Found in the Street (8 page)

“You mean I'll see my face on the printed page?”

Jack laughed. “I'll let you know.”

She lifted her right arm in good-bye, then turned and trotted toward the corner where Grove met Bleecker.

Jack shoved his hands in his back pockets and hopped up the steps. Now it was he who had to ring the bell for Susanne to let him in. Susanne had her keys, Jack had seen them in her hand. Sometimes she had them and pushed the downstairs bell, as if to warn them of her advent. Jack found the apartment door slightly open for him.

Susanne was washing something at the sink, and she had put away all the groceries.

Jack stood in the kitchen doorway. “How's the thesis going?” Jack suddenly remembered what it was on, though at other times it went out of his head: family ties and relationships in the Thirteen Colonies during the period of the American Revolution.

“Oh-h—don't ask me,” Susanne said, squeezing out a sponge. “I
am
going to finish it by the end of November. I'm retyping now. But a book on this very subject just came out and I ordered—”

“Don't read it! How long is this going to go on?”

“But you should see the reviews of this book!—Oh, well—” She turned her freckled face toward Jack, and smiled, sadly.

Susanne just now was as unmade-up as Elsie Tyler, in sloppy brown corduroys, a cardigan over her blouse, brown loafers. Susanne was all practicality, even if she hadn't yet finished her thesis. She intended to be a history teacher, and was aiming at a university place. She had a boyfriend named Michael, an assistant professor somewhere, and like her thesis the Michael affair had been going on quietly for at least two years.

“What's the latest about the ‘Dreams' book, Jack?” she asked.

“I took the drawings in yesterday.—Nice of you to ask. The art editor's seen half of them, but yesterday I took the whole batch, twenty-four or so. This is Dartmoor, Aegis.”

“I can see you're anxious,” Susanne said in her calm, almost sleepy voice. “I think they're fascinating, Jack. They're funny and serious at the same time.”

That was what he wanted, Jack supposed. He watched Susanne open a brown leather briefcase, the one she nearly always had with her, on the rectangular white table in the dining area. She slid out a couple of books and some papers. Susanne was staying for the evening, until Jack and Natalia got back from the theater between 11 and 12. Jack was to pick Natalia up at the Katz Gallery at 6.

When Jack arrived at the gallery, he had to wait while Natalia took a telephone call at the desk in the foyer. Then she went down the hall to wash her hands which were visibly grimy, because she and Isabel had been handling frames and wires and whatnot. Jack noticed two Pintos on the foyer's walls, both dominated by the bluish-red color which Jack particularly disliked, with superimposed silvery circles of varying sizes in both pictures. What did people see in such witless compositions? The maroon was tired, ugly and depressing all at once. Natalia with her bland salesmanship had raked in thousands of dollars in the past weeks by selling the stuff, even before the show. “The money from this stuff lets Isabel promote a good artist,” Natalia had said to Jack. “Maybe a young guy or a girl who needs a show. Don't ask me why Pinto sells.”

Jack watched Isabel, in limp jeans with frayed cuffs, emptying standing ashtrays, finally the wastebasket by Natalia's desk, putting out the lights in the big front room which had windows on the street. The Katz Gallery officially closed at 6 p.m.

“Had a good day, Isabel?” Jack was standing with a topcoat, which Natalia had asked him to bring, folded over his arms. Isabel was so busy, she hadn't noticed him.

“Hi, Jack! Yes, a good day, thanks, and I'm weary!” Isabel said cheerfully.

Natalia came back. “Ready!” She put on the coat that Jack held for her.

They took a taxi to West Forty-second Street, near where the play was, and went into the Blarney Rock Pub for a quick drink and a snack. Natalia ordered a cup of chile along with her scotch and water. She and Isabel between them had sold a picture by one Howard Branston, a name that meant nothing to Jack, and who Natalia said was “an unknown.” Natalia had had it leaning against the wall rather near her desk, and someone who came in had happened to like it, and had asked the price.

“I just said—fifteen hundred dollars, off the top of my head,” Natalia said, “and I went back to ask Isabel. She said, ‘My God, for that thing? Well, try it.' So it went for that. Isabel said she'd been about to return it to this Branston, that's why she'd put it in the foyer today, to remind herself.”

