No Lease on Life (12 page)

Oscar was a wiry Irish guy with a shaved head. He’d been in the States for years. He did odd jobs and had a string of girlfriends. They were all Irish. All the people who visited him or lived with him were Irish, Irish-American, or African-American. Oscar once played his music very loud, in the middle of the night. They’d worked that out. It took a while, but they’d worked it out. He was all right. Except he showered when she did.

Roy and the dog went for a walk, coffee, the newspaper. Fatboy was a mutt. He wasn’t fat, he was solid like Roy. When the two returned, Roy drank his coffee and fed Fatboy. Elizabeth was on the phone, talking to Larry.

—With families, you don’t need enemies, she said.

Larry didn’t have trouble sleeping.

Roy handed Elizabeth the
Times
. He took a shower—Oscar never showered at the same time as Roy—dressed for work, and walked to the door. They kissed. As soon as she touched his lips and smelled him, she wanted him to stay, But he left.

—It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, Lizard, Roy said.

He locked the door behind him. Elizabeth went back to the table. Abandoned, Fatboy marched over to be petted.

New York, Friday, June 77, 1994. Late edition. Today, early clouds, then hazy, warm, humid. High 86. Tonight muggy, coastal fog. Low 75. Tomorrow, sultry. High 92. Yesterday, high 82, low 67. G.O.P. IN THE HOUSE IS TRYING TO BLOCK HEALTH CARE BILL. GENERALS OPPOSE COMBAT BY WOMEN. NEW YORK DEBATES ITS RULES FOR COMMITTING MENTALLY ILL. U.S. JURIES GROW TOUGHER ON THOSE SEEKING DAMAGES. QUEST FOR SAFER CIGARETTE NEVER REACHED GOAL. L.I.R.R. WORKERS GO ON STRIKE; COMMUTERS BRACE FOR GRIDLOCK. CLINTON MAY ADD G.I.’S IN KOREA WHILE REMAINING OPEN TO TALKS.

It wasn’t a good death day. A newsworthy death was noted on page one, in a box, or the obituary itself started on page one. BRINGING BACK WOLVES was the box. There was a picture of a wolf, grinning. Thirty wolves were going to be reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho. They could introduce them to Tompkins Square Park. Elizabeth smiled like a wolf at Fatboy. He stretched.

She turned to the obits first. Sports fans turn to the sports page for the scores. She was a death fan. She read every one, including the listings. She learned about the deaths of uncles and aunts of people she barely knew. Losses of high school friends she never saw. Some deaths consumed space. Famous figures. Infamous. Peculiar. Some deaths the living fought to have recognized by the
Times
. She knew of people who worried about how long their obits were going to be. They worried they wouldn’t get a full column. They wanted a picture. Pictures were usually taken twenty years, on average, before the person’s death, which meant the person’s achievements were made twenty years before, then they disappeared from public view or they didn’t want to be photographed later, older, otherwise there’d be a more recent picture available. Columns of print about the dead next to pictures of their relatively young faces.

His death may have been a suicide, technically, since he didn’t choose extraordinary measures. He let himself die naturally. He didn’t tell her of his wish for self death. Selfish death.

He said once, I’m not afraid to die. Death notices were straightforward. They paled next to the In Memoriams, addressed directly to the dead. Eerie, sad, silly, understandable, the way most things are.

“My heart is with you.” The dead person was not going to read it, would never know this.

“I have never stopped thinking about you.” Only the living would know that someone was thinking of her.

Elizabeth wondered what it meant to write direct addresses to the dead, for the living to read.

—I guess it’s the thought that counts, she said to Roy yesterday.

—Yeah. But what’s the thought?

In Memoriam. Told death to fuck itself, death fucks everybody but itself. Write if you can.

The coffee was bitter. She put another lemon peel in it and stirred again. Fatboy shook his tail. He wanted another walk. Elizabeth didn’t want to take him. She didn’t like scooping up his shit, especially in the summer.

A man comes home from the golf course. His wife says, Why do you look so depressed? The man says, Harry had a heart attack. His wife says, That’s terrible. The man says, Yes, it was. All day long it was, hit the ball, drag Harry, hit the ball, drag Harry.

