Fall and Rise (11 page)

“What does she know?” the man says low. “She's ignorant. She likes disco. She likes hip-huggers and guys with safety pins in their lobes and roller skates. She's not supposed to but she wears those new kind of wheels in back of the bar. You see them?”

“I don't believe so, though I don't see how I wouldn't have heard them.”

“They're the new silent kind I said with something like polyurine wheels that make no noise. She knocks our music but thinks those things are the ultimate creative achievement of Western mankind till now, along with every single movie made. She's pathetic.”

“I don't know. She seems sort of nice. And if the owner doesn't mind her skating or he's not around to see, I don't see why I should.”

“You're right. That's what I should think. I should mind my business and not be so critical of people. Thank you for telling me that. Thank you.”

“Excuse me, but I didn't say you were wrong or even imply what you should think or do.”

“You don't understand. I'm thanking you. Take the compliment you deserve when someone gives it because you may have to wait a long time for the next one to come,” and he sips his drink and looks at the bar mirror. I go back to my stool but don't sit.

“Can I open you another one?” the barmaid says.

“Not yet. Hardly touched this one. By the way, he says you wear roller skates, so if I peer over the bar at your feet it's just for that, okay? Oh that's stupid.”

“Roller skates?”

“No really, forget what I said. I'm embarrassed by it. Trying to be provocative or something with my silly talk. Sorry. I'll shut up.” I put my hand over my mouth and say through it “I've shut up.”

“He said it though, true?”

“He didn't mean anything by it.”

“But he said it.”

I take my hand away. “What do you want me to say? If I said he said it he said it.”

She shoots him a dirty look, puts her sneakered foot on the counter next to my glass. “Other one's like this one down to the broken laces. So whatever his reason for saying it, and I can tell you why but I'm a much nicer person than he, you could be an even bigger fool for believing him, not that I meant that as an insult to you—just to that troublemaker.”

“Look, what are you getting so riled up about? I'm sure he was kidding me. Playing around, man to man—you know. Besides, right after he told me it he apologized and said your roller skates were none of his business, so now I don't know what to think. What does it matter anyway? And I'm the one who started the trouble, so blame me.”

“Maybe you have your own reasons for wanting to take everyone's blame, but that bastard started it this time, not you.”

“And maybe you're only looking to fight with him over nothing and for your own reasons and using my stupid roller-skate remark as the excuse.”

“And maybe you don't know what you're talking about. You're only a first or second timer here and know nothing about what goes on around. Because that guy—yes, I'm talking about you,” she says to him and he says “Huh? What? Me? I can't hear so good from so far away. Bad ears and I also can't read minds or lips.”

“Sure you can't. Oh, go back to your drink,” and he says “Anything to help keep cemented relations, but I'm still not so sure what you said,” and he looks at me and raises his eyebrows and shoulders, then looks at the mirror while he sips his drink.

“Anyway,” to me, “he's always doing something like that about me with new customers. One time he told somebody I was a man in drag. Another time that I put laxatives in the drinks of customers who don't tip. Those are jokes? Maybe if you don't take them seriously, but both times those stupes seemed to believe him and who knows what else he says when I'm not around. I ought to really tell him where to stick it.”

“You just didn't? Could I have change for a phone call please?” pushing one of the dollar bills at her.

“You're just changing the subject.”

“No, I have to make an important call to my—and oh, before I forget. There's no toilet paper in the ladies' room. And I'm not saying that to change the subject from your saying I changed the subject before. I didn't then and am not now and there's no paper. Just thought you'd like to know.”

“That's the truth?”

“About the paper and everything else, I swear.”

“Henry,” she yells to nobody I can see in back. “The girls' room needs paper.” Man's still looking in the mirror and sipping his drink.

“No hand towels either or soap. Face towels. Whatever they are.”

“All kinds of paper, Henry, and soap. I hope you didn't have to go too bad,” she says to me.

“Just number one. And those papers in the pull-down metal container are hand or face towels, aren't they?”

“Just paper. If they're cloth, they're cloth, but now we're talking about a long linen roll.”

