Fall and Rise (18 page)

early to be considering all this and I should do just what? Forget it for now or forever if he doesn't call and definitely not call Diana unless he calls me and if he doesn't, well, think about calling him. What would there be to lose? He could say no, I'm busy, engaged, about to be, lied and am actually married with child, have children, we do, two, three, she does but I'm her faithful live-in, I'm afraid I can't see you because I'm this, I'm that, I'm the other thing, some new element recently arose in my life or just today or yes, I'm sorry I didn't call, I was going to, this very moment in fact, you won't believe this but I had my hand on the receiver just now and your number on my lips, receiver to my ear and had dialed the first five digits but forgot the sixth, phonebook open to Winburn, Windbreaker, Winermiss, was just running my finger down your phonebook page, so you could say that in a minute or so, but really now since that's about how long we've been on the phone since you called, you would have heard my rings, now what do you say to that concatenation of events? I dialed you just before you rang but your line was busy, possibly because you were dialing me, now how about that for some kind of simultaneity of minds? I dialed you but hung up just before my call got through, if it would have which is to say if your line or even your exchange wasn't tied up or momentarily on the fritz, because I thought you'd be out—I don't know why, just something that popped to mind and seemed right at the time—and I can't stand talking to anyone's answering service, something I seem to have in common with half my acquaintances and friends including half the ones with that kind of service. Look, I couldn't get myself to even fetch the phonebook to look up your name, though let me say straight off before you say anything more, if I haven't already said it a dozen times, and of course I haven't since this is the first time we've spoken since we met, first time unless you've kept since then a rigorous speechlessness, how much I wanted to open my phonebook and look up your number, wanted to dial you and have you answer, speak to you and ask if you'd like to go out with me and soon, and I'm not putting or trying to one over on you, but just thought that well, after my yelling out Diana's window at you I felt, well, after my messages to your answering service that night I felt, well, even after we finished speaking on Diana's landing and you went down the stairs I felt, well, but I had to be wrong, right? in what I thought you thought about me because here you are calling me unless it's to tell me, and I don't see how this can be so but you never know for if anything hasn't happened to me once it doesn't mean it won't the next moment, not to call you, so what would you say—what I mean is you certainly didn't call me to tell me not to call you, right?—so what would you say—and what am I now saying?—so what do you say I'm saying to seeing me for coffee or dinner or a drink, and how soon, since I'd love for it to be an hour or two from now or at the most tomorrow around noon. That's what he could be thinking, she could be thinking. That's what I at least hope she's thinking or will. But I'm sure—not sure, but almost sure she hasn't thought of me once, and if once then I'm sure or almost sure or just sort of sure she just thought of me briefly, and if briefly, then very briefly, almost subliminally if what I think is subliminal thinking is right: she saw the D in the Don't Walk sign for instance and for a subliminal instance the D in the Don't stood for Dan—since about a minute or so after she turned away from my waving at the window and went up the street to that wedding reception she said she was going or wherever she was going to—possibly to a friend's apartment, perhaps to a lover's, maybe directly home to be with a friend or lover or sick pet or just alone, not that anything I've done or find out about her is going to stop me from calling her at least once and probably in the next few days, not that I'm going to do anything more such as trying to find out anything more about her from now on till that call, simply because I've done more than enough already to snuff out what I suppose could be called a potential relationship, though she didn't at all seem like the kind of person who feels she has to lie in any way to get out of an uncomfortable situation, if my stopping her on the stairs and talking to her was one, of that I'm, well, almost sure.

Up. Still that car commotion, but now just a half block off and smaller. I start for it but get just one step.

“Dennis?”

“Yes, uh, excuse me?”

“Dennis? It is Dennis. Dennis, it's Harold. How are you?”

“I'm sorry, you have to have the wrong number. Person.”

“Dennis, stop it, I said it's Harold. Tell me. It's been—but it actually hasn't been that long. By the tone of my voice, I'm saying.” Grabs my hand and shakes it. “How the hell are you? Your hand's cold. Really, I want to know.”

