A Bridge of Years (27 page)

Probably
no one. Bad case of coffee nerves, Tom thought. And maybe a little
guilt. Guilt about what he'd left behind. Guilt about what he'd
found. Guilt about falling in love in this strange place.

He
stepped off the curb and into the path of an oncoming cab. The driver
leaned into his horn and swerved left, passing him by inches,
unidentified
man killed on city street
—
maybe
that was history, too.

After
some nervous overtures they adjourned to Stanley's, where Millstein
drank and relaxed.

They
talked about music in spite of Joyce's warning. It turned out
Millstein had been an avid jazz fan since he arrived here, "a
callow youth from Brooklyn," at the end of the forties. He was
an old Village hand; he'd met Kerouac once or twice—an observation
which plunged Tom into one more "time travel" epiphany.
Giants had walked here, he thought. "Though of course,"
Millstein added, "that scene is long dead."

Joyce
mentioned her friend Susan. Susan had written another letter
from the South, where she was getting death threats because of her
affiliation with the SNCC. One enterprising recidivist had
delivered a neatly wrapped package of horse manure to the door of her
motel room.

Millstein
shrugged. "Everybody's too political. It's tiresome. I'm
tired of protest songs, Joyce."

"And
I'm tired of passive pseudo-Zen navel-gazing," Joyce said.
"There's a world out there."

"A
world run by men in limousines who don't much listen to music. As far
as the world is concerned, guitar playing is a minor-league
activity."

Joyce
inspected the depths of her beer. "Maybe Susan's right, then. I
should be doing something more direct."

"Like
what? Freedom riding? Picketing? Essentially, you know, it's still
guitar playing. It'll be tolerated as long as it serves some purpose
among the powerful—federalism, in the present instance. And tidied
up when they're done with it."

"That's
about the most cynical thing I've heard you say, Lawrence. Which
covers some territory. Didn't Gandhi make a remark about 'speaking
truth to power'?"

"Power
doesn't give a flying fuck, Joyce. That should be obvious."

"So
what's the alternative?"

"Il
faut cultiver notre jardin.
Or
write a poem."

"Like
Ginsberg? Ferlinghetti? That's pretty political stuff."

"You
miss the point. They're saying, here's the ugliness, and here's my
revulsion—and here's the mystery buried in it."

"Mystery?"

"Beauty,
if you like."

"Making
art out of junk," Joyce interpreted. "You could say that."

"While
people starve? While people are beaten?"

"Before
/ starve," Millstein said. "Before
I'm
beaten.
Yes, I'll make these beautiful objects."

"And
the world is better for it?"

"The
world is
more
beautiful
for
it."

"You
sound like the Parks Commission." She turned to Tom. "How
about you? Do you believe in poetry or politics?"

"Never
gave much thought to either one," Tom said.

"Behold,"
Lawrence said. "The Noble Savage." • Tom considered the
question. "I suppose you do what you have to. But we're all
pretty much impotent in the long run. I don't make national policy.
At most, I vote. When it's convenient. Henry Kissinger doesn't
drop in and say, 'Hey, Tom, what about this China thing?' "

Millstein
looked up from his drink. "Who the hell is Henry Kissinger?"

Joyce
was a little drunk and very intense, frowning at him across the
table. "You're saying we don't make a difference?"

"Maybe
some people make a difference. Martin Luther King, maybe. Khrushchev.
Kennedy."

"People
whose names begin with K," Millstein supplied.

"But
not
us,"
Joyce
insisted.
"We
don't
make a difference. Is that what you mean?"

"Christ,
Joyce, I don't know what I mean. I'm not a philosopher."

"No.
You're not a repairman, either." She shook her head. "I
wish I knew what the hell you
were."

"There's
your mistake," Millstein said. "Dear Joyce. Next time you
go to bed with somebody, make sure you're formally introduced."

Millstein
drank until he loved the world. This was his plan. He told them so.
"It doesn't always work. Well, you know that. But sometimes.
Drink until the world is lovable. Good advice." The evening wore
on.

They
parted around midnight, on the sidewalk, Avenue B. Millstein braced
himself against Tom's breastbone. "I'm sorry," he said. "I
mean, about before. I was an asshole!"

"It's
okay," Tom said.

Millstein
looked at Joyce. "You be good to her, Tom." "I will.
Of course I will."

"She
doesn't know why we love her and hate her. But it's for the same
reason, of course. Because she's this ...
this
pocket
of faith.
She
believes in virtue! She comes to this city and sings songs about
courage. My God! She has the courage of a saint. It's her element.
Even her vices are meticulous. She's not merely good in bed, she's
good
—
in
bed!"

"Shut
up," Joyce said. "Lawrence, you shit! Everybody can hear
you."

Millstein
turned to her and took her face between his hands, drunkenly but
gently. "This is not an insult, dear. We love you because you're
better than we are. But we're jealous of your goodness and we will
scour it out of you if we possibly can."

