Fall and Rise (31 page)

“The answer's no, naturally, to any coming by tonight. If you just want to tell the story why you think you have to come by, you can't make it short?”

“I could but not effectively. But I probably couldn't because—oh shit…excuse me, but my head just then.”

“What, hangover or something like that already?”

“Hurts, from being hit in the head before. On the head. I was. With a phone receiver but one cut off. I don't mean to be confusing. I wasn't cut off, on the phone, but the receiver was, from the phone.”

“If it's that bad, go to a hospital.”

“It's not. A scratch on top and a bump, and now a little dizziness and pain, which probably accounts for my sporadic disoriented tongue, though I got that out all right with the words I wanted. And I couldn't begin to tell it—from before—because our five minutes are more than up. And the phone operators who cut in these days to ask for another coin—well, you can't speak to them as people, you know, since their voices aren't even recorded anymore, much less real or alive. They're—they come from some new kind of computerized phonetic machine that creates operator voices or what we've been used to, and with the right regional inflections for whatever region, to respond to the multivarious situations they've traditionally had to deal with on the phone, though I'm sure the machine's tinkered with periodically to let new situations in. You want a real live operator's voice you have to dial Operator, and I heard that soon—ooh, wait. I'm a little lost there—my head again, which might be worse off than I thought. I wish I could sit. And lost you a little there also, I think.”

“Not if I got you right. I'm sure—but you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, my experience has been that if they don't get you once your five minutes are up it's because of some telephonic malfunction and not generosity on the company's or any operator's part, and you can talk on that dime long as you like. But do me a favor—get to a hospital immediately for that head?”

“Why? They'll tell me I've a hairline fracture at the most and to go home and rest and that's what I can't do now. And let's not chance the operator coming in. Once one does I won't have time to give you my number, so please take it now.”

“Why didn't you call Diana?”

“I did but nobody's in or answering. And the five other friends in the city I could, who either didn't answer or his answering machine did. With that one I gave the number of the booth phone I was calling from, but have since moved on. My mother I couldn't—though I actually could. She'd forgive me for anything, as good mothers do. But I didn't want to, as she lives alone, would get scared, doesn't sleep well—only a few hours a day and usually at this hour, and I didn't want to wake her.”

“No one else? No old women friends, a brother, sister, aunt who sleeps well?”

“Out of town or living out of town or impossible for the women friends.”

“Even so, there'd have to be twenty, fifty people to call before me, and a locksmith.”

“Locksmith I already tried, but I lost my wallet tonight, have no cash at home and I don't have a check account.”

“Who doesn't have a check account?”

“I pay three bills a month: rent, utilities and phone, and the last two every other month, so really two a month, average—all with money orders made out from money in my savings account. That way—though here, for the first time, it's hurt me—I get my interest and also don't impulsively spend money I don't have. As for the other tenants in my building—nobody to go to. Either much too frail or old, one's a dealer, another's a man who illusorily accuses me of dumping garbage on his car and door, and one woman's a drunk and, as my junior-high kids used to say, mental. I just don't know that many people, many people as I know, and some I know I wouldn't go into their apartments for any reason. And, impulsive as I am on money matters, or at least sticking to a system so as not to be, I was impulsive in calling you, in spite of the time I took to think about calling—what can I say? I, maybe because of the big lump and minor gash, but again, I don't want to depreciate the main reason by giving neurological excuses, saw myself sleeping, with my head in an old clean rag, bleeding, on your floor. I shouldn't have but I did, and with my last dime, not that it wouldn't take another hour or two, which'd get me closer to daybreak and my keys, to borrow or beg another one. But I thought, it being my last dime would help persuade you to let me use your floor. But look, spilt head or not—split—if I'm anything—and that was an interesting slip—I'm—”

“All right, give me your number. Then tell me quickly this time how you hurt your head. A fight?”

“Stopping a robbery. And the number on the phone's not clear. It's—shit, who'd want to scratch out the number on a pay phone? Sorry, but it's demented. Plug up the coin return with gum if you're desperate to make some pocket money, because then at least the caller's made his call, if he didn't get a busy signal or Information. Though if he got Information and Information, after she gives him the number, sees his coin didn't reach the coin tray, she can hook him into a live operator who can dial the number for him. But don't, I'm saying, destroy the phone so it can't be used for emergencies or scratch out the number so no one can call the caller back.”

