Slowly, Slowly in the Wind Read online

  The next telephone call was from a mail order sporting goods store, of which Fran had vaguely heard, on East 42nd Street, offering Fran a job starting Monday in their accounting department at two hundred and ten dollars a week take-home excluding their pensions and hospitalization plans.

  Fran experienced a slight shock. How had this place got her name? She wasn’t looking for a job. “Thank you. Thank you very much,” Fran said gently, “but I’m going back with Con Ed as soon as I’m well enough.”

  “I believe we’re offering you a better salary. Perhaps you could think about it,” the smooth female voice went on. “We’ve filled our quotas, and we’d like a person like you.”

  Fran’s sense of being flattered vanished quickly. Was Con Ed not holding her job? Had Con Ed phoned this company to get themselves off the hook of the disability money, which was nearly as much as her Con Ed salary? “Thank you again,” Fran said, “but I think I’d prefer to stay with Con Ed. They’ve been so nice to me.”

  “Well, if that’s your opinion . . .”

  When they hung up Fran had a few minutes of uneasiness. She didn’t dare phone Con Ed to ask them directly what was cooking. She recollected, thinking hard, the atmosphere of the last visit of the insurance inspector. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten her appointment with him at 4:30 P.M. at her apartment, and the inspector had had to wait nearly an hour for her, and she’d come into her building looking pretty lively in the company of Connie, one of her friends who worked as waitress at night and so had days off sometimes. They’d been to an afternoon film. On seeing the inspector standing in the big lobby (no furniture in the lobby downstairs, because it had all been stolen, even though it had been chained to the wall), Fran had put on a limp and a stoop. She’d told him she thought she was making progress, but she still wasn’t capable of an eight-hour-a-day job, five days a week. She’d had to sign her name in a book he had, proving that he had seen her. He was a black, though a nice enough type. He could have been a lot worse, making snide remarks, but this one was polite.

  Fran also remembered that that same day she’d run into Harvey Cohen who lived in her building, and Harvey had told her the inspector had accosted him in the hall and asked him what he knew about Miss Covak’s state of health. Harvey said he’d “laid it on thick,” stating that Miss Covak was still limping, made it to the delicatessen now and then because she had to, living alone, but she didn’t look like someone who was ready for a job yet. Good old Harvey, Fran thought. Jews knew how to do things. They were clever. Fran had thanked Harvey profoundly, meaning it.

  But now? What the hell had happened? She’d call up Jane Brixton about it. Jane had a head on her shoulders, was more than ten years older than Fran (in fact was a retired schoolteacher), and Fran was always soothed after talking with Jane. Jane lived in a wonderful floor-through apartment on West 11th Street, full of antique furniture.

  “Ha, ha,” Jane laughed softly, after hearing Fran’s story. Fran had told it in such detail, she had even put in the woman’s remark that the sporting goods company had filled its quota, and Jane said, “That means they’ve hired all the blacks they need to and they’d be delighted to stick in a white while they can.” Jane spoke with a slightly southern accent, though she was from Pennsylvania.

  Fran had been pretty sure the woman’s remark had meant that.

  “If you don’t feel like going to work yet, don’t,” Jane said. “Life’s—”

  “As all of us said once, if you remember, I’m only taking money that I’ve put in all these years. Same goes for hospitalization. Say, Jane, I don’t suppose you could sign a paper or something saying you gave me a couple of massage treatments for the spine?”

  “Well—I’m not qualified, as you know. So I don’t see how a paper would count.”

  “That’s true.” It had seemed to Fran that one more paper about her physical troubles might add that much more weight to her argument that she wasn’t fit for work. “Coming to Marj’s party Saturday? I hope so.”

  “Of course. By the way, my nephew’s in town, staying with me. He’s my nephew’s son, actually, but I call him my nephew. I’m bringing him.”

  “Your nephew! How old is he? What’s his name?”

  “Greg Kaspars. He’s about twenty-two. From Allentown. Thinks he might work in New York as a furniture designer. Anyway he wants to try his luck.”