The void was outside her door. The stairs were an abyss of green sticky slime. There was an uncommonly strong, foul smell. It didn’t seem to be the green slime. Someone may have died. The last time she thought someone or something was dead in the building, because of a smell wafting up from below her wooden floor, she figured a dead rat or pigeon was decomposing, and she went downstairs and asked her neighbors if they smelled something dead. They said they were cooking. They were a little distant after that. Roy said, What’d you expect.

Elizabeth was stymied in front of her door. She locked it. Ernest trotted jauntily down the stairs. They met at her landing. It was the first time in months.

—What’s that stench? Elizabeth asked.

—There’s a guy sleeping at my door. I’m still running a homeless shelter, Ernest said.

—Even in the summer?

—No accounting.

They walked down the filthy stairs together. Cigarettes, a used condom, gum wrappers, dried gum blackened with time. It didn’t stick anymore. Nothing big. The smell became worse.

Ernest clutched The Confessions of St. Augustine to his chest.

—If there’s a heat wave, he said. All the garbage…

—Don’t say it. The Confessions?

—I once wanted to be a priest.

—Do you still go to confession?

—Sure. Catholics go to confession.

—That’s good.

There was blood on the vestibule floor. Crack vials. The smell was overwhelming. There was a pile of shit near a bunch of takeout menus pushed behind the door.

The smell was coming from upstairs and downstairs.

Elizabeth was nauseated, speechless. Ernest understood. They looked into each other’s eyes and stepped over the shit. Probably human shit. Some of the crackheads came back and shit on your floor if you pushed them out of the vestibule, or were too tough with them. It was retribution. It could’ve been the peroxided one. She was out to get Elizabeth.

—Nice, Ernest said.

—Lovely, Elizabeth said.

She held her nose. Ernest said he’d call the landlord about getting a new door. If there was a good lock on the outside door, the dopesters and crackheads wouldn’t get in, and the homeless man wouldn’t be able to get up the stairs and sleep on the top landing.

Elizabeth and Ernest were on the street, in front of the lousy door.

—I’ve tried, Elizabeth said.

—I’ll give it another whirl, he said.

—Good luck, she said.

—Good luck, he said.

Ernest smiled grimly.

Hector was outside, too, on the sidewalk, conspiring with the Big G.

—Not our day, Elizabeth whispered.

—I’m not ready for this, Ernest said.

Ernest walked one way, she walked the other. She had to pass the Big G and Hector. This is my street, they’re not going to make me run, Elizabeth encouraged herself. She marched past them, eyes straight ahead. She controlled her breathing. In, out, in, out, in, out. Calm, even breaths. She kept herself from jumping up and down on the sidewalk and screaming, There’s shit in the vestibule, Hector. Human shit.

It was late morning. Elizabeth felt late and good-for-nothing. Her mother said she was a good-for-nothing. She agreed with her mother about some things.

Elizabeth walked on, into the day. The endless night had oozed, drooled into day. There may have been people who despised her on sight, or who had grown to dislike her over the years, or who never even noticed her though they passed her on the street every day. But she was ignorant of them. She headed east toward Avenue A, toward the park.

Tyrone was coming toward her.

—Hey, Elizabeth, let me wash your windows. I’ll do them today.

Tyrone always had a wave and a big smile for Elizabeth. Hector and the Big G were watching, she knew they were. So was Frankie.

Everyone knew Tyrone. He was a big, friendly black guy, almost a giant. Tyrone was retarded. He hung around the neighborhood, their building especially. He appeared out of nowhere. He needed work. He wanted to clean the halls of their building.

Tyrone told Elizabeth he lived in Brooklyn. Sometimes he couldn’t get home because he didn’t have a token. She lent him money and told him she didn’t want it back. He always tried to pay her back. He’d grab her hand, shake it and hold it. He needed affection, to be touched. She’d shake his hand and then, after he’d passed by, she’d wave her hand in the air. She didn’t think she’d catch something. He was a sad case.

—I’ll wash your windows, I’ll do your windows, today, anytime, Tyrone said.

—No no. No, thanks, she said.

—I’ll do a good job, you’ll see.

—I’ll pay you if you do it.

—You’ll see how clean I can get them.

—No no, Tyrone. Thanks, but no, not today.

—You don’t have to pay me. I’ll do a good job.

Voluntary servitude alarmed her, she’d been a volunteer. She’d had other slavish offers, to rub her back, massage her feet, do her floors, suck her cunt, whatever. She didn’t take them up, not for long, anyway. It’s easy to be a casual sadist.

