Strange Trades (5 page)

Down the sidewalk a block away from the sandwich shop a man walked absentmindedly along. He had a thick, ginger-colored beard, longish hair under a Mets cap. He wore sneakers, jeans and a baseball shirt that bore the legend SPONSORED BY HONEYMAN’S HEROES on the back. He was trim, gracile rather than muscular. Twenty years ago, he had been certified a world-class diver. Good genes and a moderate appetite, rather than any strenuous regimen of exercise, had helped him keep his youthful build.

The man walked past a dry cleaner, a bookstore, a bar, a bodega, a botanica. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans, jingling a few coins; he whistled a shapeless tune.

When he arrived at the sandwich shop, he grasped the worn handle of the door without noticing the closed sign, and attempted to enter. When the door did not immediately open, he seemed baffled. It took him a moment to decide there was no mistake on his part. He looked at the illustration of the gargantuan sandwich above the door. He studied the fingerprinted placard. Shading his eyes, he peered through the window at the darkened interior of the store. Had he possessed a driver’s license, he would in all likelihood have removed it from his wallet and examined it just to verify that he was indeed Rory Honeyman, and that this was his place of business.

Having made up his mind that the forlorn shop was, after all, his establishment, and that it was still locked up tight when it should have been opened for an hour in anticipation of the lunch-time rush, Honeyman stepped back from the door and muttered two words: “Goddamn Nerfball.” Then he pivoted and stalked away, with an angry determination.

Honeyman walked north on Washington until he came to Fourteenth Street. The smell of coffee grew stronger, then weakened. At Fourteenth, he turned east, toward the river. The neighborhood became dingier, poorer, unkempt. Abandoned buildings alternated with tough-looking lounges (ladies welcome) and apartments sporting broken windows patched with cardboard and tape. Factories and warehouses began to predominate. A fish- processing plant exuded a maritime stench. A cat prowled hopefully outside the building. Honeyman thought he recognized Cardinal Ratzinger.

The cross-town street finally dead-ended at the Hudson. A rusty chain-link fence separated the street from a flat wasteland of weeds studded with abandoned tires, plastic bags, shopping carts, car hulks.… Across the sprawling river Manhattan reared in all its grimy glory.

At Honeyman’s left stood a building. Before it, Honeyman paused, his former certainty of purpose momentarily faltering.

The problem: whether to enter the door before him or not. If he entered, he might possibly find his missing employee, and thus be able to open his store before he missed the entire lunch-hour trade. On the other hand, it was just as likely that he would encounter some bizarre event-in-progress that would draw him, whirlpool-like, into its centrifugal embrace, shanghai and waylay him with voices and flesh, drink and dope, schemes and plots, and completely waste his entire afternoon. Maybe even the whole day. A week. A month. A year. The rest of his life? Who knew? It had happened before, to others.… But wasn’t he wasting his life now already? Hadn’t he been for twenty years, since that single im- plosive day, under the Mexican sun, where his life had collapsed, impelled by his own impulsive actions, down to a singularity, infinitely dense, inescapable, poignant with the foreclosure of everything outside itself? Hush now, son, that’s a question for 3 a.m., if ever, not a bright June afternoon.…

So Honeyman contemplated the building before him a moment longer.

The structure was five stories tall, composed all of muted red brick, aged by over a century of weather. The uppermost courses of brick were embellished with decorative motifs, achieved by the ingenious stacking of master masons: herringbone, twill, cross- hatching. Copper flashing, long verdigrised, ran around the eaves, surprisingly unvandalized for a building deemed abandoned. The roof was of slate, in decent repair. The windows were all painted black. The building occupied an entire large city block.

At one corner of the building, closest to the river, reared an enormous square smokestack, capped at the top with more brick embellishment.

There was a door directly in front of Honeyman. In point of fact, there were three doors. The first was twelve feet high and ten across, actually a double door of two leaves. Made of thick planks once painted green, but now peeling to reveal bare splintery wood, the two halves of this door were secured with a chain and an enormous, rusting padlock that appeared at least fifty years old. Inset in this door was a more conventional-sized one, with an old-fashioned latch. It was this one Honeyman considered entering. At the foot of the person-sized door was the third, a pet door. (Honeyman might have employed this entrance, had he wished. Others often had.) This upper-hinged small entrance bore a legend in a lovely calligraphic hand which Honeyman recognized as that of Suki Netsuke. It read: the cardinal.

