Fall and Rise (8 page)

She's been doing other things but looking at me most of this time. Studying a wall hanging, snapping her wedding band, looking at the food, biting a live cuticle. Now she says “Then go home if you feel you don't belong here and work it out some other day. That's what I'd do,” and picking what I suppose is the chewed cuticle off her tongue, she touches my shoulder for me to step aside. I do and she passes.

“Diana,” I say, going over to her while looking at my shoulder to see if the cuticle was left there. It wasn't, or fell off, and Diana's introducing a Czechoslovak novelist to Gurygenin. Now his work I like and I wouldn't mind talking to him. “Pardon me,” I say to the men. “I don't mean to bust this up, but may I plunder Diana for a moment and then maybe return with her?”

“Sure,” the Czech says, “go ahead. But don't—what did he say?—plunder her to the point of making it not possible for her to come back to us to stay. This poet man. He may not have something to say with me and then I'd be bored to stand here.”

“Speak English,” Gurygenin tells him. “We're among friends.”

I take Diana by the arm and walk her to a free corner. “You needn't explain,” she says. “I overheard enough of what you said to Sally and another guest told me much of the rest. What's wrong with you? These are nice people. Intelligent, some of them gifted, and my friends. You're my friend also, so I'm trying my best not to say that if you want to stay my friend, as well as at the party, and I'm probably going too far with that to a friend, don't insult anyone else here to his or anyone else's face. I also think you've had plenty to drink already, and now I know I'm going too far with a friend, but okay?” and takes the glass from my hand.

“I am feeling a bit too self-pitying for one jerk tonight and deservedly disliked. In a way it's related to you-know-who.”

“Oh please. Let me go back to my friends.”

“You know so many people. I don't know how you do it.”

“I work at it, not against. Take a lesson from me. That's what my mother said to me when I was a wearisome kid and what I'm passing on to you. Be tolerant, be kind, be warm, and if others can't get along with you, they'll be in the wrong. Now as far as Helene's concerned—”

“From what I can tell, just someone like her is what I meant, but because of some ineluctable eternal puke in my nature I can never get. Would I try to be getting away with too much if I said can't we just say I'm drunk and be done with it and start anew? Nah, because I know I've screwed it up entirely with you and all your friends, haven't I?”

“I wouldn't know. And you haven't been listening. And didn't we run through this before? And why make everything sound worse by allying yourself with puke and the eternity? And are you sure you used ineluctable right? And these days everyone in everything has to settle for less. And really, come nearer…you're behaving so intemperately besides nonsensically besides in the most mawkish pea-brained way that I don't know if I care anymore. If it'll make you feel any better, and this will be my last heroic act, sleep it off in the bedroom till the party's over, though keep half the bed free for the cat, and maybe we should forget about eating Chinese.”

“No, got to go.” I kiss her hand, start to leave. “Hot fool, hot fool,” I say, pushing through.

“Dan,” she says behind me. I'm out the door. Collect my umbrella and coat and put it on and umbrella under my arm and wait for her a few seconds I'm not sure what for and go downstairs. Young man just buzzed-in and running upstairs says “Party breaking up so fast?” and I say “An international star-cast of nyet.”

“Tar cast of net?” and I say “Sorry, I meant yep, yep yep, yep yep yep.”

“Hey, watch it with your umbrella,” nearly speared, dodging past.

I look back and see him and then only his banister hand rounding the staircase. “Zeke,” Diana shrieks, “you old son of a Z, where have you been, my big man?” and their lips smack.

“Who was that guy I—” before I'm out of range.

Outside I don't know whether to go right or left. I go straight. Wind and cold feel good and clear. Through the park on a path. Man sitting on a bench says “Excuse me but is there any way possible you can help me to get something to eat?”

Snowing. Covered his hair, shoulders, shoes, bench. Snow's on the ground. Dog tracks. Someone not long ago slipped a few feet or intentionally slid: Yippee, look at me. Several lampposts away a figure's cutting across the grass on skis. “By God it's snowing,” I say, feeling my hair and accumulated crunch.

“I know and I believe I froze,” still with his head leaning over his knees and staring at his feet.

“Seriously?” His eyes close. I look around. Nobody's around. Snow's become sleet and light rain. I open the umbrella, touch his hand. “Still warm, almost hot,” holding the umbrella over us. “Maybe that's a sign of frostbite—the first, only and last. But what do I know about frostbite? That if the affected skin stays hot but you can't feel it—can you or my touch?” Eyes stay shut. “Then probably is or close and you should get to a hospital for it. Get into some cover at least. Don't just keep your eyes dry. And gloves. You have to see to yourself. You could also lose your nose.”