“Maybe Isabel should show her pictures leaning against the wall,” Jack said, “so they'd look less intimidating.” He was admiring Natalia's handsome, unpretty face, her special style in the black satin blouse which she'd taken from the house to wear tonight. He was thinking how much more interesting, important, consequently sexy Natalia was, than the child-faced girl called Elsie Tyler, exciting as she was in a strange way. He glanced at his watch. They had plenty of time, another quarter of an hour. They were going to see Sam Shepard's
Fool for Love.

8

Two days later, on a Saturday morning, Jack received a letter from Dartmoor, Aegis. The typewritten initials above the logo on the envelope were T.E.W., so Jack knew it was from Trews, as he was called, the art editor. This was Trelawney E. Watson, whom Jack had met briefly with Joel weeks ago. Jack expected a letter saying that he liked the drawings, because Trews had liked the ones Jack had showed him so far, but that he had a few “suggestions for changes.” Art editors always had.

Standing by a front window, Jack opened the letter.

Dear Mr. Sutherland:

A note to say that I think your twenty-eight drawings are brilliant. Each has a freedom and freshness, and I wouldn't want to say add something or take something out—in short, do the drawing over, because you might not do it as well. These come out like doodles, personal and real. Well, they're certainly not real, but I mean they look as if you hadn't strained.

Congratulations.

Trews

Trelawney E. Watson

Jack smiled, looked around the living-room without seeing anything, and felt his heart beating harder for a few seconds. From
Trews.
Well, well, he was in! Should he call up Joel and tell him? No, cool it, Jack told himself. Joel might be getting a letter from Dartmoor, Aegis this morning too, in regard to a contract. Surely the drawings' approval would mean a contract.

It was around 9 a.m., and Natalia was still asleep. Susanne had taken Amelia off to the zoo earlier, and had charge of Amelia all day. And Natalia was due at the gallery by noon.

Jack had been up early, and had gone out for a run down Bedford Street, and over to Hudson and back again. He had spotted the guy called Ralph airing God, and if Jack hadn't been mistaken, he had raised a hand or a finger as if he wished to speak to him, but Jack had pretended not to see him. Imagine getting stuck at 6 in the morning in a track suit, having to listen to a lecture on human goodness, maybe, morals, as Elsie Tyler had said?

He looked at Trews' note again, and noticed a tiny “over” in the bottom corner of the page. The words on the back were in longhand:

I know of another project that might interest you. Call me soon.

The day was starting well! Jack went to his workroom and looked at his latest sketch for a painting. He was trying for a composition of balance, a look of floating tranquillity that he so admired in some of Braque's abstracts, and he was working with pencil, eraser and color pencils. Was it good to try hard, he wondered, or was it fatal? Out of perhaps twenty-five paintings that Jack had done and kept, four or five really pleased him. Should he stick to drawing? Would he be asking himself the same question ten years from now, still trying to paint? Yes, probably.

By the time Natalia got up, Jack had made fresh coffee and had set the kitchen table for a breakfast of croissants that he had picked up earlier. He showed Natalia the note from Trews.

Natalia pronounced it “marvelous.” “I hope they do some advertising. That should be in the contract. What's the price again?”

“Someone there said sixteen ninety-five. Too bad it's a slender book. At
that
price.”

“People pay for drawings,” Natalia said calmly, biting into a croissant. “I'll tell Isabel—ask her to have a few of the books on a table in the gallery.—1 think she already offered.”

Jack was in his workroom when Natalia parted the curtains to say she was leaving.

“Back around six-thirty, I hope. I straightened up Amelia's room a little. Might inspire Susanne to do some more. Gad, what an untidy little girl!” Natalia said, emphasizing the last two words.

Jack laughed.

A couple of minutes after the sound of the apartment door closing, Jack yielded to his impulse to call Joel MacPherson.

Joel answered on the ninth ring, sounding breathless. “I was just going out shopping—had to open the door again.”

“Can't you send Terry out shopping?”

“Terry's not here. You think she lives with me?”

“I don't ask rude questions.”

“Then cut out your in-sin-uendos,” Joel said.

“I'm calling because—1 had a nice note from Trews. He likes my stuff. No changes.”

“No kidding! No changes! That means a contract. Thank you, Jack.”