“Okay, gorgeous,” a man shouts from the back. “Toiletries and roses for the heavenly bodies. Thy will is mine done.”

“And you,” she says, going over to the man at the end of the bar. “You I want to have it out with now.”

“Please, my change,” I say. “I need it for my phone call.”

“What'd you say to her about me?” he says.

“I'm sorry. The roller skates. But I told her it was a joke and nothing and my fault. It was nothing, Miss, nothing.”

“Don't tell me—I know what it was. And if you're not that keen on me,” she says to him, “and have to keep making these vicious cracks about me here, then I don't care if you're our best customer ever and also the chief muck-a-shit of New York. I'll have to demand that you leave and never come back while I'm tending bar and you can run to my boss and cry about it to him all you please.”

“I will,” he says. “I'll have you fired and get him to put a girl behind the bar who at the very least, if she has to manually drop ice cubes into the drinks, cleans her fingers once a week.”

“You drip. Get the hell out of here now.”

“I'll go when I'm good and ready, sister, and not a second before.” He finishes his drink. “I'll take a refill if you don't mind.”

“Henry,” she yells.

“Then whatever comes out of this thing then,” and he reaches over the counter for what I think's called a soda gun and squirts water or tonic or soda water into the sink and then into his glass.

I grab my two dollars off the bar, get my raincoat and start for the door.

“Thanks a lot, fella,” the man says, holding his glass up to me in a toast. “I'll do the same for you with my fat ratting mouth any damn day you want and then worm out when it gets most ticklish too.”

“Any trouble up front, gorgeous?” Henry says when I open the door.

‘Half of it's on the way out now.”

I turn around. Henry's tall and burly but not mean looking and is holding a roll of toilet paper and package of paper towels and a broom. “Look,” I say, “let's settle this amicably. Because I'm the cause or indirectly so of this big absurd whatever you want to call it harmless to-do and I can't just leave knowing this man might get his head bashed in over it.”

“I think, if intellectual wisdom's to be king, that you be better to leave now,” Henry says. “No harm shall come to no one at the bar I'll here say.”

“But if you think you've a good grievance against him or she does and he doesn't want to go, call a cop. At least that way you're assured nobody will get hurt.”

“As you said, so I say—no man shall, long as the gentle Hen's here.”

“We don't want cops when it's not necessary,” she says. “They're hard at it with a lot worse than him and don't like coming in on things we can easily fix ourselves. Now close the door behind you. It's getting cold and the landlord's a cheapo with the rent. But if you want to do the most good, take with you your creepy friend.”

“Thank you,” the man says to me, his hand cupped behind his ear. “I didn't catch all you said, but you spoke up, that was grand, and from now on I can handle myself dandy.”

“Don't handle anything. They don't want you here. I'm not wanted also—that's also clear—but not wanted not as much as you, if I got those nots right, and there's nothing to be learned or gained or anything from talking back to bartenders and so on. So be smart and pay up and leave with me and we'll have a drink or coffee down the street so long as it's not a tough dumpy joint and talk about why there's no sense talking and fighting back at bars and being big men and strong and all that hooey and stuff and pride and so on and knocking heads and losing teeth and standing on your own two feet and later blacking out after making great fatuous points, though maybe there I obviously speak for myself.”

“Fine, if I agreed. But I don't because this is a public place licensed for such and no discrimination of any kind, so not somewhere you can be tossed out of indiscriminately. It's also like home to me or become one I've been coming here so long, something pretty Marjorie's going to learn from her boss Mr. Witcom very soon.”

“Then you might end up getting hurt,” I say and Marjorie says to him “I'll learn, all right, will I ever learn,” and Henry says “What in the good name are you all mouthing on so much for? The Hen's got work.”

“If I am then I am,” the man says to me, “because I don't pretend to be a tough strong man like these two here.”

“Uh-oh,” I say looking up and Marjorie says to him “You calling me a man again?” and Henry says “Now will someone please tell the Hen what he just said to make that man say that about him? Someone. Please. The Hen's open-minded. So tell him.”

“Oh, did I say that?” the man says to her and smiles for a few seconds and drinks from his glass.