He puts his hands into his jacket pockets and says “Excuse me but is there any way possible—”

“Stop repeating yourself.” Rain's become sleet and then sticking snow and I close the umbrella. “Not that I don't appreciate that you at least saw to your hands, and your polite tone. No, that sounds flossy and patronizing. But craziness—this is what I'm driving at—isn't going to get or keep you well. You'll catch cold. Pneumonia. Don't let me be your mother. Here.” I take some change out. “All my change, token's in there too.” I hold it out. It's already wet from the rain. I open the umbrella and hold it over us. “Take it, I have to go.”

I try to take one of his hands out but it won't move. Around the wrist I touch is one of those hospital identification bands with a clamped clasp. I drop the coins into that pocket. Snowing. “Thank you,” he says, body same way.

“Yes, I'm a terrific son of a bitch, aren't I?”

“I own thoughts, sir.”

“Then get cover. Listen, for all the money I shelled out I've the right to bark orders. So arf. Arghh arf arf. That means shelter, health, gloves.” Doesn't look up. “All right, just remember the change is in there and a token, and take it easy.”

I turn around, lit storm clouds eclipsing the top of Empire State, start out the park way I came in. What's this? Feel sick, stomach cramp and cold head sweat and chills, rest against a lamppost, try to close the umbrella, can't, try, too weak to and it drops out of my hand, I didn't let it go, wind drifts it a few feet off the ground a few feet, lets it go, rolls on its rib tips along the path several cycles, off it to I-can't-see-where when I hear its handle hit up against a tree trunk—if that's it. My nose itches and I close my eyes, open my mouth, suck in air, can't sneeze. Cramps, chills, sweat and weakness are gone. Feet freezing, shoes and probably socks steeped through, turned-up cuffs caught some snow. I empty them. Strange night. Helene, my divisiveness, this weather, my seventeen-second flu. Jogger. Sloshing past in tank top, cap and shorts adding his or her part to it. Wouldn't be surprised to look up and see the sky full of stars and unfettered moon. Un what? Where these words come from sometimes? I suppose I meant of clouds and unfetid might be better. Must have picked it up from one of the hundred or so Hasenai love poems I went over the last two days.
Unchalked, unmoved, unrefined, storm cloud
. Those last two lines weren't it and I'll change “storm” to “rain” and would now or maybe to “snow” if my notebook wouldn't run, but close enough to be the source. And my divisiveness tonight? Some other time.

I look up, grateful to be well again. Snow that stops right before my eyes, a last flake, which I blow at to keep aloft. Then rain. I go after the umbrella. For the use it'll give me after the time I find it, weighed against how much wetter I'll get during the search, it'll be worth it. But must have been blown farther in or annexed in neutral territory, since it's not where I thought I heard it land. “Anyone around here—” No, nobody would say for a variety of reasons. It was a cheap umbrella, bought in front of a subway kiosk during a torrential downpour, May waiting inside for me to rescue her and bring her home partly dry, better or different days. Oh dear, so many women, so many girls, such a long life with them and most times just servicing for us while being one of their boys. I don't know, but got about a dollar thirty-five a year use out of it and May's great smile and approbation for being a sport. But get home and to bed or at least to a—

“Pardon,” gray beard, man says, hand out, no hat, also soaked and unseasonably clothed and by the sound his feet make against the water running off the path, though I don't want to look, barefoot.

“Sorry but I already have with my last change to that guy on the bench there and I'm feeling a bit sick besides.”

“A dollar would help.” Oh would it my answer looks. “Thought it being around Thanksgiving time—” Sympathy my head shakes. “What's a buck these days anyway and I'm awfully hard up.” A buck's something to me my finger points. “No problem,” and as if it isn't raining and hasn't been and sleeted and snowed, walks into the park, is barefoot but on the other just a sock, stops at a trashcan, picks around, I don't want to watch anymore but my mind walking away with me sees him digging deeper till out leaps a rat with cocked teeth.

Pay phone at the corner. Now I can say with some authority as they say why most of the street booths have been removed and can assume that all will be replaced with these reasonably soon. Only enough cover under this one for one's head and hands and I run to it, thinking I have to have a dime or its nickel equivalent somewhere, but don't. Do a dollar as a woman passes, plus the napkin with pâté. “Excuse me,” wrapping the napkin tighter and putting it in my side coat pocket, “but can you change a dollar bill for me?”

“No,” keeps going.

“It's very important. My child in the hospital. I have to see about him. We're split, my wife and I, and my kid who lives with her got hit—”

Has slowed down, stops, pauses, turns around, starts back.

“By a bicycle.”

“I'm sorry. A bike might sound like a comical thing to get hit with but I know it can be bad. I bet it was going the wrong way.”