“Are you telling me there's no phone number there? Please, Mr. Krin.”

“It's also my eyes, which is just part of the story, and Daniel or Dan. First my glasses got scratched. That was nobody's fault but mine. But then, along with my head before and my wallet and keys going with my coat in addition to my valuable notebook, though only to me, is the only copy I own and perhaps in the whole country of one of the books of poems I'm to select from and translate to put into one big book of this particular poet's selected collected—collected selected poems.”

“Who?”

“Jun Hasenai. Around my age. But you probably haven't heard of him.”

“I suppose I should have, but I hate when people say that about writers I've mentioned and they haven't heard of. I can't read or hear about everyone.”

“No reason you should. He's unknown here—few poems I've managed to place in little mags over the years—but pretty well known in several Eastern European countries. He's major, style to get excited by, sensibility and themes to move and brood over and possibly transmogrify. I talk like a jacket blurb sometimes, but I really admire the guy's work. I also like it that he's lived fully but not maneuveringly and to keep his modest family life surviving he writes essays that are, well, eloquent and inciting and I eventually want to translate too, and translates Spanish and Portuguese novels and poetry and teaches Western literature in a high school for the physically handicapped and deformed. He's a mensch and can be translated—he doesn't only come across in Japanese. I just hope when I call him for another copy of the book, if one isn't in a library I don't know about here, he doesn't think I'm a terrific bungler and assign his work to someone else.”

“I'm sure he won't—not after the work you've no doubt put in and the feeling you have for it. But why not call his publisher for a copy rather than him?”

“Of course—thanks—I just hope it doesn't get back to him.”

“Then have someone else call and give his or her address. But you shouldn't be so worried. You have a book contract for it?”

“No, they all want to see the whole work first, intro also.”

“I'll still look for your book when it comes out.”

“His book, but I shouldn't minimize my own part that much. Sounds fake and is, since it's not what I feel at all. But the glasses—what's that?”

“Sammy my cat. Just jumped into my lap. He likes to speak on the phone.”

“Sounds like a baby crying. Siamese?”

“Yes. I'll get him away. No, say something else, Sammy—show him you're no kid; he's twelve.” Sammy says nothing. “Never talks when I ask him to. Gurgles, sometimes moans or hums. Okay, Sammy,” and I put him on the bed, where he rolls over on his back, stretches, wants to be petted. “What about the glasses?” rubbing Sammy's stomach.

“My eyeglasses. Got scratched, so I couldn't use them anymore along with everything else going—wallet, keys, etcetera. Good thing I wasn't also schlepping my one and only typewriter tonight or—”

“If they got your keys and wallet—”

“Only one man did and he wasn't connected to the two who clubbed me, or receivered me, since that's what it should be called. While one man held my arms back the other hit me with a receiver that had been cut from a pay phone. But the man who stole my coat with most of those things in it was just standing there—I thought another innocent observer who was going to watch me get receivered to death—after I'd stepped in to help this newsguy in his stand who was being roughed up and robbed.”

“Still, aren't you afraid he's not right this moment unlocking your door? He has your address and keys.”

“That's what I told the policemen. They said to get a locksmith, but the phone numbers of all-night locksmiths they gave me and some others in the phonebook either didn't answer or were answering machines or the two who did answer said they'd only open my door if I paid them cash on the line.”

“Then you shouldn't have told the second one you had no cash till he opened it.”

“He might've got mad. You can't get away with something like that in this city at one or two in the morning, and you ever see the tools locksmiths have? I've nothing to steal anyway except an old manual typewriter, twenty-dollar radio, lots of classical records with no player, and those other books of Hasenai's and what I've already translated of them, which he'd never take or any of his pals would if he gave them my keys.”

“They won't know you've nothing to steal till they get there. Then they'll turn over your apartment looking for what you don't have or they think you're hiding and all the translations you've done could be destroyed.”