The lintel of the largest door was a huge piece of Jersey limestone, mortared into the brick wall on either side. Carved into the soft stone was the legend:

1838 OLD VAULT BREWERY 1938

The later date was executed in stark Futura, the earlier in wasp-waisted Baskerville.

Honeyman, a few feet from the triple portal, listened. There was no noise from inside. This could be either a good or bad sign. It paid to remember that some of the most insane schemes of the Beer Nuts had been hatched in relative quiet. Thunder and lightning and apparitions on the Capitoline Hill did not attend the birth of every Caesar. On the other hand, everyone could be innocently sleeping. There was simply no way to tell.

Tossing caution to the cafe au fish-scented winds, Honeyman stepped forward and opened the middle-sized door, which swung inward. He stuck his head and shoulders into the dark. “Yo, folks. It’s me, Rory. Is anyone home? Earl? Hilario?”

There was no answer. Honeyman, his eyes sensitized to outdoor light-levels, could see nothing in the midnight interior. Sighing, he stepped fully inside and shut the door.

Vast hulking shapes loomed about him. Brew kettles, pipes, mash vats—all the original equipment of the long-defunct brewery remained, covered by decades of dust.

Honeyman took a few tentative steps forward, hands outstretched. People moved around frequently here, changing their nesting locations according to complex social interactions. Honeyman hadn’t visited the Beer Nuts in months, and had no idea in what spot Nerfball might be hibernating now.

Shuffling along in the musty dark, Honeyman cursed softly. All he wanted was to reclaim his employee and start making sandwiches. Instead, he was forced to play Blindman’s Bluff. Growing angrier and more impatient, he unwisely picked up his pace.

Suddenly his foot caught the edge of something soft, body or mattress. Unprepared, he lost his balance and felt himself going down.

Honeyman landed heavily atop a lumpy something. A man grunted, a woman screamed. Make that “someone.” Two someones.

Feeling that discretion required him to remain still, lest he unintentionally exacerbate the situation, Honeyman did not move. A match scratched on its gritty strip, a candle flared.

Honeyman discovered that he was lying crosswise atop Earl Erlkonig and Suki Netsuke, who were, in turn, reclining upon a stained, bare mattress. The situation would have been less embarrassing had the pair not been mostly unclothed, and had Netsuke not been Honeyman’s ex-lover.

“Hi, Rory,” said Netsuke coyly. Her half-Japanese features were as appealing to Honeyman as ever. Her skin was the color of pumpkin pie, her nipples the brown found at the pie’s edges. Propped up on one elbow, she reached modestly for an article of clothing, found nothing to hand, and shrugged off her nudity.

“Hey, molecule,” said Erlkonig, “nice of you to drop by.” He extended a queerly colored hand, and Honeyman shook it.

Earl Erlkonig was a young Black man who also happened to be an albino. His hair was a thatch of short kinky platinum wires. His complexion was the color of weak tea attenuated by lots of cream. His eyes were a watery gray.

Netsuke squirmed devilishly beneath Honeyman, and Erlkonig said, “Uh, if you wouldn’t mind.…”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry.”

Honeyman pushed himself up into a kneeling position beside the mattress.

“Thanks,” said Erlkonig. He discovered a pair of Jockey shorts and skinned them on, still lying down. Netsuke, meanwhile, had donned a T-shirt.

The light and noise had drawn a crowd. Honeyman looked up to find himself the focus of a circle of curious faces: a majority of the permanent Beer Nuts.

Ped Xing, the only man in the world to profess both Orthodox Judaism and Zen monkhood. Long side curls contrasted rather sharply with his shaven pate.

Hilario Fumento, unpublished writer with a curious artistic philosophy, his pockets filled with the materials of his trade: call slips and pencil stubs filched from the public library.

