City Boy (18 page)

The electric noise stopped. Jack heard Mrs. Lacagnina take a step toward the door, then halt. He agitated the paper again. He wondered if her eyes were as bad as her hearing. Did she even know any English?

She stooped to pick up the paper. Jack heard the small, orthopedic sounds of her knees and spine creaking, and her slight shadow darkening the space beneath the door. Then the shadow withdrew. He wondered how long he ought to wait for a response. But it was only another few moments before the paper pushed beneath the door again. In pencil she had written,
HOT NO GOOD
. The letters had a sturdy look to them, as if she’d held the pencil in her fist and borne down.

Jack considered how to convey all the cautions about heat stroke and the like. Finally he wrote,
AIR CONDITIONER?
And sent the paper back her way.

He waited. Sweat collected behind his bare knees and made him pluck at his T-shirt to pull it away from his miserable skin. He had to wonder just how hot it was in Mrs. Lacagnina’s apartment, which he imagined as decorated with crucifixes and gloomy sepia portraits of the lost Mr. Lacagnina. What did she do in there all day anyway? What did she hear inside her head, conversations from the past, replayed like old wax records? Or was the sound of deafness just blankness, roaring?

From behind the closed door, something chunked and hummed. Mrs. Lacagnina’s air conditioner coming to life. The paper inched its
way beneath the door again. She had crossed out words so it said, simply,
GOOD
.

If he did nothing else right today, at least he had done this. He made his way back downstairs, where Chloe was getting ready to leave for work. Her high heels made a bright, busy sound as she went back and forth between the rooms. The steam from her shower mixed with her scented shampoo and powder and cologne. It all made him happy, the commotion and the dense, perfumed air and waking up in bed with Chloe and knowing that he would wake up with her the next day and the next. And you never could tell where loving a woman might lead you, through just what fierce troubles, but he had to admit that here, this morning, was a very fine place. Chloe walked out of the kitchen with her coffee cup and laughed at him in his scruffy shorts and T-shirt. “You’re a mess.”

Jack regarded his bare, uncouth legs, his feet in grimy flip-flops. “Yeah. I guess I should change into a clean housedress.”

“Funny guy.” She was wearing a gray summer suit and a pink blouse. With her long legs and her elegant shoes, she made him think of some tall cool flower, an orchid, perhaps.

“Come here so I can defile you.”

“Uh-uh.” But she stood still as he drew her in with an arm around her shoulders, allowed him to kiss the smooth skin at her temple. He said, “How about if I groom myself all morning, then meet you somewhere for lunch?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I mean, this might not be the best day for that. I’m still so behind from yesterday …”

He had known, even before she spoke, that she was going to say no. She said, “Sorry. Rain check?”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Really, if they weren’t riding us so hard about the damned market research …”

She sighed, to indicate exasperation. He figured that she was being protective of her work, her world of work. It was a place that she wanted to keep separate as much as possible from her life with him. He understood this, or told himself he did. Chloe could go into the office
and be bright and competent and charming and not have to worry about all the sad-sack baggage of the last couple of days. She wouldn’t want him showing up, intruding, a reminder of weakness and distress. She needed her space. Okay. It might hurt his feelings a little, but it was only a lunch. He said, “Maybe some other time.”

“Absolutely. Count on it. As soon as—”

A woman shrieked and kept on shrieking, somewhere over their heads. Jack and Chloe looked at each other. “God,” Jack said. The sound unstrung his nerves. “What are they—”

Rapid, thudding footsteps, and words in the shrieking now, Geddout, geddout, geddout, and more they couldn’t hear, a confusion of voices, a muddy sound mixed up with slamming doors. Chloe handed the phone to Jack. “Call somebody, 911.”

“I don’t know …”

“What are you waiting for, he’s killing her!”

“Just hold on.” Jack unlocked their front door and stepped out into the lobby. From there the racket was less distinct. If it had happened late at night it might not have been so disturbing. But it was still early, not yet nine, they were never up that early, and then the shrieking started in again. Jack was halfway up the stairs when the kid’s apartment door opened and crashed back into the wall behind it.

“Goddamn bitch!”

“Bitch yourself!”

