Fall and Rise (10 page)

“Yes?”

“My sweater. No wonder I was so cold. I was at a party before and left it. Ah, it's too ratty for anyone to take.”

“People will do that at them—leave things. I've done it plenty. Once even my year-old baby.”

“You have a baby?” sitting at the bar.

“Now she's not.”

“What happened?”

“She grew up.”

“At the party I mean, and I didn't mean anyone would take my sweater at mine. She was later taken home and raised by someone else?”

“I went back for her after I got halfway home without.”

“And, fretful the whole trip back, found she was the life of the party when you got there.”

“Close. She couldn't even walk a step then but was dancing without holding on in the middle of the room. People don't believe that when I tell them. She never knew I was gone, so it had no lasting effect on her, and now she's old enough to have a baby herself.”

“I know I'm supposed to think I'm supposed to say this, but it doesn't seem possible she could be that old.”

“If she was like me at her age she'd have had her first by now and leaving it at wild parties too—but with her brains, forgetting where to go back for it. Fortunately, I've kept her a child.”

“Probably a good idea. I'd both love and hate to be a father today, maybe something else I'm supposed to think I'm supposed to say.”

“Why? And you were never a father?”

“Did I say that? Even if I did, it's true. And you're about to say something like how I'm missing the best—”

“You are. And if you were a father but the right kind, you'd have it with someone else to help bring it up, which I never had the luck to have. And unless you're ten years younger than you look, you shouldn't wait.”

“You're right, I will. The right woman, she gets proposed to right away, no time-wasting, from me and our future child.”

“If you're laughing to yourself, you're making a big mistake.”

“I'm not. I've just about made up my mind. No, I've made it. This second. All my women and no women before—the heck. I'm getting too old. I'm beginning to taste the grit between my teeth. I don't know what that means. But yes, I met a girl—a woman—I'm sure she's a good seven or eight years younger than I—tonight—at that party—one with the left sweater—left and right, both sleeves—that, who I'm going to pursue to try to marry and have a child by. I will. The woman. Will and try.”

“You could be a little high now, so don't jump to quick decisions. Girls still say yes to marriage proposals even if they keep their maiden names, and get depressed if the man suddenly backs out.”

“No, I've decided. I'm tired of living alone. Being—etcetera, and getting old, gritty teeth. I want a kid under my feet. By my feet with a little silky head to pat and a wife sitting on the floor with her arms or head on my knees or lap, all while I'm seated in an easy chair, or any but some hard wooden chair, just enough lamplight over my shoulder so as not to coarsen the scene with its glare, and a rug so my wife doesn't bruise her knees while reclining beside me and my child doesn't get hurt when it falls. I mean it. Carpet or rug. And me even in a hard wooden fold-up chair if that's what it has to take to succeed. I'm game. So done.” Same piano piece comes on after a half minute being off. “You didn't have a jukebox before. Not a jukebox. What's that machine called again?”

“Jukebox, what else could it be?”

“All right, jukebox. But music to my ears. Before, remember when I snapped my fingers? Well it's not like me to forget a famous piece's name that I also love. It's something like études, though I've always associated those with Chopin. Preludes, that's what they are and I'm sure this one is. Deedle leedle lee. Like that. Deedle leedle leedle lee, leedle dee. Like leaves, rippling trees. You hear it?”

“Sort of. So what drink will it be?”

“Goddamnit,” slapping my head. “Brahms. An intermezzo, for piano—one in B? No, I always forget the number and key. I know Chopin's Waltz C-flat in D-minor or something, but this which she played as much? I used to love to unlock the door to her place, woman before the future mother of my child to be, and with my own keys, ones that go in the holes, when she was practicing this piece—coffee?”

“Saving it for my Irish coffee and serious Black Russian drinkers and it's been sitting on the hot plate so long it'd be too bitter to drink straight. I know I could make more, but I'm too lazy.”

“I've done time behind counters. I could make it.”

“Strictly you know what. Maybe you should go to a real coffee shop.”

