The Fuck Up Page 14

  Glenn

  The alarm clock had been set for seven; so she was up four hours ago. I went downstairs and fixed myself some breakfast. While eating, I kept thinking about Helmsley. I went downstairs and saw the Mercedes, loaded up to the ceiling with his books.

  Without removing the books, I took the car out and drove back to Helmsley’s neighborhood. I drove along streets that we had walked together just a week before. Finally I stopped in front of his house. There, next to a line of garbage cans, I saw all the remaining books loosely piled. They trumpeted: Helmsley is dead. I drove some more. When I passed the bar where I first met Angela, I parked the car, entered, and ordered a beer. It was a perpetually shaded room with old men just killing time. A placard over the bar read, Italian American Legion Post #118, Veterans of Foreign Wars. Carefully I looked around; there was no sign of her.

  Eventually I got up the nerve to ask the old bartender, “Hey, you know anything about that guy that jumped off the bridge the other day?”

  “Why?” he barked back. “You a snoop reporter?”

  “I served with him in the 107th back in ’Nam,” I replied Americanly, and then raising my beer mug toward the flag, I drank it down.

  “You served with that guy?”

  “Sure, he saved me when I got hit at the Diphthong Delta.” And then taking the liberty, I kicked my leg up to a bar stool, rolled up the hem of my pant leg and showed him where Angela bit me the other day.

  “The wound looks fresh,” he commented.

  “Some wounds heal faster than others.”

  “I can’t believe that guy served.”

  “Hey pal, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in combat, but you change afterwards.”

  “I know,” he muttered pride fully, and without a request he gave me another draft.

  “Look, that poor guy was here fighting with his girl that night.”

  “Did you know the girl?” I asked.

  “Oh sure, she’s a local girl.”

  “Angela? Was she with him when you saw him last?”

  “No, he raced in here alone. It was about two nights ago. It was about midnight. He got loaded pretty quickly and just sat quietly for a while. He looked pretty roughed up.”

  “What do you mean roughed up?”

  “Someone had beat up on him. You know, he had blood coming out of his nose and mouth. I had to clean up a whole pile of bloody napkins later.”

  “Then what?”

  “Bar closed, he left, and that’s all she wrote. I guess he went right to the bridge.”

  When Helmsley was sitting here, drinking his heart out, I was with Glenn, just a half mile away. If he went directly to the bridge, he would have had to walk right by the house, within twenty feet of where I was lavishing in splendors. If I had just looked out the window, I might’ve seen him walk by, a drunken and despondent shadow; I might’ve saved him.

  “Have you seen Angela since then?” He shook his head no, walked to the other side of the bar, and there he poured a drink for someone.

  “Do you have any idea where she might be?” I asked when the bartender passed by again. “I just want to talk with her.”

  “Sorry,” he said. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He knew he was treading the line; a snitch is the lowest form of life everywhere.

  “Listen,” I said finally. “When I got hit, I went down. My leg was a shred, the VC were hopping around us, finishing us off. That guy carried me out of there. Do you understand? Now I just want to find out what happened, and I’m gonna find Angela anyway.”

  “Try the OTB around 1:30,” he said. “But listen, I didn’t tell you dirt, all right?”

  “Not a word,” I replied and threw him a salute. Then I drove around the corner, put a quarter in the meter. I leaned up against the car across the street from the local betting place and waited. After fifteen minutes or so, I saw her enter with a group of guys. She was wearing a large cowboy hat and a wide-framed pair of dark sunglasses. Through the store-front glass, I watched her clown around awhile with the guys until they took out their racing papers, and chatted: “Devilrun’s got bandages and is running on bute…. Yeah, but Breakingwind runs well on slop… Hippityhopity always comes from behind…” Soon everybody started placing bets. They all watched the horses run on the monitors then either ripped up their tickets or collected. Slowly the group she came in with mingled with others, and I casually entered the place and leaned up alongside of her. She was busily jotting notes on her racing form.