She didn’t want the pleasure. A man’s face, blurry, ashen, a trashy hotel room, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, picture imperfect, sounds muted, the tape played often, had worn itself out, rubbed itself out. It speeded up and slowed down, and the pictures were smeared, run through too often, everything in pieces, he doesn’t matter. Rocket to oblivion. She didn’t want that. No sense to it, she thought. He tried to take me down with him, but in the end I ruined him. He’s a ruined man today, Elizabeth remembered contentedly.

Everyone should confess.

Sometimes Hector used Tyrone to clean the halls. He probably didn’t pay him, or he paid him next to nothing. Hector permitted Tyrone to do it, gave him the chance to work, because he didn’t want to bother to do it himself. Tyrone needed approval, so he’d do anything. You have to be in pretty bad shape yourself, reduced to petty inhumanities, to take advantage of retarded people. Hector was oppressed and oppressive.

Tyrone would clean the halls and stairs. But since he hadn’t been properly hired—the Big G didn’t know or wouldn’t approve, Hector should be doing it, it was his job—Tyrone’s work had to be accomplished surreptitiously. Tyrone didn’t have access to a sink and clean water. He’d mop the six floors with the same bucket of dirty water. The dirt was pushed around, spread from corner to corner. Elizabeth always thanked him, because the floors looked a little better, the dirt was diluted, thinned into dark streaks. All Tyrone wanted was to be thanked.

When Elizabeth offered Tyrone money for cleaning the halls, he refused. He seemed hurt by her offer. Offended. He’d say no, and awkwardly offer his big hand to shake hers, and they’d shake, and then she’d walk away. She tried not to look back, then she did. He’d be smiling at her and nodding his head.

Today, he held her there. She was trapped. Tyrone showed her pictures of his wedding. Maybe his wife was slightly retarded too. They both looked blissfully or uncomfortably out of it. Tyrone was happy about the wedding. Marriage was the highpoint of many people’s lives. It was pathetic. She thought she should buy Tyrone a present. Roy would tell her not to get any more involved than she was. Elizabeth had as many compunctions as compulsions.

What do you call a midget psychic on the lam?

What?

Small medium at large.

Tyrone reminded her of the money slave. Roy and his friend Joe hooked up with the money slave years ago. Joe saw an ad in the
Village Voice
about earning money writing music reviews, no experience necessary. Joe and Roy contacted him. Easy money.

It was a hustle. The money slave wanted another kind of transaction—he wanted them to make him work, wanted them to order him to work, he demanded them to force him over the telephone to work harder for them, to make him make money for them, to take two jobs, even three, to support them. He paid them to say that. He phoned them, and they’d accommodate him.

They met with him in person occasionally. The money slave would hand over the money he’d asked Roy and Joe to order him to earn for them. Elizabeth followed Roy to one of his meets with the money slave, at the World Trade Center. From behind a column she watched Roy make the exchange with the money slave. He was an average-looking white guy, a low-level Wall Street suit.

Roy was supposed to be the money slave’s master. It’s hard to be a master if you’re not trained for it. There’s an art to everything. The money slave probably didn’t have a family to make demands on him or to give purpose and meaning to a life of pallid corporate indenture. He was a lonely guy with strange, memorable desires. He explained to Roy, If you made me take a second job, that would make you the most important thing in my life.

One day when the money slave was groveling, squealing, on the phone—Tell me to work harder, tell me, tell me to take a third job to support you, tell me, make me work harder for you—suddenly Roy couldn’t control himself. He laughed. The money slave was insulted, embarrassed. He hung up. He never called again. Roy lost the gig. The money slave paid for his own brand of humiliation. He had needs, desires. The city offered him anonymity. He could buy workers, substitutes. When he wanted, who, where, what kind, for how long. Roy laughed at an inappropriate moment. He couldn’t keep it up, even for the money.

That was a while ago.

Someone else’s fantasy is a joke, a comedy.

Tyrone walked west. The Big G and Hector trapped him. They were talking to him. The Big G was shaking a hypocritical white finger at him. They’d castigate him, Gloria especially, she’d mete out some punishment for him, and call it work. The Big G didn’t want him around, Hector did if he could use him. Tyrone was unpredictable, but he was harmless.