By the time he reached the top of the steps, the two of them, Ivory and Raggedy Ann, were on the landing, going at each other in the clumsy, inexpert way that girls fought, slapping and shoving and tearing. Raggedy Ann was pushing into Ivory with her shoulders and hips. Ivory was trying to squeeze the pulp out of Raggedy Ann’s face. Jack said, uselessly, “Hey, cut it out.” They ignored him. He couldn’t tell if they’d done any real damage yet, they were both red-faced and gasping and the sweat was rolling off them, streaking their hair and clothes, and their eyes and noses were running with tears and snot. He stepped in, tried to pull them apart. Girl hands filled the air, beating and flurrying. Where was Brezak anyway, why wasn’t he here to keep his women
in line? One of them was going to end up losing an eye or an ear, the kind of thing that happened when nobody knew how to fight.

“Cunt!”

“Fat-assed pig!”

Their bodies collided with his. He got one of Raggedy Ann’s elbows in his ribs, hard. Pissed him off royally. They were still trying to get at each other, reach around him to grab and claw, middle of a goddamn catfight, Ivory kicking uselessly through her long skirt, the other girl either crying or attempting to spit, he couldn’t tell.

“Nice threesome, dude.”

It was Brezak, standing in his open doorway. He was wearing only a pair of blue-jean cutoffs that rode so low on his hips, you could see the column of hair rising up from his crotch. His chest was pale as a root. Smiling his wiseass smile. Jack had an urge to let go of the girls and give him a good face punching.

The girls quieted, waiting to see what would happen next. Ivory’s small, underdrawn features were clenched up like a fist. Her eyes worked Jack over, a brief, poison glance that he didn’t really take personally. He was only in her way, he even felt sorry for her, watching her try to read anything fond in Brezak’s smirking face. One of Raggedy Ann’s tattoos, a green-blue fish, was swimming up her breast and out of her torn shirt and her face was still bright pink and the meanness was still in her and anything might have happened then, any one or two of them clobbering the others, if Chloe hadn’t called up from the foot of the stairs. “Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you all right up there? What in the world’s going on?”

“I’m fine.” He let go of the girls and they backed off, still sullen, but the fight had gone out of them that fast. They’d been shamed.

“Should I call someone?”

Jack peered over the banister, saw Chloe looking up at him, clean, dressed up, adult, disapproving, a creature from a different world. He said, “I don’t think there’s any need for that.”

“I have to leave for work.”

“Right down.” He left the three of them there, didn’t bother looking back. Chloe watched him descend, her face shaping questions.

“So what—”

Mr. Dandy’s locks unsnapped and, before they could escape, Mr. Dandy himself was upon them. Something askew about his face. He’d put his dentures in hastily and they gapped and clicked. He tried to whisper, or stage-whisper, but the effort of keeping his teeth in his head made his voice come out in a windy roar: “Was they naked?”

Jack steered Chloe out the front door without answering. He was still breathing fast. One of them must have kicked or jabbed him from behind, although he couldn’t remember it. His back felt wrenched. Chloe said, “Now tell me.”

“It was the girls.” He didn’t want to tell her too much. He didn’t want to talk about Ivory. So he just said, “The two girls fighting. I don’t know what set it off.”

“That is so tacky. What is wrong with those people. They’re like some bad TV show. Can I take the car? I’ve got errands.”

“Don’t leave me here with them. I’m begging you.”

Chloe punched him in the bicep and he made a show of pretending it hurt, when in fact it did hurt a little. It pissed him off to be so seriously out of shape. They walked toward Clark, past the new, security-gated town house that marked the high end of the neighborhood’s aspirations. Across the street another house was slated for teardown. Another modish piece of architecture would rise up in its stead. Sooner or later their own building would be replaced with some updated version of itself. No more scruffy characters like the kid and his harem, no more tottering old people, hell, even he and Chloe would have to make an income jump or move on. He couldn’t think that far ahead, he was still dazed by the fight and everything that had come before the fight. For the first time he considered that Ivory could have said something to Chloe, out of spite or meanness or simple perversity. He was sweating like a pig, he could smell himself. He looked around at the new construction, the evidence of progress, robust growth and civic health, and it made him uneasy. How mortal a building, a neighborhood, a city might be, things you took for granted, tall structures of brick and steel
and stone torn up by the roots … Chloe said, “I know this is kind of a sore subject, but—”

Jack kept walking. Dread settled into the floating space that had been his thoughts. Chloe said, “Turn around. Is your elbow bleeding? I guess it’s just scraped. Those she-devils. Look, maybe you don’t want to do this anymore, but what if I stopped taking my birth control pills?”