Beatbox, a Hispanic fellow currently employed as a Balloon-O-Gram deliveryman, and also currently wearing his work clothes: a complete clown suit and white face.

Leather ’n’ Studs, the inseparable lesbian couple.

Hy Rez, resident hacker and phone phreak, who provided the Beer Nuts with essential communication services.

Prominent among the missing was Nerfball, the one person Honeyman wanted to see.

“So,” said Erlkonig, who was as much of a leader as the Beer Nuts allowed, “what brings you here, my moll?”

“Nerfball was supposed to open up the store for me today, and he didn’t. Do you know where he is?”

The Beer Nuts burst out laughing.

“I don’t get it,” admitted Honeyman, when the noise had died down. “What’s so funny?”

Erlkonig sought to explain. “Well, you know how Nerf believes in that dumb nasal irrigation of his. Snorting saltwater all day long to clear his sinuses, honking like a sick goose at all hours of the night. Well, this morning he goes to do it in the dark, only to find someone’s spiked his water bucket with Tabasco sauce.”

“Ouch,” sympathized Honeyman.

“So now he’s off somewhere sulking. I suspect you can track him down by the sniffles.”

Someone handed Honeyman a flashlight. “Thanks,” he said, and stood.

“Bye, Rory,” said Netsuke, and giggled.

Honeyman shook his head wearily. Life was always tossing your past straight in your face.

Nerfball was huddled in a far corner of the brewery’s upper floors. Honeyman could hear him talking to himself from some distance away and, not wishing to intrude on his personal soliloquy, called out in warning.

“Hey, Nerf, it’s me, Rory.”

“What do you want?” whined Nerfball.

The flashlight beam revealed Nerfball sitting under an old oak desk. His pudgy form completely filled the capacious knee-well. His nose was inflamed. Incredibly lazy, Nerfball possessed one talent to an astonishing degree: he could make sandwiches better, faster, and more economically than anyone else Honeyman had ever seen. A sandwich crafted by Nerfball emerged from beneath his flashing knife as a thing of beauty, guaranteed to draw repeat customers. It was this salient skill that Honeyman now had to cajole him to employ.

Squatting to make eye contact with the victim of Tabasco poisoning, Honeyman said, “Come help me with the store, Nerf. I need you.”

“Why should I? You never pay me anymore.”

Nerf had Honeyman there. Cash flow had been pitiful lately. The rent had just been hiked a zillion percent, thanks to the gentrification of the city. (Honeyman himself was not a “B and B,” as those “born and bred” in Hoboken called themselves. But he had been here so long, since Hoboken was just a joke, that his conscience was clean.) And a McDonald’s had recently opened up in competition a few blocks away. Honeyman was barely scraping by.

Honeyman thought desperately. “Listen, I will pay you, I swear.”

Nerfball sneered. “Yeah, I bet. With what? Funny money?”

Honeyman opened his mouth to deny the charge, then was struck by the futility of it all. Why should he lie to poor Nerfball? Chances were he’d soon go out of business, owing all his creditors immense sums. Why compound his guilt by promising more than he knew he could give?

Then, amidst his despair, in a blaze of inspiration he was to remember for the rest of his life, Honeyman had an idea.

“Yes, Nerf, I do intend to pay you in funny money.”

This got Nerfball’s attention. “Huh?”

Honeyman scrabbled in his pockets for paper and writing tool, coming up with an old unpaid electric bill and a lime-green crayon. He tucked the flashlight between chin and neck, and began to scribble on the back of the bill, reciting aloud what he was writing. “This paper redeemable for ten sandwiches at Honeyman’s Heroes. Signed, Rory Honeyman.” For good measure, he sketched a rough sandwich on it. The drawing ended up looking like that of a book with loose pages. He offered the paper to Nerfball, who took it suspiciously.

“Here, this will be one day’s wages. It’s worth about forty dollars retail.”

“What good is this to me? You already give me free food.”

Honeyman, still in the grip of his genius, rolled right over the pitiful objection. “Right, sure, but isn’t everyone in this dump always starving? Make them pool their money—whatever you can convince them this is worth—and give it to you in exchange for the ten sandwiches, which you can make up and bring back here at the end of every day.”