  When there was no one around, I quickly grabbed her arm and muttered, “If you don’t mind, I want to talk with you.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” She broke loose hollering. Out of nowhere a fat guy with a neck the size of my waist had me in a painful headlock.

  “You want I should knock his teeth down his throat?” he asked Angela. I felt like a taxidermed head mounted above a fireplace, and as she slowly realized who I was, I impossibly tried to prepare myself for a great deal of suffering.

  “What the fuck do you want?” she asked. “You’re the little shit that broke my nose.”

  “And you killed my only friend,” I hoarsely replied in the vice.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “You and your brothers.”

  “You want I should snap his neck?” the pizzeria owner asked.

  “Let him go,” she issued a reprieve. The guy let me drop and walked away.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Who killed Helmsley?” I asked.

  “He killed himself, the stupid shit.” Then she lifted up her sunglasses and showed me a shining black eye. “Look what the little shit did to me.”

  “What happened?”

  “We got into a fight and I decided that he was a fun fuck but it was all over. He wasn’t a man. He was a pretty boy and I told him so, and I told him that it was all over.”

  “And then you beat him up to amuse yourself further.”

  “He was playing with me! Using me!”

  “And you got even, didn’t you?”

  “I got hold of an ashtray and knocked the shit out of him till he dragged himself the fuck out…then I heard on the TV that he did himself in.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Listen,” Angela said, “I just want you to know that I let you talk like this because I respect you. I was drunk and you straightened me out. But I also want you to know that I ain’t scared of you.”

  “Does it make any difference to you,” I asked Angela, “that a person killed himself because he loved you?”

  “Look, one night I was horny so I went to a bar and picked up a guy for a quick fuck, capisce? I never adopted him.”

  “But couldn’t you…”

  “Look pal,” she interrupted, “you’re talkin’ to someone who was dropped more than a yo-yo, and got more final disconnection notices than anyone else alive.” With that she returned to her racing forms and then the betting window. Guilt only affects the larger upright animals. I returned to the car and watched her for a moment from behind the dash. She watched the monitor and then went to a cash window.

  I started the ignition and drove down Court, but I had nowhere to go. I didn’t care to return to Glenn’s home, so I just drove around. Driving in New York was like a big game of bumper cars, people were cutting people off, stopping fast, accelerating just as fast. Until the day before, I had never driven in the city, and I didn’t even have a valid license. I was tired and remembered that my new abode, Sergei’s place, was now mine. I parked near the local F train stop and locked all the windows and doors. I realized that the value of all those books in the car exceeded fifty thousand dollars and possibly a hundred thousand dollars. The Mercedes already had its radio missing, but this was obscured by the boxes of books. Locating a piece of paper, I wrote: “RADIO ALREADY STOLEN, NOTHING OF VALUE IN CAR.” I framed the note in the window track. Locking the door, I went to the subway and paid for a token.

  TEN

  Wh
ile Waiting for the subway, I scrutinized Helmsley’s tragedy; unintentionally I had reduced Angela’s guilt. She was brought up to see love as a weakness, whereas all Helmsley’s books and needs had revealed love to him as a strength. Perhaps Helmsley’s view was nobler, but in the end her vantage certainly proved more endurable. I got off the F train at Broadway and Lafayette, where all the beggars were congregated. One guy a little older than me asked for a quarter. I told him to get a job and kept going.

  When I reached West Broadway, a bombshell struck; I suddenly realized that I was missing—had missed—Helmsley’s burial. I kicked the ground and yanked my hair. He was being buried unaccompanied. The dead were so helpless, and being buried seemed like such a humiliating act. I could picture the grave diggers spitting as they shovelled the dirt into the hole.