“Show you his note some time. He's almost poetic about how much he likes 'em.—Go down and get your own mail.”

Then all was quiet and Jack worked, oblivious of what the time might be. He was trying his colors, brown, pale green, dusty yellow, imagining them in oil. The yellow was an almond shape, floating. He propped the sketch up on the table, and stepped back to look at it.

The doorbell sounded, briefly.

“Dammit,” Jack murmured. It could be kids playing tricks on a Saturday morning. He opened the apartment door, intending to go down to see who it was before he pushed the release button, and heard murmurs, then the soft but clear voice of Susanne, then Amelia's. Jack hadn't been expecting them back before late afternoon, and was a bit annoyed. He leaned over the hall rail, and when they were on the second floor, he called:

“Something the matter, Susanne?”

“No, Jack.—Amelia needs a coat.”

It was getting cold out, Susanne reported. Amelia said she already
had
a cold, and Susanne told her she had not, and to stop exaggerating. Susanne had brought some lunch, something from her own house made by her mother, and asked Jack if he wanted to join them, and Jack declined.

“We'll shut the kitchen door, Jack, so you won't hear any noise. You probably want to work,” Susanne said.

Jack did. The two were going to take off after lunch.

“Oh, something in the mailbox downstairs, Jack. I'd have brought it, but I haven't the key now, you know.”

“I got the mail this morning. Does it look important?” The mailbox had a flower-shaped design in its front through which one could see.

“Can't tell. White envelope. Want me to go down?”

“No, no, I'll go.”

Jack went down out of curiosity. The envelope had no stamp and was addressed in longhand to John M. Sutherland with street address and zip code. He was about to open it, when he saw Mrs. Farley on the sidewalk with her little two-wheel trolley full of groceries, so Jack carried it up the front steps for her, then up the first flight, because she lived on the second floor. Mrs. Farley was over seventy, and lived alone.

“That's very kind of you, Mr. Sutherland! My, you've got strength!”

“Huff! Puff! A pleasure, Mrs. Farley!” Jack grinned. He made sure she got the trolley into her apartment hall, then went up the stairs.

The letter was from Ralph Linderman, Jack saw, and was handwritten. He began reading with a puzzled frown that deepened as he went on.

Sat. a.m.

Dear Mr. Sutherland,

I think a letter to you is less of an intrusion than a telephone call and maybe also I can be clearer. This is about Elsie—I am sure you know her name by now—whom I saw coming out of your house with you yesterday. I do not know what went on between you. Elsie is a very impressionable young girl, very soft in the sense that her character is unformed. She can easily be led astray and it has already begun. She has recently—very recently—come to this big city, does not know how to protect herself, and I know she has already fallen into what by anybody's standards would be called bad company. I believe the girl with whom she shares an apartment is a common prostitute, though very young also. Elsie has not much money and you know the temptations.

You are a married man but many a married man has gotten in trouble, and not because he wanted to. Two things could happen. Elsie could try, in her ways, to get money from you, or one of the hoodlums she associates with could for some reason decide to attack you. Nothing is impossible in this huge city in which so many half­insane people live. I am thinking of the best interests of you and Elsie both. If I may say so, with no intrusion meant or offense meant, I think it is best if you and she do not see each other again.

I would like to say a few more words to you on the subject, if you are willing to listen. If not, please take my words here as they are meant—kindly, constructively, hopefully.

Yours sincerely,

Ralph Linderman

The old guy was full of wild imaginings, with a salacious slant to them. The letter made Jack feel uneasy, somehow menaced. It was on two sides of a sheet of typewriter paper, which most people didn't have in the house, Jack thought. Was Ralph Linderman writing fiction in his spare time? Essays on morals? His handwriting was smallish, legible, all letters in each word connected.

The thing to do was ignore it, Jack thought. Attention, more talk was just what the old guy wanted. But it irked Jack that Ralph Linderman seemed to be patroling the neighborhood, even to Jack's very doorstep. Jack had no plan to ask Elsie to come and sit for him, but suppose he had? Who was this nut to make a fuss about it? Ralph Linderman had not put a return address on the envelope. Jack went to the telephone book and looked up Linderman. Rather to his surprise, since he hadn't expected Linderman to have a private telephone, he found a Linderman, Ralph W., on Bleecker Street, where Elsie had said he lived. It gave a degree of respectability to Linderman, and Jack didn't like even that.

