Six Stories (7 page)

‘Merry Christmas, Willie,’ the owner of the hand says. Blind Willie recognizes him by the smell of his cologne.

‘Merry Christmas, Officer Wheelock,’ Willie responds. His head remains tilted upward in a faintly questioning posture; his hands hang at his sides; his feet in their brightly polished jumpboots remain apart in a stance not quite wide enough to be parade rest but nowhere near tight enough to pass as attention. ‘How are you today, sir?’

‘In the pink, motherfucker,’ Wheelock says. ‘You know me, always in the pink.’

Here comes a man in a topcoat hanging open over a bright red ski sweater. His hair is short, black on top, gray on the sides. His face has got a stern, carved look Blind Willie recognizes at once. He’s got a couple of handle-top bags - one from Saks, one from Bally - in his hands. He stops and reads the sign.

‘Con Thien?’ he asks suddenly, speaking not as a man does when naming a place but as one does when recognizing an old acquaintance on a busy street.

‘Yes, sir,’ Blind Willie says.

‘Who was your CO?’

‘Lieutenant Bob Grissum - with a ‘u,’ not an ‘o’ - and above him, Colonel Andrew Shelf, sir.’

‘I heard of Shelf,’ says the man in the open coat. His face suddenly looks different. As he walked toward the man on the corner, it looked as if it belonged on Fifth Avenue. Now it doesn’t. ‘Never met him, though.’

Blind Willie says nothing. He can smell Wheelocks’ cologne, though, stronger than ever, and the man is practically panting in his ear, sounding like a horny kid at the end of a hot date. Wheelock has never bought his act, and although Blind Willie pays for the privilege of being left alone on this corner, and quite handsomely by going rates, he knows that part of Wheelock is still cop enough to hope he’ll fuck up. Part of Wheelock is actively rooting for that. But what the Wheelocks of the world never understand is that what looks fake isn’t always fake. Sometimes the issues are a little more complicated than they look at first glance. That was something else the Nam had to teach him, back in the years before it became a political joke and a crutch for hack filmwriters.

‘Sixty-seven was a hard year,’ the gray-haired man says. He speaks in a slow, heavy voice. ‘I was at Loc Ninh when the regulars tried to overrun the place. Up by the ‘Bodian border. Do you remember Loc Ninh?’

‘Ah, yes, sir,’ Blind Willie says. ‘I lost two friends on Tory Hill.’

‘Tory Hill,’ the man in the open coat says, and all at once he looks a thousand years old, the bright red ski sweater an obscenity, like something hung on a museum mummy by vandals who believe they are exhibiting a sense of humor. His eyes are off over a hundred horizons. Then they come back here, to this street where a nearby carillion is playing the one that goes I hear those sleighbells jingling, ring-ting tingling too. He sets his bags down between his expensive shoes and takes a pigskin wallet out from an inner pocket. He opens it, riffles through a neat thickness of bills.

‘Son all right, Teale?’ he asks. ‘Making good grades?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘How old?’

‘Twenty one, sir.’

‘God willing, he’ll never know what it’s like to see his friends die and then get spit on in an airport concourse,’ the man in the open topcoat says. He takes a bill out of his wallet. Blind Willie feels as well as hears Wheelock’s little gasp and hardly has to look at the bill to know it is a hundred.

‘Yes, sir, God willing, sir.’

The man in the topcoat touches Willie’s hand with the bill, looks surprised when the gloved hand pulls back, as if it were bare and had been touched by something hot.

‘Put it in my case, sire, if you would,’ Blind Willie says.

The man in the topcoat looks at him for a moment, eyebrows raised, frowning slightly, then seems to understand. He stoops, puts the bill in the case, then reaches into his front pocket and brings out a small handful of change. This he scatters across the face of old Ben Franklin, in order to hold the bill down. Then he stands up. His eyes are wet and bloodshot.

‘Do you any good to give you my card?’ he asks Blind Willie. ‘I can put you in touch with several veterans’ organizations.’

‘Thank you, sir, I’m sure you could, but I must respectfully decline.’

‘Tried most of them?’

‘Tried some, yes sir.’

‘Where’d you V.A.?’

‘San Francisco, sir.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘The Pussy Palace, sir.’

The man in the topcoat laughs heartily at this, and when his face crinkles, the tears which have been standing in his eyes run down his weathered cheeks. ‘Pussy Palace! he cries. ‘I haven’t heard that in fifteen years! Christ! A bedpan in every bed, and a naked nurse to hold it in place, right? Except for the lovebeads, which they left on.’