“Listen, it's possible I might look like this guy—”

“Look like him? What a laugh. You're more than the spitting image of him. You've never in fact looked more like yourself. You look wonderful. But Dennis, you want to forget, go on, forget, forget. I won't mind. In the past—well I'd be the last to admit you occasionally treated me like that and did I mind? Did I ever say it at least? At least, that much? All right, I minded a little—said it and minded—complained a little you could say—kvetched, but that's about all I did. You might say I did more, but let's have a drink and talk about it.”

“Honestly.”

“Honestly what? Or talk about anything but that if that's what you want. All that's elapsed. For instance, how you could look even better after so many years. Because when really was the last time? My memory, not good then, is now a has-been.”

“My name…You see, when you said Dennis, because my name's—”

He laughs, grabs my arm and starts walking me to the street. “Cab,” he shouts. “Taxi.” One stops. I slip my arm out of his. A very beautiful young woman and a man are walking toward us, woman saying “New-Age entrepreneurs. You know who they are?” They're about even with us. The man stops, shakes his head, takes her hand and kisses it.

“Thirty seconds,” Harold says to the driver. He holds up a finger, crosses it with another. “Sí—you got it—Dennis, you ready?”

“They're going to turn-around America's economics and social, political and moral consciousness, or in all the hip states if we're ever so lucky. New Mexico—”

“If you say so,” he says, putting her hand to his cheek and shutting his eyes.

“If I? It's not
I
, and besides, how am I supposed to have an intelligent discourse with all this kissy hand action. Because—” but she suddenly notices us before I can look away and stares briefly at me and then at Harold at length as if she knows him.

“Look, my name's Daniel,” I say to Harold, glancing over his shoulder at the woman, as he'd seen me staring at her and stepped between us. She turns to the man.

“Anything interesting?” he asks her.

“You know that woman?” I ask Harold.

“Just something,” she says.

“What woman?”

“If you guys don't—” the cabby says.

“It was the way you were looking at them,” the man says.

“That absolutely beautiful one who just passed with the man,” as they'd resumed walking, his head on top of her shoulder. He turns to them and then back to me.

“He's quite handsome—maybe more stunning then she. Those incredible lashes. He could easily become an actor.”

“She was staring at you as if she knew you. I've seen her someplace. Commercials. Maybe a subway station ad. I don't have a TV, but I've watched them. Or the movies or stage.”

“Could be, Dennis, but she's certainly not from the stage. I know the stage and she's not on it. I make a point of seeing all the showcases and plays. As for subways—never touch the stuff.”

“Anyway”—the woman repeatedly looking back as she walked—“my name's Daniel. Daniel, Dennis—see?”

“Free?” a man says and gets in the cab and it drives away.

“So it's Daniel now, Dennis. So it always was and will be. So you say you're not Dennis, Daniel. So you were never Dennis we'll even say. You want to say that, we will. So, as a matter of fact, there never really was any Dennis. Not in the history of American and English stage design or of mankind. It's a name I made up out of dewdrops. So what to all that I also say. Cab,” he shouts. “Taxi.” One stops. “Now let's have that drink. I love the unflappable way your eyes take in everything and your mind makes split-second discriminations about people and things. And you didn't take a swing at me. Now that more than anything, because what does it say? You didn't call me this and then that when I'd say by most people's precepts and norms you could have gotten away with it. You didn't mime to that divine pair ‘He your friend, for I sure don't know him.' You didn't say to me ‘You're nutsy, Buster, take a powder.' Not a raised voice or fist and I more than most you'll meet appreciate that.”

Cabby rolls down his window and is about to say something.

“One second, friend,” Harold says. To me: “You didn't and you're not and the rest of those things. You're also sympatico.”

“Sure I am.”

“Come now, you have to admit that. You also have a nice face. Not model-beautiful like that dreamy man's before, and a nice gleam to your eyes. I bet you were a beautiful baby. So let's get into the cab and go to a real nice pub. Sardi's, even. I love that joint. That it still exists for one thing: everything authentic today folds. Oh, overrated caricatures on the walls to spoil your appetite, but it's the perpetual stimulating overheard talk, and because of its dress code, all those gorgeous clothes. I can get us a quiet table where nobody can see us or a noisy one where everybody can and join in if you wish. So it's what pleases you, Dennis, you. I only want to please you tonight, so is it quiet or noise?”