  “How exciting! Nice boy?”

  Jane laughed like an elderly aunt. “I think so. Judge for yourself.”

  They signed off, and Fran sighed, imagining being twenty-two, trying her luck in the great world of New York. She watched a little television on her not very good set. It was an old set, not so big a screen as most these days, but Fran didn’t feel like spending the money to buy a new one. The only sharply focused program was awful, some quiz show. All rigged, of course. How could any adult get so excited about winning fifty bucks or even a refrigerator? Fran switched off and went to bed, after lifting off the sofa pillows and its cover and pulling out the heavy metal contraption which unfolded, revealing bedsheets and blankets all ready to crawl into, the pillows being in a semi-circular cavity with an upholstered top which made a decorative projection, even a seat, at one end of the sofa when it was a sofa. She lay thumbing through her latest National Geographic, looking at the pictures only because the telephone was still ringing now and then, interrupting her train of thought if she attempted to read an article. Fran’s older brother, who was a vet in San Francisco, sent her regularly a subscription to the National Geographic as a birthday present.

  Fran turned the light out and had just fallen asleep, when the telephone rang. She reached for it in the dark, not in the least annoyed at being awakened.

  It was one of the Network called Verie (for Vera), and she announced that she was down in the dumps, really depressed. “I lost my billfold today.”

  “What? How?”

  “I was checking out at the supermarket, put it on the counter after I’d paid and got my change—because I was loading my paper bags, y’know—and when I looked again, it was gone. I think the guy behind me—Oh, I don’t know.”

  Fran asked questions fast. No, Verie hadn’t seen anyone running away, it hadn’t been on the floor, couldn’t have fallen behind the counter (unless the checkout girl took it), but it could have been the guy just behind her who was one of those people (white) Verie just couldn’t describe, because he didn’t look especially honest or dishonest, but anyway she’d lost at least seventy dollars. Fran overflowed with sympathy.

  “It’s good to talk about it, though, y’know?” Fran said gently in the dark.” It’s the most important thing in life, communication . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . It’s all that counts, communication. Isn’t it true?”

  “And the fact that you have friends,” Verie put in, sounding a little weepy.

  Fran’s heart was touched even more deeply, and she murmured, “Verie, I know it’s late, but want to come down? You could stay the night. Bed’s big enough. If it’d make you feel—”

  “Thanks, I better not. Work tomorrow. Make some more dough.”

  “You’re coming to Marj’s party, I hope.”

  “Oh, sure. Saturday.”

  “Oh! I talked with Jane. She’s bringing her nephew. Or the son of her nephew.” Fran told Verie everything she knew about him.

  It was lovely, Saturday evening, to see all the familiar faces at Marj’s. Freddie, Richard, Verie, Helen, Mackie (a big cheerful fellow who was manager of a record shop on Madison and could fix anything electronic) and his wife, Elaine, an equally friendly person with slightly crossed eyes, great to exchange embraces and how-are-yous with people in the flesh. But what made the party special for Fran was the presence of somebody new and young, Jane’s nephew. Rather formally, Fran made her way, limping a little, to the end of the bar table where Jane stood talking with a young man in corduroys
and a turtleneck sweater. He had dark wavy hair and a faintly amused smile, which Fran thought was probably defensive.

  “Hello, Fran. This is Greg,” Jane said. “Fran Covak, Greg, one of our gang.”

  “Howdy do, Fran.” Greg stuck out a hand.

  “How’re you, Greg? So nice to meet a relative of Jane’s! How’re you liking New York?” Fran asked.

  “I been here before.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you have! But I hear you’re thinking about working here.” Fran’s mind was suddenly racing over people she knew who might be of help to Greg. Richard, who was a designer but more for theater. Marj, who might know someone in Macy’s furniture department who might put Greg onto someone who—

  “Fran! How’s my girl!” Jeremy’s arm encircled Fran’s trouser-suited waist, and he slapped her playfully on the behind. Jeremy was about fifty-five with a shock of white hair.

