Spawn of Hell (3 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that—” He stopped suddenly. David could hear a woman’s voice through the phone, probably a nurse, walking over towards his father’s bed. She sounded as if she were scolding him. He heard a squeaking noise. She was wheeling in a tray, a lunch tray probably.

“I’ve got to go now,” his father said. “I’ll call you next week just to see how you are.”

“Next week. Fine. It was nice talking to you.”

“Okay. Goodbye now.”

“So long, Dad.”

They both hung up.

The walls of his apartment seemed to close in and David felt an almost physical loneliness surrounding him.

He went out that night with a dollar in his pocket that he had found tucked in the top drawer of the bureau. He had planned on going to the bank until he realized that it was already past three and his branch didn’t stay open any later. A look in his bankbook had told a depressing story. He had about seven days of living—not very comfortably—before he would begin to starve.

A dollar would enable him to buy about three glasses of beer if he stuck to the Blarney Stones or similar Irish bars where the stuff was on tap. The singles bars offered big mugs for about seventy-five cents. There were few places where he could get a bottle of beer for a dollar or under.

He wandered into a Blarney Castle on Seventy-ninth street and walked way down to the far end of the counter, past dozens of drunken old men, guzzling teenagers and dissipated middle-aged ladies whose noses were as red as the rouge on their cheeks. He hadn’t been in this place for over a year. He saw that a younger crowd was beginning to make its presence known, edging out the older alcoholics who spent nearly every waking hour hunched over a shot glass. The jukebox reflected this. There were fewer Irish standards and Frank Sinatra tunes and more disco numbers. He imagined that the younger people came in from the singles bars in the area for a respite, as well as for cheaper booze.

He sat down on a stool that had seen better days; the red vinyl cover was ripped and oozing patches of white stuff. The seat to his left was empty. On the right was a woman of about forty-five, drinking herself straight down towards the floor. Her hair was the kind of red that one’s hair could be naturally. Her cheeks and eyes were puffy. She wore enough makeup to last most women a year. She looked at David while he waited for the bartender to notice him. David looked back, briefly. He hoped she wasn’t the talkative kind. He was not in a mood for conversation.

The bartender sauntered down to where David sat and took his order for a glass of beer. The man was around David’s age, with a thick Irish brogue and a face that smiled even though there was nothing to laugh about. His hair was as dark as David’s. His mood couldn’t possibly have been.

David waited for the man to bring him his beer. The lady beside him leaned over and said in a gravelly voice, “Got a cigarette, hon?”

David patted his shirt pocket. He smoked occasionally, usually bumming from other people, now and then buying his own pack. “Sorry. None on me tonight.”

“Oh,” she said, a glaze in her watery eyes. She turned away, then back. “Thank you anyway. I ‘predate it.”

“That’s all right.”

“You’re a nice fellow. You know that? A nice man. Anybody ever tell you that?”

The bartender came with the beer and David gave him a quarter and a nickel he had found in his back pocket, saving the dollar for later.

The bartender counted the change. “It’s thirty-five cents,” he said.

David should have known. He took back the money, pulled the bill out of his pocket and handed it over. The bartender took off for the cash register.

“Anybody ever tell ya? That you’re a nice man?”

He figured it might be worse if he ignored her. “No. Nobody ever has. Why do you think I’m nice? I didn’t
have
a cigarette.”

She had to think that one over. The bartender came back with the change before she had a chance to reply. “Here you go. Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How’s it goin’, Jeannie?” the bartender asked the woman. “You feelin’ good today?”

“Stick it right in here,” she said, pointing her thumb down towards and nearly into her half-filled scotch glass. “Then I’ll feel good. Stick it right in. I’ll lick it off for ya.”

The bartender howled, delighted at her crudity. David suspected that they went through the same vulgar routine every evening like clockwork.

“Just stick it right in there. It’ll feel good. It’ll make me feel good, too.”

The barman looked down towards the front of the counter, capturing the attention of a pair of men holding court near the television set. “Jeannie’s making passes again, boys.”

One of them hollered back: “Hey, Jeannie! Can I stick it in, too?”

She leaned back for a better look at the guy, nearly falling off the stool in the process. “Awww you! What do I want with an asshole like you?”

That drew guffaws from the rest of the patrons in the bar. David couldn’t help but smile, but he knew that he’d need at least ten beers before this place amused him. It was like a collection of the doomed, and he fit in perfectly. He raised the glass of beer to his lips and tasted it, cold and sharp and clear, while the man behind the counter and the woman next to him traded quips. He gulped down the whole glass and asked for another.

A young lady pressed a button on the jukebox and soul music came on. Shaking her body to the beat of the song, the woman made her way to the booth in back where her friends were sitting. Friends. It had been a long time since David knew what it was like to have some.

“Stick it in right there,” Jeannie continued. “All your two inches will fit right in there.”

The barman doubled over with laughter again. “What’s the matter?” she said, scrunching up her face in mock puzzlement. “Don’t tell me you’ve only got one and a half?”

This put the bar in an uproar again, temporarily drowning out the sound of the music. Jeannie began to wiggle to the beat—or at least tried to—and sang along with the vocalist. She turned to David. “I’ve heard this song a hunnert times and I still don’t know what she’s singin’. Do you?”

David sipped the second beer, which the bartender had handed him. “Haven’t the slightest.”

She squinted her eyes and leaned over towards him. If she had blown on a match it would have burned like a blowtorch. “Whatzat?”

“I said I don’t know what she’s saying, either.” It was something about “My man done lost me,” or left me, or loves me, or something like that, over and over and over again. David didn’t object to disco, but he didn’t go out of his way to listen to it either.

“Ah,” Jeannie said, waving her arm at him and turning away in disgust. “You can go to Hell.”

David wondered what he’d said to offend her. Not that it mattered. She was in a half-fantasy land now, and any real or imagined slight was enough to turn her off. Who knows what she had imagined him saying to her; for that matter, who knows who she might have imagined him to be. An ex-husband, a dead paramour, a childhood friend from finishing school. Sure, she had gone to finishing school and it had finished her off.

David finished the glass of beer quickly, then left the bar. He just wasn’t up to people like Jeannie tonight, or any other night for that matter. Maybe he’d have better luck at some other place. Maybe he’d be left alone. He wanted to sit in darkness, in shadows. The Irish bars were too well-lit, everything and everyone exposed, naked, sitting there at the mercy of anyone who wanted to put them under close scrutiny. David just wanted a beer, plain and simple. No company, no conversation, no drunkards breathing in his ear.

He left the bar and walked over to Amsterdam Avenue. There was a little hole-in-the-wall a couple of blocks away, where the lights were kept low, and the bar emptied out when the late supper crowd went home. It was called Peg O’ Hearts. He’d been in there several times, whenever he wanted to be by himself, to think things over. He should have gone there earlier. He had enough left to get a small mug of beer.

As he stepped inside, he was relieved to see that the bartender he liked was working that evening—the quiet one. They had another night barman who was more talkative than a parrot in heat. This guy tonight was a tall, good-looking fellow with longish blond hair. His routine never changed. He would come over, take your order, deliver it and make change, then retreat to the other end of the bar, where he would stand looking sullenly over the diminishing crowd in the restaurant section, or else watch something on the television set directly above his head. Tonight he seemed glummer and more listless than usual. Good; he’d be sure to leave David alone with his thoughts.

The bar was an attractive place with a low wooden railing that separated the booze area from a room full of round wooden tables covered by red-and-white tablecloths. The bar counter was a deep rich brown. A low lavender glow bathed everything in a pinkish hue. Old-fashioned lamp lights hung over either end of the bar, and a huge mirror took up most of the space behind it, which was full of neatly stacked and organized liquor supplies.

David got his beer and paid for it. Some fool put on a dreadful country-and-western tune in the jukebox which he managed to ignore. He sat there, sipping his drink, trying to figure out what to do with his life. He was crippled now. No use denying it. At least his hands hadn’t been affected. Although they might as well have been, as he wasn’t making any money with them. If only that greeting-card firm had looked at his work, or had at least accepted free-lance submissions through the mail. He sent out his stuff regularly to other firms, and had managed to get a few assignments, but his style usually didn’t “suit their present needs.” The problem was, he had no connections. No uncle to introduce him to the right people. No cousin on the staff of
The New Yorker.
His father wasn’t on the board of directors at Hallmark. It left him feeling bitter and untalented, although he knew he wasn’t.

He was nearly at the bottom of his mug, and no closer to finding solutions to his problems, when he heard someone pulling one of the wooden chairs away from the counter. He turned and saw a statuesque brunette sitting down three chairs to the left, a tall, handsome man pushing the chair closer to the bar once she was firmly planted in its seat. They were a very well-dressed pair, looking as if they’d just come from the theater or a formal reception. Both had faces that could have easily graced the covers of fashion magazines. The man looked like the stereotypical male model. Granite jaw, sunken cheeks, Colgate teeth, formidable black eyes, straight, sleek nose, a mouth set in a brooding, almost petulant, sneer. The woman leaned in towards him as he took the chair next to hers, and he laughed, becoming more human as a smile lit up his face. He brushed a hand through wavy brown locks as the bartender approached, then lowered it to straighten his tie with a glimpse in the mirror.

The woman was a stunner in any language. A small shred of humanity seemed to leak out from the carefully manipulated shell of her luxurious makeup job. Glossy lips caught the pink light of the bar, reflecting crimson. Her long hair glistened as it hung down and covered her bare shoulders. Creamy skin. She wore a pale blue evening gown. Her mink stole had been piled on top of her lap; no way would she let it out of her sight. It was clearly for show only, as the weather was not quite cold enough to indicate its use. She was near thirty, at least. So was the man. If they were models, as young as they were, their careers would soon be coming to a close.

They talked in quiet, sophisticated tones as they each sipped what appeared to be a gin and tonic. David tried to look away, to ignore them, but found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the woman. He had seen her before, somewhere, although he didn’t remember when. He knew he had never met her. She was too classy to travel in his circle, and he too poor to travel in hers. Perhaps he had seen her on television, or in a magazine ad. Surely anyone who looked as good as she did would have to make a living off her looks. If only he could remember where he had seen her before. Did she do commercials? It seemed to him that he had seen someone like her hawking some kind of product.

If they noticed him staring in their direction, neither of those handsome people made it known. Absentmindedly, David drained his beer mug, then panicked, digging his hand into his pockets, trying to find enough change to get another. He was ten cents short. He would just have to sit there with an empty glass until the bartender asked him—meaningfully—if he wanted another. He turned back to the woman.

It wasn’t just her looks, her way of laughing, her trim and lovely figure. There was something else about her. She was entirely different from Janice, and perhaps that’s what he found so attractive about her. Normally David wasn’t at all interested in the glossy, made-up type of woman, but this one was special. However, if the hunk next to her was an example of what she went for, then David was clearly way out of his league. Janice used to tell him that he was “cute,” even good-looking, but he was no matinee idol and he knew it.

The bartender was looking in his direction, strolling down the bar towards him. Any moment now he would notice that David’s glass was empty and would politely ask him if he wanted another. David could stall by saying “not just yet” with enough conviction to imply that he would indeed order another in a few minutes. Still, he hated that cheap, naked feeling one got by doing that, like telling a waitress in a busy greasy spoon that you weren’t ready yet for another cup of her lousy coffee. He could read the look in their eyes: Don’t Park It Here, Buster. Or was he being paranoid?

Bless the hunk. The man with the woman of his dreams stopped the bartender in mid-passage and ordered another round for him and the lady. David had at least a few more minutes to stare. Then, while business was transacted, the woman rose to her feet, excused herself, and walked up the bar towards the ladies’ room. She would have to pass right by him.

David swiveled slowly in his seat, trying not to call attention to himself too soon. He simply had to do it. Now facing in her direction, he stamped what he hoped was a pleasant, non-committal grin on his face, and stared off into the space above her head. When she was nearly in front of him, he turned nonchalantly towards her, enlarging his grin.