  With each step, the synonyms of his death whirled by: he’s gone, he’s cold, he’s still…. It really wouldn’t have mattered if I pursued the box into the earth. On West Broadway, I turned left, retracing those same streets that I had walked on my fraudulent gay date. By daylight, the area seemed quite different, large ponderous buildings with fancy storefronts, warehouse chic. I located my new apartment. A security system realistically evaluated the menace of Manhattan; locks were everywhere. First, a front door lock, then a key-operated elevator, two locks to the floor, and finally a lock to shut off the burglar alarm. Inside, it was one spacious industrial room, constructed for machines. Modern apartments pressed people into small, enclosed cubicles. In Sergei’s place the machines had long since vanished. Along the two walls bordering the width of the place were laminated posters of Ternevsky’s film experiments. Between these walls were juggled objects of technology and antiquity, much like Glenn’s. Apparently the rich either go for the very new or the very old. To imagine this stage as a one-time sweat shop cast with anemic seamstresses speaking in Yiddish was now nearly inconceivable.

  As I sat on a large circular water bed in the middle of the floor, I heard a metallic clinking sound. Leather straps were fastened to both the heads and tails of the bed frame; they must have been part of Sergei’s insecurity. Spending most of his life in an Iron Curtain country must have given him a totalitarian sex drive. As the tide rippled across the mattress, I floated toward the quaint night table, where I found a rustic remote control switch. I turned on the TV. I flipped the TV back off and got off the bed. Persian rugs and Empire-style furniture juxtaposed with Dutch Nouveau. A state-of-the-art sound system was hidden below a long antique chest of drawers. There was also a panel of dimmers and rheostats that could more subtly vary the lights and shadows than Rembrandt himself.

  A note written on a large empty bulletin board announced: “The cabinet by Napoleon is yours.” Sure enough, across the room on an old ionic pedestal was a marble bust of the great French general. Next to it, below an original Warhol silk-screen, was a beautiful rosewood chest of drawers. On the top shelf sat my Unique bag containing my single-sleeved shirt and single-legged pants. The few clothes that I had taken from Sarah’s and stashed at Helmsleys had apparently been snatched up with the rest of his things by his grab bag relatives. Now my entire wardrobe consisted only of the suit that Glenn had given me. I carefully folded the suit jacket and placed it in the top drawer of my cabinet, I folded my suit pants in another drawer, and the shirt took up residence in the bottom drawer. I resumed my tour of the apartment in my underpants.

  Bathrooms are where a truly rich mentality distinguishes itself. Sergeis bathroom had no door. Tiny terra-cotta mosaics lined the room from floor to ceiling. Under the dimmer switch were two knobs—one was a thermostat that modified the water temperature, and the other dial heated up the tiles on the ceiling. On a glass shelf above the sink were many soaps, clay packs, lotions, and other miracle cures, aimed at restoring skin to the sacred state of youthfulness. Claiming over half the bathroom floor was the deeply sunken bathtub. In it was a white stone bench chiselled with reliefs. A huge porcelain faucet shaped like a small fire hydrant was fixed over the tub, urban architecture that Ternevsky probably found droll. I opened the hydrant all the way and set the water thermostat at a hundred degrees. While it filled up I took a dump and only afterwards did I realize that there was no toilet paper. I was contemplating despoiling one of the monogrammed hand towels when I noticed a small foot pedal. I hit down on the accelerator and a jet stream of hot water bull’s-eyed my butt. I’d heard about bidets but that was the first time I was ever abused by one. Turning off the faucet-hydrant, I eased myself onto a kind of shelf alongside the submerged stone bench. The water was bliss. I paddled about a bit and soon relaxed, drifting into that state of deliverance. A carrot simmering in a large stew. Between shades of wakefulness and waves of unconsciousness. Slowly a gentle noise signaled from above. My eyes opened, but I was still asleep. Before me—behold! stood a bath nymph; an angel had escaped from the myths of my dreams. I watched as the divine guide rummaged through my underwear, which I had casually tossed on the toilet seat. Although I knew at once she was real I took my time before addressing her.

  “May I help you?” I whispered graciously. She emitted a penetrating scream as she backed away.