  “Jeremy! You’re looking marvelous!” Fran said. “Love that crazy purple shirt!”

  “How’s the spine?” Jeremy asked.

  “Better, thanks. Takes time. Have you met Greg yet? Jane’s nephew.”

  Jeremy hadn’t, and Fran introduced them. “What’re your job plans, Greg?” Fran asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about work tonight,” Greg replied, smiling and evasive.

  “It’s just that I was thinking,” Fran went on to Jane in her earnest, clear way, though she spoke as gently as she spoke into her telephone, “among all the people we know, we’ll certainly be able to do something for Greg. Give him the right ontrays, y’know? Jane says you’re a furniture designer, Greg.”

  “Yeah, well. If you want me to go into my life story, I’ve been working for a cabinetmaker more than a year now. All handmade stuff, so naturally I designed a few things while I was there. Cabinets to certain specifications.”

  Fran glanced at his hands and said, “Bet you’re strong. Isn’t he a nice boy, Jeremy?”

  Jeremy nodded and tossed back his scotch on the rocks.

  Jane said, “Don’t worry about Greg. I’ll talk to Marj maybe in the course of the evening.”

  Fran brightened. “That’s just what I’d been thinking! Someone at Macy’s—”

  “I don’t want to work at Macy’s,” Greg said pleasantly but firmly. “I’m rather the independent type.”

  Fran gave him a motherly smile. “We don’t mean for you to work at Macy’s. Leave it to us.”

  There was a little music and dancing around eleven, but not so much noise that the neighbors might complain. Marj lived on the fourteenth floor (really the thirteenth) of a rather swank apartment house in the East Forties with round-the-clock doormen. Fran had only a 4 P.M. till midnight doorman, which meant it wasn’t one hundred percent safe for her to arrive home after midnight, when she would have to use her downstairs key to get into her building. Thinking of this reminded her of Susie, whom she hadn’t seen since her awful experience in the East Village about three weeks ago.

  Fran found Susie, a tall, good-looking woman of about thirty-four, sitting on a double bed in an adjoining room, talking with Richard and Verie. Fran had first to say a few words to Verie, of course, about her billfold.

  “I’d rather forget it,” Verie said. “Part of the game. And the game’s a rat race. We’re surrounded by rats.”

  “Hear, hear!” said Richard. “But not everybody’s a rat. There’s always us!”

  “That’s right!” said Fran, feeling mellow now because she seldom drank alcohol, and what she had drunk was warming the cockles. “I was saying to Verie the other night, the most important thing in life is to communicate with people you love. Isn’t it true?”

  “True,” said Richard.

  “Y’know, when Verie called me up about her billfold—” Fran realized no one was listening, so she addressed Susie directly. “Susie, darling, are you recovering? Y’know, I haven’t seen you since that thing in the East Village, but I heard about it.” Of all the Network, Susie perhaps telephoned the least, and Fran hadn’t even been treated to a firsthand account. It was Verie and Jeremy who’d filled Fran in.

  “Oh, I’m all right,” Susie said. “They thought my nose was broken, but it wasn’t. Just this shaved spot on my head, and you can hardly see it now because it’s growing out.” Susie tipped her well-groomed head towards Fran so that Fran could see the shaved spot, nearly concealed, it was true, by billows of reddish-brown hair.

  A pang went through Fran. “How many stitches?”

  “Eight, I think,” Susie said, smiling.

  Susie and a friend, whom Susie had driven home in her, Susie’s, car, had been attacked by a tall black as soon as Susie’s friend had pulled out her front door key. They’d been trapped then between the outside door and the main locked door, the black had taken their money, wristwatches and rings (“Luckily the rings came off,” Fran remembered Jeremy reporting Susie as having said, “because some of them cut your fingers off if they can’t get the rings off, and this fellow had a knife”), and then the black had told them both to get down on the floor for raping purposes, but meanwhile Susie, who was pretty tall, had been putting up a hell of a fight and wasn’t about to get down on the floor. The other girl screamed, someone who lived in the building finally heard them, and yelled back that he was going to call the police, whereupon the black (“maybe thinking the jig was up,” Jeremy had said) pulled out some heavy instrument and whammed Susie over the head with it. Blood had spurted all over the walls and ceiling, and this was what had necessitated the stitches. Fran was thrilled that one of them had put up a real fight, unarmed, against the barbarians.