Jack stopped walking. “Wow.”

“I mean I still am. So last night was okay. Even if we decided to, I should still probably use something else for a month or two, you know, get all those hormones out of my system.”

“Can I just keep saying wow?”

“Well sooner or later, wow yes or wow no.”

They had reached the car. Chloe unlocked the driver’s-side door, placed her purse and briefcase inside, made a point of adjusting her sunglasses so Jack would have time to speak. “Wow yes,” he said, trying to make up in enthusiasm what he’d lost in spontaneity. “Yes, sure. Pitch them pills.”

“They’re gone. They’re toast.” Chloe beamed at him. Jack was trying to count back, how many hours ago had this been something he was excited about. His heart’s desire. Chloe’s smile flagged. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s great.”

“But
what
?”

“You’re sure about this? Because last night you were so excited about writing.”

“And I still am. You think I can’t be pregnant and write at the same time? God. You make it sound like I’m going to be flat on my back in a dark room for nine months.”

“Well sure you can do both.” Jack attempted a judicious tone. He didn’t want to appear to be trying to talk her out of anything. “It’s just a lot to take on at once. Stopping drinking—”

“That’s not something you
do
. It’s something you don’t do.”

He had to squint through the sun to see Chloe. The light seemed to gild her in irrefutable logic. “Okay. Fine. But believe me, writing and any kind of a job are a definite handful.”

“But that’s exactly what I need right now. I need all sorts of creative
—creative—I have to be productive, I can’t be some worthless, okay, not worthless, but—Look. This book’s gonna be huge for me. And a baby, nothing’s huger than that. I can make it all work. Besides, I probably won’t get pregnant right away. Most women don’t.”

There was something brittle about her enthusiasm. He felt it might exhaust itself too quickly, or turn in on itself if he wasn’t careful. Jack tried again. “I wouldn’t dream of holding you back. But please don’t be so hard on yourself. You aren’t worthless. You won’t be no matter what happens.” He stooped and kissed the top of her head. It smelled of shampoo and hot sunlight.

She looked up at him through her dark glasses. “You mean it? We can have a baby?”

“Just tell me when to pull the trigger.”

She squealed and swatted at him. “You are so gross!” Then, her face slowing down, her voice going dull, “Do you think I’d be a bad mother?”

“Now why in the world would I think that.”

“Because sometimes I’m a bad person. Yes. Don’t just automatically tell me I’m not. I’m shallow and insecure and dishonest and I’m not all that nice to people or especially to you and you have to tell me you love me in spite of all that and you won’t let me screw up our kid.”

“Chloe, everybody thinks they’re going to make mistakes as a parent. That’s because everybody does. You’ll be great.” She was still looking up at him, eyes just visible behind her sunglasses, secret, watchful. Somewhere out there in the universe of words were the ones he needed to use. “I love you no matter what and I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe me, goddamn it.”

Then she smiled and took off her sunglasses to dab at her eyes and Jack hugged and whispered and administered small kisses and got her into the car and grinned and waved until she was out of sight.

“Good grief,” he said out loud.

He shuffled his way up the street for coffee and a newspaper. He sat at a corner table and read that the city was settling yet another lawsuit stemming from a police pursuit and shooting, this time of a citizen armed with a cell phone. The heat wave had not yet broken any records,
it was only bumping up against the records, if that made anyone feel better. And Sammy Sosa had belted out another home run. All of it news he felt he could have written himself, before he even saw the headlines.

Then there was nothing else to do except go back home and hope the freak show had cleared out. This was supposed to be his day for writing. He wondered if he was going to be able to settle down to it anytime soon. He guessed if you were good enough, tough enough, you could just turn on the writing part of your brain and let it do its thing, rise above the crap of your daily life like some meditating Buddha.