulder. She nodded at him, tucked her bag up, and began walking toward her building. A few others stood up on the stoop and the hat started down. She turned. “Just him.” Green eyes shuffled after her. The hat stopped on the sidewalk. Someone pushed him forward. He resisted, but called after them, “He’s my cousin.” She walked on, the boy came slowly after her. They were yelling from the stoop, the hat yelling his special point, “He’s my brother.” He stepped after them and the others swarmed behind him down the stoop and onto the sidewalk. Tito jumped out of the street and ran alongside the hat. He yelled, “He’s got the glove.” They all moved down the block, the wings trailing sluggishly, the young ones jostling, punching each other, laughing, shrieking things in Spanish after green eyes and the lady. She heard him, a step behind her. “I give you the glove and take off.”

  She put her hand out to the side a little. The smaller hand touched hers and took it. “You made a deal.”

  She tugged him through the doorway into the tight, square lobby. The hand snapped free and he swung by, twisting to face her as if to meet a blow. He put his back against the second door, crouched a little. His hands pressed the sides of his legs. The front door shut slowly and the shadows deepened in the lobby. He crouched lower, his eyes level with her breasts, as she took a step toward him. The hat appeared, a black rock in the door window. Green eyes saw it, straightened up, one hand moving quickly toward his pants pocket. The se
cond and third head, thick dark bulbs, lifted beside the hat in the window. Bodies piled against the door behind her. Green eyes held up the glove. “Here you lousy glove.”

  She smiled and put out her hand. The hat screamed, “Hey, you made a deal, baby. Hey, you got no manners.”

  “Don’t be scared,” she whispered, stepping closer.

  The glove lifted toward her and hung in the air between them, gray, languid as smoke. She took it and bent toward his face. “I won’t kiss you. Run.” The window went black behind her, the lobby solid in darkness, silent but for his breathing, the door breathing against the pressure of the bodies, and the scraping of fingers spread about them like rats in the walls. She felt his shoulder, touched the side of his neck, bent the last inch, and kissed him. White light cut the walls. They tumbled behind it, screams and bright teeth. Spinning to face them she was struck, pitched against green eyes and the second door. He twisted hard, shoved away from her as the faces piled forward popping eyes and lights, their fingers accumulating in the air, coming at her. She raised the bag, brought it down swishing into the faces, and wrenched and twisted to get free of the fingers, screaming against their shrieks, “Stop it, stop it, stop it.” The bag sprayed papers and coins, and the sunglasses flew over their heads and cracked against the brass mailboxes. She dropped amid shrieks, “Gimme a kiss, gimme a kiss,” squirming down the door onto her knees to get fingers out from under her and she thrust up with the bag into bellies and thighs until a fist banged her mouth. She cursed, flailed at nothing.

  There was light in the lobby and leather scraping on concrete as they crashed out the door into the street. She shut her eyes instantly as the fist came again, big as her face. Then she heard running in the street. The lobby was silent. The door shut slowly, the shadows deepened. She could feel the darkness getting thicker. She opened her eyes. Standing in front of her was the hat.

  He bowed slightly. “I get those guys for you. They got no manners.” The hat shook amid the shadows, slowly, sadly.

  She pressed the smooth leather of her bag against her cheek where the mouths had kissed it. Then she tested the clasp, snapping it open and shut. The hat shifted his posture and waited. “You hit me,” she whispered, and did not look up at him. The hat bent and picked up her keys and the papers. He handed the keys to her, then the papers, and bent again for the coins. She dropped the papers into her bag and stuffed them together in the bottom. “Help me up!” She took his hands and got to her feet without looking at him. As she put the key against the lock of the second door she began to shiver. The key rattled against the slot. “Help me!” The hat leaned over the lock, his long thin fingers squeezing the key. It caught, angled with a click. She pushed him aside. “You give me something? Hey, you give me something?” The door shut on his voice.

  Intimations

  MAMMA WAS COMING. SARAH WAS STIFF AND PALE. Myron walked circles saying chicken chow mein. If Mamma asks say chicken chow mein. There was a knock. Sarah said chicken chow mein, opened the door. Mamma. Stockings rolled in rubber bands just below the knees. She had something for them in a shopping bag: lox, rye bread, salami, chocolate cake … Then it was 5:00 a.m. Light hung about their heads like iron. Naked, staring at Myron, Sarah was poignant with the need to pee. Myron talked about pain, Sarah, and the need we must feel, Sarah, to accept pain. Yet he had suffered doubts. He had been less than cool. Indeed, shiksa blonde or purple eggplant, she was his wife and had made a delicious dinner. Mistake or not, Sarah. Yet he’d been doubtful when he said, if Mamma asks — which she did — say chicken chow mein — which they did. He’d been doubtful when Mamma was eating it, pork casserole, but he babbled distractions and filled the wineglass from which she drank nothing, Sarah, because she was eating misgivings away — hers and theirs, Sarah. And yet in the loving momentum of Mamma’s teeth didn’t everything seem fine, Sarah, hugging goodbye, gimme-a-call, Sarah. Then the door was locked, Sarah, and Mamma was in the subway tunneling out of mind and he took Sarah, Sarah, and stripped her like a twig and came trip hammers and sprawled all bones until the phone rang weirdly oh God, Sarah. And a hideous bird voice said Mamma had had a trichinol seizure and he screamed filthyfucking-middlewesternswinepeddlers, Sarah, waking, to stare at Sarah’s gray eyes staring at him out of sleep and nightmare. I’m talking about pain, Sarah. How the old must suffer, Sarah, because we grow, we change, and we honor them, Sarah, by acknowledging and making clear to ourselves that we accept life’s inexorable sophistication and cruel, natural, inevitable growing away from primitive intimations of kindness, Sarah, and the phone rang. From the bathroom she yelled acknowledge it, Myron. And it rang, Myron.