Jack had thought of telling Natalia that evening about Elsie and her surprise visit, and her connection with the man who had returned his wallet, but he hadn't told her, because they had talked so much about the play
Fool for Love,
which Natalia had liked more than he. But Jack felt that if he told Natalia about Elsie, and then about Linderman's letter of this morning, it might be only disturbing to Natalia, and not funny enough to warrant telling for amusement value.

He remembered a morning about three weeks ago, when he and Amelia had gone out together to buy something at Rossi's, and Amelia had suddenly pointed a finger and said, “Look! There's that man you
drew,
Daddy! With the dog!” And so it had been, Ralph Linderman across the street (Bleecker) watching God lifting his leg. “You're not going to say hello to him?” Jack had replied, no, not now, and had tugged his daughter along.

Ralph kept odd hours. That was an added nuisance, making Jack think of a three-man, round-the-clock, eight-hour-shift eye on him. The girl Elsie kept odd hours. But matter of fact, so did he, working sometimes till 2 a.m., and if he felt hungry, he went out for a hamburger at some all-night place in the neighborhood.

Jack decided to ignore Ralph Linderman, pretend not to see him or hear him, if Linderman tried to talk to him on the street. Linderman would tire of the game, maybe switch to someone else Elsie might be seeing.

Since Ralph Linderman seemed to walk God along Bedford, Jack began to avoid that street on his morning runs, which he did not take every day anyway, and head west for Hudson on Grove. And sometimes Natalia was in the mood in the early mornings, came half awake and awakened him with a slide of her arm across his waist, a part of his body—of all places—which was the most erotogenic for him, at least at the beginning of things. Often Natalia fell into sound sleep afterward, which pleased Jack because it made him think he had pleased her, and he would awaken her later with a cup of black coffee, if she had to get up for some reason, and otherwise let her sleep until she awakened.

The following week brought a small disappointment and a small note of cheer. The disappointment was that the book offered to Jack to illustrate was vulgar, strained and unfunny, in Jack's opinion. This was from another publishing house called Flagship. It was nothing more than a joke book—Joel's
Half-Understood
Dreams
was a novel by comparison—so Jack declined politely. A glance at the manuscript or joke pages in the office was enough. One of the jokes had a crude pun on the word cockpit. John Sutherland's drawings were supposed to make and sell the book, Jack supposed. Surely Trews hadn't known what junk it was. Jack did not like the editor with whom he had to speak either, or maybe by association with the joke book did not like him, so Jack wildly elevated his prices. “I'm asking a thousand a drawing now, plus royalties to be adjusted, and . . .” Did the editor believe him? His eyes went wide, anyway, and perhaps the news of his price would get around, which, as Natalia would say, wouldn't hurt. Jack decided not to mention this hiccup to Trews, unless Trews asked him about the Flagship interview.

The bright spot was a postcard from Elaine and Max Armstrong, their favorite neighbors, who lived on West Eleventh Street. They were coming back from Paris in early November and wrote that they hoped Natalia and Jack would be on Grove. Max was a lawyer, nearly forty, and had been sent to Paris for four months by his firm. The Armstrongs had a six-year-old son, Jason, a fact which had led to their meeting the Armstrongs at the Little People's Theatre in the Village. Elaine worked for an interior decorating company, and was several years younger than Max. It was Max's second marriage.

“I missed them,” Natalia said a few minutes after she had read their postcard. She said it in the earnest way she had sometimes, frowning a little, not looking at Jack, as if she were thinking out loud. At such uncomplicated moments, Jack adored her.

She had made an equally simple remark about the Shepard play,
Fool for Love.
“I can see how a half-brother and half-sister could be in love more intensely than people who aren't related.” Natalia thought there was a strong drive toward incest in everyone, which was why a tabu had been put upon it. She spoke of little siblings crawling around on the floor together, and Jack remarked that in the play the two hadn't met till they were about fifteen. “They still knew then that they were half-brother and -sister,” Natalia had said, “and what I'm talking about is as primitive as sibling kittens mating as soon as they're able to.” Jack understood her words, but did not understand the emotion she was talking about, not when it was attached to people. That often happened to him with Natalia.