‘Yes, sir, that about covers it, sir.’

‘Or uncovers it. Merry Christmas, soldier.’ The man in the topcoat ticks off a little one-finger salute.

‘Merry Christmas to you, sir.’

The man in the topcoat picks up his bags again and walks off. He doesn’t look back. Blind Willie would not have seen him do so if he had; his vision is now down to ghosts and shadows.

‘That was beautiful,’ Wheelock murmurs. The feeling of Wheellocks freshly used air puffing into the cup of his ear is hateful to Blind Willie - gruesome, in fact - but he will not give the man the pleasure of moving his head so much as an inch. ‘The old fuck was actually crying. As I’m sure you saw. But can talk the talk, Willie, I’ll give you that much.’

Willie said nothing.

‘Some V.A. hospital called the Pussy Palace, huh?’ Wheelock asks. ‘Sounds like my kind of place. Where’d you read about it, Soldier of Fortune?’

The shadow of a woman, a dark shape in a darkening day, bends over the open case and drops something in. A gloved hand touches Willies glove hand and squeezes briefly. ‘God bless you.’ she says.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

The shadow moves off. The little puffs of breath in Blind Willie’s ear do not.

‘You got something for me, pal?’ Wheelock asks.

Blind Willie reaches into his jacket pocket. He brings out the envelope and holds it out, jabbing the chilly, unseen air with it. It is snatched from his fingers as soon as Wheelock can track it down and get hold of it.

‘You asshole!’ There’s a touch of panic as well as anger in the cop’s voice. ‘How many times have I told you, palm it, palm it!’

Blind Willie says a lot more nothing - he is giving a sermon of silence this morning.

‘How much?’ Wheelock asks after a moment.

‘Three hundred.’ Blind Willie says. ‘Three hundred dollars, Officer Wheelock.’

This is greeted by a little thinking silence, but he takes a step back from Blind Willie, and the puffs of breath in his ear diffuse a little. Blind Willie is grateful for small favors.

‘That’s okay,’ Wheelock says at last. ‘This time. But a new year’s coming, pal, and your friend Jasper the Police-Smurf has a piece of land in upstate New York that he wants to build a little cabańa on. You understand? The price of poker is going up.’

Blind Willie says nothing, but he is listening very, very carefully now. If this were all, all would be well. But Wheeelock’s voice suggests it isn’t all.

‘Actually, the cabańa isn’t the important part,’ Wheelock goes on, confirming Blind Willie’s assessment of the situation. ‘The important thing is I need a little better compensation if I have to deal with a lowlife fuck like you.’ Genuine anger is creeping into his voice. ‘How you can do this every day - even at Christmas - man, I don’t know. People who beg, that’s one thing, but a guy like you … you’re no more blind than I am.’

Oh, you’re lots blinder than me, Blind Willie thinks, but still he holds his peace.

‘And you’re doing okay, aren’t you? Probably not as good as that PTL fuck they busted and sent to the callabozo, but you must clear what? A grand a day, this time a year? Two grand?’

He is way low, but Blind Willie does not, of course, correct him. The miscalculation is actually music to his ears. It means that his silent partner is not watching him too closely or frequently … not yet, anyway. But he doesn’t like the anger in Wheelock’s voice. Anger is like a wild card in a poker game.

‘And you’re no more blind than I am,’ Wheelock repeats. Apparently this is the part that really gets him. ‘Hey, pal, you know what? I ought to follow you some night when you get off work, you know? See what you do.’ He pauses. ‘Who you turn into.’

For a moment Blind Willie actually stops breathing … then he starts again.

‘You wouldn’t want to do that Officer Wheelock,’ he says.

I wouldn’t, huh? Why not, Willie? Why not? You lookin out for my welfare, is that it? Afraid I might kill the shitass who lays the golden turds? Hey, thirty six hundred a year ain’t all that much when you weigh it against a commendation, maybe a promotion.’ He pauses. When he speaks again, his voice has a dreamy quality which Willie finds especially alarming. ‘I could be in the Post. HERO COP BUSTS HEARTLESS SCAM ARTIST ON FIFTH AVENUE.’

‘You’d be in the Post all right, but there wouldn’t be any commendation,’ Blind Willie says. ‘No promotion, either. In fact, you’d be out on the street, Officer Wheelock, looking for a job. You could skip applying for one with the security companies, though - a man who’ll take a payoff can’t be bonded.’