She grabs the glass from him, a lot of what's in it spills on the bar and their clothes, and throws the rest of it in his face. He stands, takes out a wallet, slaps some bills on the bar, kicks his stool, it's wobbling on two of its four legs when he kicks at it again and misses but it still falls, grabs his hat and coat off a peg while Henry picks up the stool and slides it back to the bar and Marjorie raises a chair leg she got from somewhere and bangs it against something metal like a cabinet or sink and yells “Get out of here before you get your ears nailed—I'm not fooling with you, get out, get out!” and bangs the metal again and he rushes through the door I didn't know I was still holding open and outside puts on his hat and coat.

“Don't go if you don't have to,” she says to me. “But if you do, I hope no hard feelings to the bar.”

“No really and I only came in for a single coffee or beer,” foot keeping the door open as I put on my coat and think never again in this place even with the pianist playing and a friend.

“Hey,” Henry says, “the Hen's got a terrific idea with business booming this great.”

“We can't,” she says. “There's still the lady in the gentlemen's can and what if Witty—” but I've let the door go and step outside.

Rain's stopped. That I saw from the door. But sky seems clear, even a bit of moon to be seen, and feels ten to fifteen degrees warmer than when I went in, almost too much for this coat, unbuttoning it. The man's wiping his face with a bunch of napkins. “I don't know—how'd all that happen so fast?” I say. Looks at me, shakes his head commiseratively: more my fault than his; in fact it's all your fault his pointing finger says, throws the napkins into the street and heads downtown. Napkins quickly picked up by the wind and hover a few feet over the street before four drop and one soars three flights more till I can't see it anymore. There it is—no, just a pigeon if my fading vision's not mistaken, and I take out my eyeglasses case. “You—catch it!” Wind also must have blown his hat off because here he is hatless chasing one down the sidewalk toward me. I jump to my right, glasses sliding out of the case same time I stop the hat with my foot, pick it up and my glasses and brush it off where I stepped on it and hand it to him. I hold the glasses up. “Oh no.” One of the lenses seems scratched. I smear a little spit on the lens, wipe it dry and put the glasses on. “Oh nuts. It'll cost a fortune to get fixed.”

“Why? They don't look cracked.”

“One of the lenses got scratched through both bifocal parts.”

“So? They buff it down in a jiff and say give me five bucks.”

“When was that? Shit. Instinct—didn't think. Should've known they'd fall out. But if I'd stopped to think I wouldn't have been able to stop your hat from rolling past.”

He turns the hat around in his hands, scratches the dirt off the brim, puts the hat on. “Lose this honey and a lot more than five bucks. Two new pairs of your glasses I could buy with it and a thorough eye exam, so you have my gratitude for a change and what else? My regrets for your spectacles and monetary loss.”

“Thanks very much.” He's adjusting the hat to his head. I put on the glasses to see how well I can see with them scratched. Other lens has little nicks in it which when I close my eye behind the scratched lens makes me see spots in the distant-vision part and mostly a blur in the near. Both eyes open I can't come up with a quick comparison, but my vision through both sections is even worse. But so what? No backups at home so nothing to do but get them fixed soon as I can. Tomorrow to the optician's: one of the first things before noon. No: get angry, become miserable, curse his hat and the wind and Marjorie and he for doing what they did to make me leave the bar sooner than I would have perhaps and her boss for ordering the sign put out if she wasn't lying and the rain also because if there had been more customers maybe the man wouldn't have paid so much attention to me and Marjorie to him and just my deteriorating eyes in general and small savings in particular and Brahms and whatever and whoever influenced him to compose that piece and why not while I'm at it the jukebox manufacturer and whatever brought me into the world besides, plus lots of other things: in general the world, in particular the whatever. No reading to very little for a few days though when I have to I'll strain my eyes and give in for as long as I can to the pain. No: first thing tomorrow after the quicker-than-usual postreveille rituals and no
Times
, and if the optician says he can't have them till next week, insist you want them fixed by the end of the day at the latest since your work depends on it, and if he still says he can't have them, acquiesce, though tell him day after Tuesday is out of the question and you'll have to take them somewhere else, which you'll then have to.