“Can't. I'm here, drying off. Running across some hitherto unseen but intriguing things about myself, and it's still drizzling and now that I know my sweater's gone I'll be even colder on the street. And if it's just the tip, I'll give you as much as for those sickening mixed drinks.”

“Okay, I'll be honest.” She empties an ashtray and wipes it clean though it only had a broken swizzle stick in it. “Though the boss is at his busier place he might drop in and see your coffee and how much your tab is and that you're not a regular to do favors for like that and say to me how come I'm not peddling the drinks better even with this weather and the pianist away? So how about it? An Irish coffee would warm you up quicker than anything and the bitter coffee in it sober you up a little also if that's what you think you need, or keep your high even. And I make them with real whipped cream I whipped myself, so you get some food value from it too just when you might have to use it.”

“Make it without—I was going to say ‘without the whiskey and cream,' but I know about bosses and I'm no wiseguy.” She looks at me as if I am. I look at the mirror and see her still looking at me. A sign on the mirror says Guinness is good for you. “Good, that's what I want to be and the weather and your business to be like—so a Guinness please. It's supposed to be healthy besides.”

“Ad's an antique, and as for the medicinal qualities, all the health Guinness gives is the runs. Closest thing to any brew Irish or English we have is Molson's Ale.”

“Then, Miss, after you give me some jukebox change, I'd say you've made a sale.” I give her a dollar.

“Hurray. And the place even makes extra cash from you too.”

She gives me four quarters and steps on the pedal to open the lowboy refrigerator. Light-blue light illuminates her body when she squats to get the bottle out. Thin, tall, too-tight shirt to cast aspersions, I mean call attention or dramatize her very large compared to her tiny waist and nearly nonexistent hips, breasts, or why ever a woman would wear a shirt so tight with no garment beneath that the color and contour of her aureoles show and nipples push through and is probably unhealthy besides. To sell more drinks and get bigger tips, but doesn't excite me, I think mainly because it looks so damagingly tight. And somehow, in recent years, two…three, and I don't believe because of any libidinal decrease, the breasts of strangers even with the nipples erect and whatever age and size…I prefer the woman I love or am in the process of or think I will when she's taking off her clothes and making no show, except maybe a parody of one, but just those.

She pours my ale. I taste, say “Ah, real great,” put a five-dollar bill under an ashtray in case someone suddenly comes in with the wind and go to the jukebox at the end of the bar. “Brahms Intermezzo,” it says, but not who's performing which one. I stick a quarter in and press “Slow Movement Mozart Concerto,” figuring it'll be piano and the romantic movement used as the musical theme for a popular Swedish movie years ago, but it's violin and Prokofiev.

I try opening the door to the men's room near the jukebox; it's stuck or locked. “Excuse me,” jiggling the doorknob, “anybody in there, and going to be long?” No answer.

“Is there someone in the men's room,” I yell to the barmaid, “or do you keep it locked for your own reasons?”

“Is this fiver minus your drink all for me?”

“No why, how much is the ale?”

“Two.”

“You being funny then? Take a dollar. But the john here?”

“Probably the clean-up man. Give him a good knock. He could sit in the shithouse all day.”

I knock, not good, and a woman says “Please, I don't feel too well. I won't be out soon. Go next door.”

“This is the men's room, ma'am. You can't use the ladies'?”

“It's too filthy. Please, nothing I can do now, and I won't talk anymore.”

“How filthy is it?” Doesn't answer. “Mind if I use the ladies' room?” I say to the barmaid. “Men's is being used by a woman and, if you'll excuse me, I have to go bad.”

“She's in there? Wondered where she went. Thought she ducked out on the check when I was doing my nails and I truthfully didn't care she looked so sad. Be quick, will you? Not just the boss but the whole city health force frowns on the mixing of washroom sexes. And the mayor himself still keeps his rent-controlled apartment around here and a minimum of twice has stopped in to hear.”

“What's he drink?”

“It was only told to me—probably to hype business—never seen.”