  “What’s the matter!” I jumped out of the tub, concealing my drippy genitals with a monogrammed washcloth. I followed her out to the living room.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Her vocal cords were high-strung and fearful. She lamely offered a vase as a weapon.

  “Sergei Ternevsky sublet this place to me. You must be the girlfriend.” With little else to offer, I extended a hand.

  “Well, he told me nothing of it,” she replied. Even while threatened she stood captivating and captive, a vital beauty in the blonde Harlow/Monroe tradition.

  “I wouldn’t break into the place just to take a bath. Call Terne vsky and ask him!”

  “He’s out of town. If you subletted this place, you would know that.”

  “Call Marty” I was shivering cold and dripping a puddle in the center of his lacquered, polished floor.

  “Marty, right!” She went over to the phone and while she dialed I dried off and put on my underpants. While getting my pants from the rosewood cabinet, I heard her appealing, “Christ, Marty, why would he do this to me? What did I do? What haven’t I done?”

  When she turned around and saw me standing there listening, her voice dropped to a whisper and she walked away. The extra long telephone wire uncurled until I could only grasp segments, “How am I suppose to … so what the fuck am I …” I started getting terrified; losing one’s residency meant losing everything. I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat, waiting in suspense for some kind of verdict.

  Finally I heard her exclaim, “He is! You’re sure?!” After a while longer, she walked back into the living room with the phone. Then I heard her put the phone on the hook and waited for her to make a move. After a couple minutes, she approached the bathroom door frame, said, “Knock, knock.”

  “I hope everything’s been straightened out,” I said. She only looked at me with a smile, and I quickly realized that Marty had informed her that I was gay. I half resented it, but in compliance with my agreement, I offered a stereotypically slackened posture.

  “Sorry for being so rude,” she said.

  “Its okay.”

  “You must understand, I was quite terrified by your being here. No one told me a thing about it.”

  “Me neither,” I replied and took a seat. I folded my right knee over my left and bent my head up slightly. I wasn’t sure how long I could maintain this position. “No one explained to me that someone else was living here.”

  “Well I had been living here, mainly as a favor to Ternevsky. I guess he now sees fit to replace me,” she said.

  “I could never replace you,” I complimented with a smile. “Sergei told me that he just wanted me to watch over things because of the burglaries. He was probably worried about you being alone here.”

  “Knowing Sergei, he was probably worried that I was stealing his
stuff.”

  “That’s absurd,” I laughed with a flair.

  With no prompting at all she divulged her entire Sergei file: They first met at an uptown gallery opening. He announced up front that she had sexually stimulated him and would very much like to besmirch her. In gratitude for this, he added—she imitated his accent a bit—“Janus dear, I must confess, I have little time for commitment, but I could compensate for this by granting you full use of my place and within reason I might be able to assist you by extending some of my connections in the trade.” She was a hopeful artist.

  “We don’t have sex that much, he’s a rotten lover.” I commented on the straps at the four corners of the circular bed. She claimed they were just for show.

  She went on to say that at times she felt ashamed. “It’s the closest I’ve ever come to prostitution.”

  “If you feel that way, why did you do it?”

  “He had me at a disadvantage.” She then started to elaborate. She had arrived in New York after graduating from an all-girl’s school. It was a small college town where the bulk of her colleagues were farmer’s daughters. Her actual education began in New York and after studying the present state of art she put down the brush, folded up the easel, sent the model home, and adopted the conceptual philosophy. But a female artist from out of town trying to break into the SoHo art scene was farcical. It seemed only those who were artists could be artists, no new ones were permitted. Until she met Sergei.

  “What did he do for you?”

  “He got one of my works accepted to a group exhibit.”

  “Oh really, is it here?” I asked surveying all the expensive junk in the large room.

  “No,” she laughed, “the curator threw it out.”

  “Threw it out! It must have crushed you.”

  “No, thank God he did; it was a disposable installation.”