“I doubt anyone will come. Why wouldn't they also think I got in with a spare key someplace and then bolted the door or had the money to have the lock changed tonight? And the guy who grabbed my coat off the sidewalk, where I threw it to defend myself more easily, was an elderly derelict and saw how furiously I defended myself once I got receivered on the head, so I'm sure he'll be happy with just the coat and the wallet he didn't expect to be in it.”

“After all you've gone through tonight, or say you did—”

“I did. If you saw me you'd know.”

“You're a mess?”

“Worse. But nothing spilling out or that hasn't dried by now, so I'll live if I can find a place to bunk down.”

“I'm sure you will. But the police. They can't take the door off for you or the lock?”

“The lock cylinder and they couldn't because all the proof I had on me that I lived there was in the wallet. And to get the proof I have inside that I lived there, I needed proof on me that I lived inside.”

“Then this. You can't expect me to do more. I'll loan you enough cash to pay a locksmith to open the door.”

“Too late for that now, but thanks. Because ‘all-night' doesn't mean all night for them or to the two who answered.”

“I'll make other calls for you. Meanwhile, you should start getting up here. I'll find one, but you can't just stay on the street.”

“Excuse me,” the operator says, “please deposit ten cents—”

“Miss, Miss,” I say, but she keeps talking and then begins repeating the message. “Give me your number there, Dan, quick.”

“Three-two-six, or eight—got that?” he says over the recorded voice. “One-zero, eight or nine I think it is—yes, eight or nine, and then eight. Thirty-two, six or eight, ten eight or nine. And then eight.”

“Give it again. I think I have it but—”

We're cut off.

“326(8) 108(9)8,” I wrote on Leonard's title page. I pick up the receiver, put it down. It's too crazy. And he's got to be lying. Head, phone, locksmiths, newsguy, coat snatcher, numbers scratched out, one and only book and so on, and I drop the manuscript and pen on the floor and shut the light, hoping he won't call back. He does, I'll say “No, goodnight,” hang up, pull the plug out of the jack and go to sleep.

But I can't leave him waiting. It's raw out, or sort of, or was, and if it wasn't all a story he gave just to come up here…I turn on the light, go into the living room, see out the window it's not raining but is very windy, tree branches and some trees—not just the leaves—swaying, thermometer reads 45, but could be ten degrees warmer where he is since I'm sure he's not on the river, and get his book out of the shopping bag. All this fast. Looking for some sign he's real and no fake. He's the one who said he could be but didn't want to and that's the time I really start believing someone's one, but doesn't always have to be so. Jacket photo's real enough. No pose, eyes caught in the act of wanting to avoid the camera. Fine, but if he was faking it, then again trying to present himself as he wasn't. But photo was at least four years ago. His actions at the party. Seemed real and honest enough. He was attracted to me, came over—all right, at the last moment, but could mean he was shy but could overcome that shyness if he thought the person he was attracted to was about to leave, or that he's not so shy but wanted to give the impression he was because a shy person was what he thought I'd be attracted to. Could also mean other things, but don't forget my actions to him. I was attracted too. He knew that. Only man I was like that to at this and maybe my last five parties. I was looking at him on and off for half an hour before he stopped me at the door, caught him looking at me several times, hoped he'd come over and then gave up he would. Right before I left I thought I'd ask Diana about him in a few days and if she said he was available and all right, maybe try to get her to encourage him to call me. I also thought of going over to him and saying “Odd as this familiar approach must sound coming to you from a woman, or maybe I'm a bit out of date and don't know what approaches women have raised themselves to make to men today, but you look familiar—do we know one another from some place?” But I find that hard to do to a man even when I do know him from some place. But fast, he's out there, waiting, it's got to be cold, might start to rain, so what's it to be, call or not? Maybe he intuited I wouldn't call back and has left. Thinking right now, block or two from where he called: “Knew it would never work; clever girl, can't be conned.” But if his story's real? “Stinking bitch, knows my head's aching, maybe bleeding, I've no money, and in this freaking weather? Least she could have done was call to say she didn't want to keep me waiting out here and she's turning in.” Fool, go to a hospital if your head's really bashed, but if your story was bunk, then bad try and goddamn gall, calling so late.