  “Something I’d rather forget,” Susie said to Fran’s wondering face. “I’m going to judo classes now, though. After all, we’ve got to live here.”

  “But nobody has to live in the East Village,” Fran said. “They’ve got everything there, y’know, blacks, Puerto Ricans, spicks, just name it. You don’t see anybody home there late at night!”

  By this time the big baked ham, the roast beef and potato salad on the buffet table had been well explored. Fran felt mellower than ever, sitting on a bed in one of Marj’s two bedrooms (what elegance!) with several of the Network. They were talking about New York, what kept them here, besides the money. Richard was from Omaha, Jeremy from Boston. Fran had been born on Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street. “Before all those high buildings went up,” Fran said. She considered her birthplace (now an office building) the heart of the city, though of course there could be other hearts of the city, if one thought about it: West 11th Street, Gramercy Park, even Yorkville. New York was exciting and dangerous, always changing—for the worse and for the better. Even Europe had to admit that New York was the art center of the world now. It was just too bad that the high welfare payments attracted the worst of America, not always black or Puerto Rican by any means, just people who wanted to sponge. America’s intentions were good. Just look at the Constitution that could stand up to anything, even Nixon, and come out winning. There was no doubt that America had started out right . . .

  When Fran woke up the next morning, she didn’t remember much about getting home, except she was sure that good old Susie had driven her home in her Cadillac (Susie was a model and made good money) and Fran thought Verie had been in the car too. Fran found in a pocket of her suit jacket, which she had not hung up last night, only put on the back of a chair, a note. “Fran dear, will call Carl at Tricolor in regard to Greg, so don’t worry. Have told Jane. Love, Richard.”

  Wasn’t that nice of Richard! “I knew he’d come up with something,” Fran said softly to herself, smiling.

  The telephone rang. Fran moved towards it, still in pajamas, and noticed by the clock on the coffee table that it was twenty past nine. “H’lo?” Fran murmured.

  “Hi, dear, it’s Jane. Greg can bring the pot roast up around eleven. All right?”

&n
bsp; “Oh sure, I’ll be here. Thanks, Jane.” Fran vaguely remembered the promise of a pot roast. People were still giving her things to eat, as they had in her worst days when she’d been too incapacitated for shopping. “I thought Greg was awfully nice. He’s really got character.”

  “He’s seeing a friend of Richard’s later this morning.”

  “Tricolor. I know. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  “Marj wants him to meet someone too. Nothing to do with Macy’s proper, as I understand it,” Jane said.

  They talked for another few minutes, going over the party, and when she had hung up, Fran made some instant coffee and orange juice from a frozen tin. She folded her bed away, got dressed, all the while murmuring to herself such things as, “Did I take those arthritis pills yet? No, must do that . . . Tidy up a little. No, I suppose the place doesn’t look bad . . .” And of course the telephone rang two or three times, delaying all these activities, so the next thing she knew there was a ring from downstairs, and Fran saw it was five past eleven.

  Fran assumed it was Greg and pushed the release button. She hadn’t a speaker through which she could talk to downstairs. When her apartment doorbell rang, Fran peeked through the round hole in the door and saw that it was Greg.

  “Greg?”

  “It’s me,” Greg said.

  Fran opened the door.

  Greg was carrying a heavy red casserole with a lid. “Jane said she wanted to leave it in this so you’d get all the juice.”

  “Just lovely, Greg. Thank you!” Fran said, taking it. “Your aunt Jane makes the most wonderful pot roasts, marinates them overnight, you know?” Fran deposited the casserole in her narrow kitchen. “Sit down, Greg. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I have a date in a few minutes.” Greg wandered around the living room, looking at everything, wringing his hands.