“No tables. I don't want to go with you.”

“Please, don't all of a sudden get rude.”

“Scuse me, scuse me,” the cabby says.

“I'm not. But if I can't convince you any other way?”

“All the very best drinks you want on me then—food too. Anything you want. You call it. Money, even.”

“No really, thanks.”

“I wasn't serious about the money, of course. Took a chance saying it, but I was only seeing how you'd behave. You came off with flying colors, as I knew you would. My instincts about you were right from the start. One thing though. Yes, I think I can say it. I'm serious about wanting you to come with me and I know, beyond that hard facade, who you truly are.”

“I can't stand here longer,” the cabby says.

“I'm sure you do, but thanks, no.”

“Ah darn. Your one fault was you were always too immovable. So I'll be on my way.” He walks to the cab. “On my way, I won't say goodnight, Dennis.”

I nod.

“Ah darn.” Gets in cab, is looking at me through the rear window as the cab takes off. It stops at the corner for the light. He sticks his head out the window opposite the smashed car. “I can still get out, Dennis—What's this, your devilish business? Or you can still join me. Or the 21. First floor by the door. Elegant Nick to admit us and from then on even if you go there alone, to greet you by your family name, whatever yours is. You haven't lived till you've tasted their bourguignon. They know me there as well, and it's where I've changed course to. I'm a director.”

I shake my head.

“Whuh? Can't hear ya. Harold. Harold Drissac and the Barclay Hotel. I'll be there till check-out time Sunday morn. Phone.”

I wave, he waves, cab goes. I walk back half a block—that'll be enough time for anyone around the smashed car to forget me—look at the traffic, buildings across the street, sky, put my collar up and walk slowly to the car. Must have been smashed by the bus or smashed into the front of the bus, as the front of the bus farther up the street's also smashed but not as hard. When I saw the bus from the distance I thought it was just doubleparked.

“For the last time—step back?” a policeman says. The three of us step back. “All the way to the sidewalk again?” Sidewalk. Phone on the corner rings. He's standing beside the booth and answers it. “Wohlen…Hey, hi, how's it going, last person I expected was…Sure, what?…Ha, no, I…I gave the number for here…Now that's a good question. After talking to you for ten seconds when it seems like ten years since we—okay, okay. Let's see. You could hear it's a street, but exactly where? Fourteenth and Sixth, northwest corner, last—now this is going to be harder. Minus thirty-four from one—six, twenty—we'll forget the seconds. Seven times sixty plus that twenty-six. Three hundred—No. The last almost seven and a half hours of my midnight to eight shift. That's putting it exactly enough. My two-way's not operating, which I'm now glad of because you called…How? Tell me.”

I move up to the car. Two men I stepped back with before, one who's very tall with a gray ponytail, moved up before me, so if the policeman says anything again it'll be directed to us all. But stop. Really, what are you looking for? Just like that, why else? Not your everyday happening—not enough? Got this curiosity for the morbid, and not sudden but always. I'm a born snoop and repressed meddler, that's all. Fires, brawls, car crashes, nonstop sirens and alarms, I usually stop or go out to look, even put on my shoes and turn off what's cooking if I have to, but rarely this close. Want to see what might've happened to the passengers, but why? Blood, flesh, hair, torn cloth. For a moment I want to see what it's like inside one of these so soon after the crash and before it's towed off. So this is how it is, in other words. Shit? If so, then even that. I don't know and maybe I've gone overboard. Urine, shit, vomit, guts, I want one to all of those? If that's what's there, and it's not what I want per se, then I suppose so. To show I'm not too squeamish to look right at it for once and take a whiff, which maybe will change me somehow. The attitude: what's to be afraid if it's life. So that, I suppose—no, horsecrap. Know my own mind?—you bet. Oh, I don't know if it's all horsecrap, but I am curious to see what happened here and I might find. For instance didn't I one night—when my dad was very sick—incontinent too—could hold in his urine but not his shit—and I was taking care of him with my mom—stick my finger in what I just wiped from him and put it to my nose and take that whiff—
there
, that wasn't so bad, maybe it'll make it easier cleaning him the next times, and it did. “Quite the crackup,” ponytailed man says, three of us inches away from the car and looking inside.