  Making Changes

  THE HALL WAS CLOGGED WITH BODIES; none of them hers, but who could be sure? The light was bad, there was too much noise, too much movement. Too many people had been invited. More kept arriving. I liked it, but it was hard to get from one room to another. Conversation was impossible. People had to lean close and shriek. It killed the effect of wit, looking into nostrils, shrieking, “What? What?” But it was a New York scene. I liked it. Except she was missing; virtually torn out of my hands. Cecily. I would have asked people if they had seen her, but I was ashamed to admit I had lost her. I was afraid she was someone’s date or inextricably into something. I was afraid she was copulating. She had been dressed, but it was a New York scene. Minutes had passed. I shoved through the hall — hot, dark, squealing with bodies — and looked for her. I shoved into the kitchen and saw just one couple, a lady in a brown tweed suit talking to a short dapper man in spats. She was stout, fiftyish, had fierce eyes. Flat, black as nailheads. Her voice flew around like pots and pans. The man glanced at me, then down as if embarrassed. The lady ignored me. I ignored her and busied around the wet, sloppy counter looking for an unused glass and a bottle of something, as if I wanted a drink. The lady was saying, slam, clang:

  “Sexual enlightenment, the keystone of modernity, I dare say, can hardly be considered an atavistic intellectual debauch, Cosmo.”

  “But the perversions …”

  “To be sure, the perversions of which we are so richly conscious are the natural inclination, indeed the style, of civilized beings.”

  I found a paper cup. It was gnawed about the rim, but no cigarettes were shredding on the bottom. I sloshed in bourbon and started to leave, afraid she was pervulating.

  “Wait there, you.”

  I stopped.

  “What sort of pervert are you?”

  I shrugged, mumbled, hoping she’d forgo.

  “What sort of pervert are you?”

  I shrugged, mumbled.

  “Speak up, fellow.”

  “I mug yaks.”

  “You hear, Cosmo? A yak mugger.”

  “Are you married, young man?” asked Cosmo, dreamily.

  “No.”

  “Good question,” she cried, “for we observe, as necessarily we must, that marriage encourages perversity — assuming the parties agree on specified indulgences, Cosmo, which is paradoxical.”

  “Indeed, Tulip, the natural perversions themselves, one might well assume,” he said, whispering.

  “Let me continue.”

  “Please, please do.”

  Something shadowy and mean in her voice wanted to spring, to rip off his head. I wanted to leave.

  “Let me continue.”

  “Please, please do.”

  “Paradoxical, I repeat, for the prime value of sex, to an advanced view, lies precisely in its antagonism to society. What, then, dare one ask, must we make of marriage?”

  “An antisocial perversion,” he said.

  “Yes, clearly,” I added, “clearly.”

  The words burst out of themselves with a wonderful feeling. I love logic. Its inevitability, its power of consummation.

  “Cosmo,” she said, ignoring me, “you’re a horse’s ass.”

  She looked at me. I nodded my head. “Clearly.”

  “I say, fellow, is much going on in the living room?” Her bl
ack eyes, like periods, stopped mine.

  “I just came the other way, actually. From the back of the apartment.”

  I pointed.

  “How fascinating. Do publish a travel book. In the meantime, look behind you.”

  I turned and looked through the dining room over scattered struggling to the living room. It was piled and dense with sluggish, sliding spaghetti.

  “It’s mainly in there now.” I pointed.

  “Good. The orgy, Cosmo, our oldest mode of sexual community has moved closer. Let’s go watch now that we needn’t poke about the rooms like vulgar tourists. Oh, Cosmo, what better solvent have we for the diversity of human beings? And, needless to add, it’s such a chic way of breaking the ice.”

  They left the kitchen, her smashing voice flinging in all directions, and hesitated at the edge of the toiling pile with spray in their eyes. Figures cast up like tidal garbage lay quivering at their feet.

  “Cosmo, the view is breathtaking. Tell me your impressions.”

  “Breathtaking, a view of the infinite mind. Indeed, the mind, that ocean where each kind …”

  “Yes, yes … where every sort its own sort shortly finds.”

  I pushed by them down the edge of the mind, squatting, peering at whatever caught light — blades, nails, paps, hips, tips — looking for her blond hair, her gray eyes, her legs.

  I pushed beyond the mind, back into the clogged hall, and looked into a bedroom. Three mirrors showed me looking. I went on, looked into a study, and saw a wall of whips, barbells on the floor, framed diplomas, photos of movie stars and contemporary philosophers. I found a bathroom. I knocked, stepped in. A naked man sitting pertly in the tub said, “I’ll bet you’re Zeus. I’m Danaë.” I shook my head, backed out muttering, “I’m Phillip.” Again in the hall, rump to rump, hip to hip, between moaning, writhing walls; pardon me, so so sorry, until a knee plugged under my crotch and I pitched to a side and down, elbow deep in churning, hands smack on a hot face. Eyes gleamed through my fingers, teeth nibbled my palm, fingers clapped my thigh, squeezed to nerve, and my fist swung back like a hoof. Struck neck. “You want to hit?” There was a punch, a slap, a gibbering girl tumbling over me and nails raked my spine. I scrambled for space, slammed nose flat into shivering thighs, pinwheeled, flapped cha-cha-cha like a sheet in the wind, and fell out against bare wall, wheezing, whistling into virtual black. Tulip’s voice slashed it like tracers: