30 Pieces of a Novel (74 page)

r
‘s, even, and way you both nervously blink.” Asked him about people she and Robert knew. “Listen, you got it wrong again. I'm not Robert. Just look at my clothes. He's always impeccably dressed, would never wear jeans. I'm pretty much of a slob. So remember that. Slobbiness: Gould. Nattiness: Robert. But Robert with mussed hair, mismatched, sullied clothes, granules still cornered in his eyes, an unshaven mess? He'd never leave his apartment like this, even if he'd just woken up, as I had, and was in a rush to the store for a pound of coffee and bottle of aspirins.” “True. The most immaculate man I know, but not in a squeamish or ultraprissy way. Just neat and clean. Washes his hands often and almost sacramentally. Can you explain that? You're his brother. Fingernails groomed flawlessly and never protruding over the fingertips by more than a tiny bit. His hands always smell so nice, though, as if from cologne, but actually from French soap. He carries a special bar with him wherever he goes. Movie theater men's rooms, for instance: squirt their goo into his palms?
Please
. Nothing but his own, not that I was ever in there with him to witness it. He said and I believed. Let me smell your hands.” “I don't carry soap around with me and neither does Robert.” “He showed me, in an intricate silver box he also bought in France,” and she took his hands. “Soft. You have the face of a farmer and the clothes of a garbageman but hands like a patrician,” and he said, “My hands are rough and cracked, probably from cleaning my floors with ammonia without wearing rubber gloves, something I'm sure Robert never does: clean his own floors and toilet bowls and such.” “I don't do this with everyone, you know, just comparison hand-smelling today,” and smelled his hands. “You're not a slob; they're fragrant and clean. The soiled clothes and unkempt appearance are no doubt to put off muggers and panhandlers. And sensuous, curious, and inventive”—pointing to various lines on his palm—“just like Robert. And here's one you'll like: long life, though at this juncture here it says you'll be spending a few hours with a foot model tonight. My hotel's quaint, though the room's creepy, but I'll order in anyway as I only have a hot plate. It's been more than a year since I've seen you, so we've got a lot …” but move on and get to the point. Knew he was going to sleep with her that night. He asked what a foot model does—“Just feet?”—and she said they must be perfect and she'd show him later: not only her own feet but fashion photos of them with ankle bracelets, rings on her toes, toenails being
polished, calluses being treated, but mostly her feet in sandals and open-toed shoes. The idea
intrigued and troubled him. To sleep with someone Robert had slept with and would probably sleep with again? Would she compare them? She did. After sex, while they were lying in bed and she was smoking this smelly cigarillo—“I thought you liked them” when he waved away the smoke; “last time, you asked to try one and then practically smoked down the pack,” and he thought, Last time where? Here when she was with Robert? In the café with me when she didn't smoke?—she said, “How peculiar, one brother uncircumcised and the other cut,” and he said, “So you've been with him? Then you must've done it in the dark. The whole family's been ritualized, or should I say ‘slaughtered,' except my mother and the girls,” and she said, “You have sisters?” and he said, “I was only—,” but move on. “One not too noteworthy sidelight, probably. He's bigger than you by a good inch or two and several ounces, though he's a horse,” and he said, “That could be true when he's tumescent. In all my years of sleeping in the same room with him, taking baths together—we only did that till he was seven or eight, so it doesn't count—but seeing him slip in and out of showers and towel himself off and put on pajamas and so forth, I've never seen him even semihard and I'd like to keep it that way.” “I wasn't complaining about you, you know. I'm not small by any culture's standards, but his could become difficult to endure, so in some ways you could say I prefer yours.” They made love again, and this time at the end she said, “Robert, Robert, Robert.” There could have been so many reasons for her saying it—she was kidding him? no, not at that point; it made her more excited, et cetera—that he didn't bring it up. He was with her just that once. Thought of calling her a month after that when he felt desperate for sex but then thought, No, it's too crazy, and those awful cigarillos. Next time they met was in the neighborhood bakery, and he said hi and she said, “I forget your name but I know your brother's. How are you and how is he? Oops”—looking at the wall clock and grabbing her purchase—“tell me next time; I've got to run.” He said to Robert a few days later, “I forgot to tell you. I met a friend of yours,” and gave her name. “In fact that was the second time we met—actually, the third. But all three times she kept mistaking me for you and even addressed me as Robert,” and Robert said, “But we look nothing alike: height, build, face, hair. Same coloring—eyes and skin—and some bald patches appearing in identical places, but that's about it. What'd you make of her?” and he said, “She seemed a bit goofy, maybe because she could never get who I was and my name straight, but okay.” “She's deceptively intelligent, deeply so. And a good artist, I'm told; models lingerie for a living, so no doubt has a great slim figure.” “Feet,” he said she said, and Robert said, “Then great slim feet. Thinking of calling her or something? I think she lives in a hotel near you, so it shouldn't be too hard getting her number,” and he said, “I thought of it. But then, for a variety of reasons not worth going into, didn't think it a good idea,” and Robert said, “What were they?” and he said, “Really, nothing, trivial, minor,” and Robert said, “Ah, you're probably better off.” But he's gotten too far ahead. Robert, till he graduated elementary school, walked him to it every day. (He wants to leave it that way? At least “grade” for “elementary,” and “walked with him there every day.”) At first Robert was told to hold Gould's hand when they crossed the street on the way to school and back. They must have done that till Gould finished third grade. “Only start crossing the street when the light turns from red to green, not when it's already been green even by a second,” their mother told them. “Either of you know why?” and they both knew but Gould let Robert say it. “And start from when you're on a sidewalk corner. Don't jaywalk or wait in the street for the light to turn, I don't care if you're only two inches from the curb. And both of you hold on tight to your brother's hand and never let go till you're up on the other sidewalk. I ever see you crossing the street together not holding hands, you'll hear it big from me. If there's one thing I insist on, this is it. Losing one of you would be terrible enough, but just think what would happen if I lost you both at once.” Gould, when he wants, can still feel Robert's hand around his—but hasn't he gone over this?—and his mother's hand but not as much his father's, Robert's the smallest and tightest. He was also going to say “the softest”; he forgets what he said about it before, but it's not true: his mother's was. Lots of times they stopped at a candy store on the way home from school, never to. Their mother, the morning or night before, must have always given Robert money to buy them sodas. A certain orange drink drunk straight from the bottle was the only soda Robert got at this store for a long time, while Gould liked cream soda of any kind, with two straws in the bottle. So what's he saying here? Just move on. Robert always stuck up for him. Now this could be showing something. A big kid from another block was once threatening Gould on the sidewalk, he forgets what for, and suddenly Robert was running out of their building and up the areaway steps and over to them and without saying a word shoved the boy so hard that he fell against a stoop and hit his head. Robert must have been looking out their front window on the second floor—not “must have”; this is what he later told Gould—and seen from their gestures and expressions that Gould was being picked on and knew that if they got into a fistfight—because he was sure Gould would defend himself rather than back off, something Gould had once said he'd do because he knew that's what Robert would—he wouldn't stand a chance against this guy. “Come on, you want to mix it up with someone, how about me?” and the boy said, “You're too big and I already got a bloody head, so it wouldn't be fair.” “And starting with this little shrimp, compared to you, is fair? Look, nobody can order you to stay off this block, so just get lost,” and the boy said, going, “I'm getting my older brother after you—he's twice your size,” and Robert said, “Oh, yeah, older brothers, we all have them. We've got two much bigger older brothers who'll mash your older brother's face in and, as a gift for getting him, mash in yours.” Later at home, Robert said—neither the boy nor anyone resembling his brother came around after that, or not while they were there—“Whatever I might have told you about fighting before was a lie or I said it in an unclear way. I don't like fighting, and for sure not if the guy's much bigger than me or just a musclebound ox. Then I'd talk or walk my way out of it, because I wasn't born to get prematurely mauled or killed. I also wouldn't feel anything but rotten if I hurt someone, as I did a little with that kid.” “You're only saying that to keep me from getting hurt. But what if my life or Mommy's or Daddy's was at stake, you saying you wouldn't jump in?” and Robert said, “For those reasons only, or if my own life was at stake but I was trapped with no escape. But none of that was the case with you today. Jesus, I can't wait till you grow up completely so I won't think I have to help you out every time,” and Gould said, “You will anyway, unless it'd turn an uneven match into an even more uneven one, but I'll think over what you said,” and Robert said, “No, you won't. You're just being clever, using words, which you should have done with that kid. I'm through with you. From now on you're on your own, or at least don't get into these things by the window where I can too easily see you.” One time later on Gould was drunk at a bar and the bartender called Robert and said, “You want to come get your stupid brother? He's being a stiff pain in the ass and we're about to dump him into the street.” Robert ran to the bar and got Gould into a cab, though it was only two blocks from home. Next day he said, “Why do you want to get so soused? Bad for your liver and bad for your soul, and everybody there thought you were a prize putz. You also leave yourself wide open to thieves. I don't want to be lifting your face out of the toilet anymore, in case you forgot that, do you hear me? Because did you—did anybody—ever have to do that for me?” “No. And as for ‘anybody'—” “So why do you drink so much?” and he wanted to say, Because when I was three I lost my one and only older brother and it screwed me up in a way I can't explain. That would have got a laugh—or not—and Robert would have said, “What's that supposed to mean? You trying to be clever with words again? Well, it's not working. Or is there a hidden meaning behind it you're trying to tell me? You lost him—meaning me—in the sense that you were once very close, if I remember—we were—playing all the time together and doing things like that, but he gradually grew away from you as older brothers tend to do,” and he would have said, “I meant nothing by it. I'm still hung over. Not still, totally, so not responsible for my words, and if I happened to sound calculating, it was just luck.” “So answer me a simple question then, one that shouldn't be too taxing: why do you drink so much?” and he said, “I can't answer that right now. As I said—didn't I just say it? I seem to remember I did—my whole body feels like hell and my mind's a blank spot.” “So don't anymore, that's all. I get another call like last night's, I'll tell the bartender to leave you on the street and not wait around for me to pick you up,” and he said, “I believe you and you're right. And so next time they start to make that call and if I'm able to I'll tell them to stop and just lift my arms up and let them drag me out by my feet,” and Robert said, “You want to be that kind of schnook, be it, but I swear when you wake up on the ground next time, don't look around for me,” and he said, “All right, I heard, I heard. You're finally going to desert me, and I'm not being a wise guy now if that's what you're thinking; I know it's all for my own health.” Robert would do things like slip a ten-dollar bill into Gould's pocket when he was going out on a date. “What's this for?” and Robert would say, “So your chickie not only thinks you're a sport at the movie theater when you buy her bonbons instead of jujubes, but so you can also have an extra good time in case anything else needing cash comes up.” “I don't want it; I make enough on my own, working,” and Robert would say, “I earn more. So for insurance if you're suddenly stranded alone in the Bronx late at night and want to take a cab home instead of getting killed waiting for the subway.” Robert would make him sandwiches for lunch when Gould was in a rush in the morning to leave for school. “Liverwurst with mustard and lettuce, right? Every day the same thing for years. When are you going to change? Mayonnaise instead of mustard, for instance. And why don't you make your lunch the night before like Dad and me?” “We're different, that's all. You favor Dad, I favor nobody. Other differences: I jump out of bed when the alarm clock goes off, you crawl out or just sleep. But you always put it together in minutes, once you get started, while I wander around the joint wondering what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it and what again is it I have to do?” “I don't know about that. None of it sounds like either of us, except the leaping and sleeping. But I respect your right to come up with these misperceived impressions.” Another difference: Gould usually wanted the folks to say what a good smart boy he was, and Robert wanted them to say what a good smart boy Gould was. One dinner conversation, Robert saying, “Did you see those grades Gould got this marking period? Something, huh?” and their father saying, “They weren't that hot,” and Gould saying, “I did the best I could, worked my head off, really tried; I'm sorry,” and their mother saying, “Don't worry about it, dear, though I know you could have done much better.” “I don't know why you two are giving him a hard time about it,” Robert said. “The New York City public school system stinks; we're all products of it, so we all know that. It makes Labrador retrievers and memory experts out of everyone. That's why getting just B's and 80's and Satisfactorys signifies you're good enough to be good but not good enough to be excellent and fall for that failed kid-dismissive system. I wish we could pull him out of school and I had the time to educate him myself.” “Don't be so harsh and smart and arty and act like a big shot,” their father said. “You'll end up hurting your brother.” Gould liked wearing Robert's clothes. Everything except the socks and ties was much too large for him but he still tried—shirtsleeves rolled up, top button of the dress shirts left unbuttoned, bomber jacket worn with two sweaters—but nothing he could do with the other clothes except a couple of belts that Robert, saying they were his least favorite, let him gouge a few more holes in and polo shirts that Gould said he liked to wear big. Robert taught him how to dress: knot a tie, fold a hanky for his jacket breast pocket, coordinate colors, when clothes should go to the dry cleaners—“Sniff the pants crotch and under the jacket arms. One faint whiff of piss or B.O. and out it goes”—which clothes could be put into the washer and dryer, even what the holes in French cuffs were for and then how to get the cuff links in once the shirt was on you, how to use a tie tack without leaving a visible hole. Gould first went to his father to learn how to knot a tie. “Speak to Robert. That's what older brothers are for. You should start relying on him for things like jobs and clothes and how to shave and advice about girls and alcohol, and not just your studies.” Robert got behind him and said, “First I'll tie it around your neck as if it's on me. Follow my hands in the mirror but think