"Go
home, Lawrence."

He
wheeled away. "Good night!"

"Good
night," Tom said. But it didn't feel like such a good night. It
was hot. It was dark. He was sweating.

He
walked home with Joyce leaning into his shoulder. She was still
somewhat drunk; he was somewhat less so. The conversation had made
her sad. She paused under a streetlight and looked at him
mournfully.

She
said, "You're not immortal anymore!"

"Sorry
to disappoint you."

"No,
no! When you came here, Tom, you were immortal. I was sure of it. The
way you walked. The way you looked at everything. Like this was all
some fine, wonderful place where nothing could hurt you. I thought
you
must
be
immortal—the only explanation."

He
said, "I'm sorry I'm not immortal."

She
fumbled her key into the front door of the building.

The
apartment was hot. Tom stripped down to his T-shirt and briefs; Joyce
ducked out of her shirt. The sight of her in the dim light provoked a
flash of pleasure. He had lived in this apartment for more than a
month and familiarity only seemed to intensify his feelings about
her. When he met her she had been emblematic, Joyce who lived in the
Village in 1962; now she was Joyce Casella from Minneapolis whose
father owned Casella's Shoe Store, whose mother phoned twice monthly
to plead with her to find a husband or at
least
a
better job; whose sister had borne two children by a decent
practicing Catholic named Tosello. Joyce who was shy about her thick
prescription lenses and the birthmark on her right shoulder. Joyce
who carried a wonderful singing voice concealed inside her, like
a delicate wild bird allowed to fly on rare and special occasions.
This ordinary, daily Joyce was superior to the emblematic Joyce and
it was this Joyce he had come to love.

But
she was ignoring him. She rummaged through a stack of papers by the
bookcase, mainly phone bills; Tom asked her what she was looking for.

"Susan's
letter. The one I was telling Lawrence about. She said I could call.
'Call anytime,' she said. She wants me to go down there. There's so
much work to do! Jesus, Tom, what time is it? Midnight? Hey, Tom, is
it midnight in Georgia?"

He
felt a ripple of worry. "What do you mean—you want to call her
tonight?"

"That's
the idea."

"What
for?"

"Make
arrangements."

"What
arrangements?"

She
stood up. "What I said wasn't just bullshit. I meant it. What
good am I here? I should be down there with Susan doing some real
work."

He
was astonished. He hadn't anticipated this.

"You're
drunk," he said.

"Yeah,
I'm a little drunk. I'm not too drunk to think about the future."

Maybe
Tom was a little drunk, too. The future! This was both funny and
alarming. "You want the future? I can give you the future."

She
frowned and set aside the papers. "What?"

"It's
dangerous, Joyce. People get killed, for Christ's sake." He
thought about the civil rights movement circa 1962. What he recalled
was a jumble of headlines filtered through books and TV
documentaries. Bombs in churches, mobs attacking buses, Klansmen with
riot sticks and sawed-off shotguns. He pictured Joyce in the midst of
this. The thought was intolerable. "You
can't."

She
held out the letter, postmarked Augusta.

"They
need me."

"The
hell they do. One more earnest white college graduate isn't
going to turn the tide, for Christ's sake. They have TV. They have
pinheaded southern sheriffs beating women on all three networks. They
have friends in the Kennedy administration. After the assassination—"
He was drunker than he'd realized. He was giving away secrets. But
that didn't matter. "After the assassination they'll have Lyndon
Johnson signing civil rights legislation while Vietnam escalates.
You want the future? Vietnam, Woodstock, Nixon, Watergate, Jimmy
Carter, Ayatollah Khomeini, the whole fucking parade of cliches, with
or without the help of Joyce Casella. Please," he said. "Please
don't go get killed before we know each other better."

"Sometimes
I wonder if I know you at all. What's all this shit about the
future?"

"That's
where I'm from."

She
looked at him fiercely. "Tell me the truth or get out of my
apartment."

He
described in broad and clumsy outline the train of events that had
carried him here.

Joyce
listened with focused patience but didn't begin to believe him until
he brought out his wallet and unpacked his ID from the card
windows—his Washington State driver's license, his Visa card, an
expired American Express card, a card to access bank machines; from
the billfold, a couple of tens bearing a mint date twenty years in
the future.

Joyce
examined all these things solemnly. Finally she said, "Your
watch."

He
hadn't worn it since his first visit; it was in the left-hand pocket
of his jeans. She must have seen it. "It's just a cheap digital
watch. But you're right. You can't buy those here."

He
backed off and let her contemplate these things. He was a little more
sober for the telling of it and he wondered whether this had been a
terrible mistake. It must be frightening. God knows, it had
frightened
him.

But
she fingered the cards and the money, then sighed and looked at him
fearlessly.