“I shouldn't be long,” and I open the ladies' room door slowly. It's not filthy at all. Floor mopped, no wall cracks or remarks, mirror, commode, sink and pipes shiny and clean, vase of fresh flowers over the toilet's water tank and above that an oil painting of beach grass or machine reproduction of one down to the smudged signature and raised brushstrokes in an oak or imitation oak frame. Seat seems to be clean, and I pull down my pants and sit. This is going to be a long one; should've brought a book. I look around: nothing much else to see. Alarm tape bordering the small barred window, so it also can be that kind of place. I try to smell the flowers from where I'm sitting. But I can't smell, if they do smell, anything but what I've so far in bulk, liquid and gas expelled and don't remember smelling anything but cleanser and disinfectant when I came in here. “Please for poor ole Petie's sake don't take posies from WC or vase to your home or to throw away on the street,” notice on opposite sides of the vase says. My mother, far back as I can remember, always had flowers on our water tank, fresh or dried. Except Christmastime when she put a holly branch in and middle autumn when it was twigs with different colored leaves from the park. Not in a vase but an old cough-medicine bottle that can now only be bought at a flea market or antique shop. The bottle was still on top of her tank last time I was there. I don't know how we never broke it. I guess the bathroom was the one place in the apartment my sister and I never fought or played, since we couldn't roll around on top of one another without clunking our heads on the sink pedestal or one of the tub legs. Or maybe we did break it and she had a supply of these bottles we never knew about, though there wasn't much room in the two-bedroom apartment where she could have kept them hidden too long without our finding out. I should call her and ask, or go see her. Just call her to see how she is, or go see for yourself. Why am I always putting it off, not being a good son, because how long would it take? Hour out, drinks, dinner and talk, which could be illuminating and fun, hour-plus back, ladened with enough of her breads and overcooked food in plastic containers to fill two large shopping bags and feed me for a week. Not tonight go, though I don't think it's too late to call and haven't for two weeks.

There's no toilet paper. No tissues, hand-towel paper, cloth towel or even the paper holder on the wooden spool in the wall the toilet paper comes on. My handkerchief is in my raincoat as is the napkin with the pâté. I could use my fingers, but there's no soap. My briefs have several small holes and frayed places in them and the elastic's about to go. I start taking my trousers off. But as long as I'm going to dispose of the briefs I tear them off my legs by pulling at one of the unfabricated holes and chewing through the band, blow my nose in it which I have to do, rip the briefs in two and wipe my behind with the smaller part and drop it into the bowl and flush, hoping it all goes down. It does. I throw the other part into the can under the sink, then think I should have looked in or behind the can before I tore up the briefs for little pieces of soap or what could have been clean to semi-clean paper of any sort and also saved the clean part of the briefs for a possible emergency later on.

I splash water on my face, dry it on my sleeve and hands on my pants, check the toilet to see that none of what I flushed came up, look in the mirror at my face and say ‘“Now as Hasenai says in his humorous poem “Optics in Inner Space” would be a well-chosen moment to reflect on myself and place in the luminous race,'” want to pull a hair out of my nostril but because of the impending pain which has stopped me about one time in four, push it back in till it stays and go to the bar.

“That was an excellent selection that beautiful piano music you played before,” man at the end of the bar says as I pass him.

“You mean my concerto came on?”

“No, a solo, soft and sweet—delicious, unless they have concertos for just one instrument and no accompanist or orchestra. You know what it was?”

“The Brahms intermezzo? Much as I love it it wasn't my choice. I put on that screechy violin piece before, though paid for and chose a slow Mozart piano concerto movement.”

“Must be mine then,” the barmaid yells over. “Just threw in money and with my eyes closed, pressed.”

“Your own money? Doesn't seem practical with so few customers and such lousy tippers like myself.”

“Not real money. Sure, real, but with red nailpolish on it, which means it's the bar's and the gorilla who collects for his company gives it to us back. You have to have music in here, but why classical? Neither of you answer me that. It's a classical music bar, so people expect it. But I don't like it and aren't afraid to say so.”