It is Wheelock’s turn to stop breathing. When he starts again, the puffs of breath in Blind Willie’s ear have become a hurricane; the cop’s moving mouth is almost on his skin. ‘What do you mean?’ he whispers. A hand settles on the arm of Blind Willie’s field jacket. ‘You just tell me what the fuck you mean.’

But Blind Willie is silent, hands at his sides, head slightly raised, looking attentively into the darkness that will not clear until daylight is almost gone, and on his face is that lack of expression which so many passersby read as ruined pride, bruised grace, courage brought low but still somehow intact. It is that, not the sign or the dark glasses, which has allowed him to do so well over the years … and Wheelock is wrong: he is blind. They both are blind.

The hand on his arm shakes him slightly. It is almost a claw now. ‘You got a friend? Is that it, you son of a bitch? Is that why you hold the envelope out that way half the damned time? You got a friend taking my picture? Is that it?’

Blind Willie says nothing, has to say nothing. People like Jasper Wheelock will always think the worst if you let them. You only have to give them time to do it.

‘You don’t want to fuck with me, pal’ Wheelock says viciously, but there is a subtle undertone of worry in his voice, and the hand on Blind Willie’s jacket loosens. ‘We’re going up to four hundred a month starting next week, and if you try playing any games with me, I’m going to show you where the real playground is. You understand me?’

Blind Willie says nothing. The puffs of air stop hitting his ear, and he knows Wheelock is going. But not yet; the nasty little puffs come back.

‘You’ll burn in hell for what you’re doing,’ Wheelock tells him. He speaks with great, almost fervent, sincerity. ‘What I’m doing when I take your dirty money is a venial sin - I asked the priest, so I’m sure - but yours is mortal. You’re going to hell, see how many handouts you get down there.’

He walks away then, an Willie’s thought - that he is glad to see him go - causes a rare smile to touch his face. It comes and goes like an errant ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

1:40 P.M.

Three times he has banded the bills into rolls and dumped the change into the bottom of the case (this is really a storage function, and not an effort at concealment), now working completely by touch. He can no longer see the money, doesn’t know a one from a hundred, but he senses he is having a very good day, indeed. There is no pleasure in the knowledge, however. There’s never very much, pleasure is not what Blind Willie is about, but even the sense of accomplishment he might have felt on another day has been muted by his conversation with Officer Wheelock.

At quarter to twelve, a young woman with a pretty voice - to Blind Willie she sounds like Whitney Houston - comes out of Saks and gives him a cup of hot coffee, as she does most days at this time. At quarter past, another woman - this one not so young, and probably white - brings him a cup of steaming chicken noodle soup. He thanks them both. The white lady kisses his cheek, calls him Will instead of Willie, and wishes him the merriest of merry Christmases.

There is a counterbalancing side to the day, though; there almost always is. Around one o’clock a teenage kid with his unseen posse laughing and joking and skylarking all around him speaks out of the darkness to Blind Willie’s left, says he is one ugly motherfuck, then asks if he wears those gloves because he burned his fingers off trying to read the waffle iron. He and his friends charge off, howling with laughter at this ancient jape. Fifteen minutes or so later, someone kicks him, although that might have been an accident. Every time he bends over to the case, however, the case is right there. It is a city of hustlers, muggers, and thieves, but the case is right there, just as it has always been right there.

And through it all, he thinks about Wheelock.

The cop before Wheelock was easy; the one who comes when Wheelock either quits the force or gets moved out of Midtown North may also be easy. Wheelock will not last forever - something else he has learned in the Nam - and in the meantime, he, Blind Willie, must bend like a reed in a windstorm. Except that sometimes even the reed that bends is broken … if the wind blows hard enough.

Wheelock wants more money, but that isn’t what bothers the man in the dark glasses and the army coat. Sooner or later they all want more money: when he started on this corner, he paid Officer Hanratty a hundred and a quarter, and although Hanratty was easy, he had Blind Willie up to two hundred a month by the time he retired in 1989. But Wheelock was angry this morning, angry, and Wheelock talked about having consulted a priest. These things worry him, but what worries him most of all is what Wheelock said about following him. See what you do. Who you turn into.

It would be easy, God knows - what could be simpler than shadowing a blind man, or even one who can see little more than shadows? Watching him turn into some hotel (one on the uptown side, this time), watching him go into the public men’s room, watching him go into a stall? Watching him change from Blind Willie into plain old Willie, maybe even from Willie into Bill?