“No, my son was, but the bike was going very fast and never stopped.”

“Hit and run? That could also be a joke if nobody had been hurt.” She's dressed right for the rain, sleet and snow though all have stopped. Feels inside the quilted coat pockets while I look around for a trashcan nearby for the pâté, unsnaps a pocket off the coat and shakes it out into her palm. Keys, coins, candy or antacid mint and three tissue-wads roll out. “Didn't think I did and I seem to have lost my little koala bear keyring. Here's a dime.” Throws the mints into the street and turns the pocket inside out and back again. “Darn. In fact take both dimes in case the phone company bungles your first call or you need to talk more.”

“Take the dollar.”

“No thanks.” She resnaps the pocket to the coat with the keys and wads back inside. “My good deed and all that and maybe it'll get back my bear.”

“Then what's your name and address so I can repay you, in just stamps.”

Smiles. “Think I'm crazy?” Crosses the street, seeming from behind in her raised attached hood to ankle-length hem like a jaywalking sleeping bag or sleeping jaybag or some converse figure of speechlessness, though neither of those. I dial Information, give Helene's borough and name and last four letters in it and get her number, think I shouldn't, won't, but can't help myself tonight which true is a flimsy and untruthful excuse, but go on, what's the harm? might even help in several unexplainable ways I haven't time or mind to try to explain right now why I think they're unexplainable or even why I haven't time or mind right now, dial Information and give the same information and say “By the way, that's Stuyvesant Place she lives on, right?” and he says “I've only one Helene Winiker and it's on West a Hundred-tenth, still want it?” and I say “That's right, she moved,” get the number, repeat it once to him and several times to myself, dial and a woman answers with the last four digits I dialed but combines them into two numbers, something I should have done to simplify memorizing the whole number.

“Ms. Winiker's answering service? Or Mrs.? Miss?”

“Winiker will do. Any message?”

“She's no doubt out. I don't know why I invariably say that to answering services. Most likely my initial surprise, expecting the person I dialed to answer or some surrogate of hers I know, though she told me of you.”

“Who's calling?”

“She'll know what I mean by the following if she remembers who I am. Sure she will, if she contacts you in the next few days. Will she?”

“Up to her. Your message?”

“Tell her…That I wanted to reach her before the newspapers hit the stands?”

“That it?”

“No. Give me time to think.”

“Tell you what. Call back when you have it, but I'm very busy with other calls flashing and even one on hers.” Hangs up.

Who'd be calling her now? None of your bizwax and so forth. But obviously someone who didn't know she was going to a wedding tonight, if she was telling me the truth. Was she? Hardly your affair, etcetera. Tend to your sodden pants, waterlogged socks and now soaked raincoat. Could I tell by her face though? Goddamn this man never gives up. Seemed truthful enough. Seemed more than that. Seemed truth-filled, overflowed, true-blue, tried and true, true to life and to type, whatever that means, trueborn and to form and the like, though do go on: straight-out, girl scout, foursquare and forthright forsooths ago and still going strong, and so did her voice, which was mellow, intelligible and calm, and her hair, which has nothing to do with truth but which I'd love to be able to portray in a poem to her she'd appreciatively receive in the mail and repeatedly read. Maybe she had a date or wanted to go to a movie alone or felt so disconcerted and repelled with my systematically surveying her and parts unknown that I sort of forced her to set off earlier than she'd planned to. That's the case she could be home soon or home now but not answering the phone for fear I'll phone or no fear but has someone home with her now and doesn't want to answer the phone because she's or they're in the middle or start or end of something she or they don't or he doesn't want to interrupt. “True-tongued, homespun, abundantly gummed and lipped, not that I caught all of it,” Hasenai says with the aid of his transgressive-lator, “jest saying, past paying, moon's out, so's this lout, wood woofs, whelp in the wild and weep in a while, Jun (his first name), same as his son (I write only semidocumentary poems), go home!” Or a man phoning to get the message she left as to when she'll be home and where's her doorkey this time: left with the elevator man or taped to the side of her doorjamb or under her stairway handrail but surely not under the doormat. Or a friend or relative saying a good friend or relative's very sick, so and so suddenly or after a long illness died, car-pool driver—if that's how she gets to her school upstate and Monday's one of her teaching days—saying he or she can't make it and she'll have to find another ride, or rider, if she's the one who drives the car-pool car, saying he or she can't make it, or friend, relative or mate of the rider or car-pool driver saying he or she's sick, can't make it or died. Or just a new or relatively new to recently old lover calling to say if she phones that he's coming by tonight, which he can do because he has his own key and knows it's all right. Or even Helene, phoning to see who might have called, learning that an anonymous indecisive man was just on the line.